ABSTRACT
"Dirty hands" can scarcely be a problem to those who have been trained to rule and taught that their form of rule is the highest moral achievement of the human race. The dilemma of "dirty hands" makes any liberal political leader who would set out to champion the liberal ideocracy subject to inevitable denunciation. When a political leader exhibits "dirty hands", the easiest remedy is to wash one's own hands of him. The United States, too, in its public liturgies, must soon declare to the world its dirty hands. According to opinion polls in August, 1973, people seem to recognize that President Richard Nixon was wrong in his handling of his staff before Watergate and during the cover-up. Yet they seem to distinguish clearly between moral purity and political competence. In early August only 31 percent approved Nixon's handling of the presidency.
