USPP

Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics

Back to the USPP Homepage

The Mind of Ken Starr

Aubrey Immelman

Note: An earlier version of this paper, titled "What makes Ken Starr tick?" was published November 19, 1998 by MSNBC on the occasion of Kenneth  Starr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.

    Feb. 3, 1999 — Independent counsel Kenneth Starr has been maligned as a sexual McCarthyist and hailed as a champion of justice. What manner of man lurks behind the self-effacing smile and denials of prosecutorial overkill? What kind of character can conclude that he has the constitutional authority to indict a sitting president?

    Cut to the quick, the character revealed in psychobiographical analysis of Ken Starr reveals a conscientious, dutiful person with a distinct need for dominance and control. Personality theorist Theodore Millon provides a compelling insight into the conscientious character, portraying it as the epitome of discipline and duty in human nature.

    Among its distinctive features, these personalities display an unusual degree of integrity and firmly adhere to an internalized system of ethics and morals. Principled and scrupulous, they aspire to high moral standards from which they are disinclined to deviate. They typically act in an objective and rational manner and decide matters in terms of what they believe is right. Often religious, integrity is the hallmark of their personal code of conduct.

    Against this background, it comes as no surprise that the Justice Department has dismissed many of the charges of prosecutorial misconduct leveled against Ken Starr’s Office of Independent Counsel. Clinton attorney David Kendall’s allegations this week, that Starr violated grand jury secrecy laws by leaking information to the media, will likely meet a similar fate; indeed, a major strength of conscientious personalities is their low susceptibility to impropriety or transgression.

    Like all personality patterns, the conscientious style is not without its pitfalls. Its major flaws are "superrationality" and dichotomous thinking. Conscientious, dutiful characters favor reason over emotion and have a penchant for reducing complex matters to black and white, good and bad, or right and wrong. Given the wide-ranging powers granted by the independent counsel statute, the conscientious character can fan the flames of the politically infused, quasi-legal process that is the essence of presidential impeachment. Given the unbending moral rectitude of the conscientious character, Starr is preordained to play his part strictly by the book, with little tolerance for prosecutorial discretion.

    History may recall Ken Starr as the George Mallory of prosecutors – a relentless crusader who pursued a prosecution with a fervor reminiscent of the doggedly determined Mallory, who single-mindedly set out on a self-destructive quest to conquer Everest, "because it’s there." This tenacious pursuit of mission finds expression in the character of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." It is axiomatic of Ken Starr’s nature that he should defy public disapproval in righteous pursuit of his objective: to find the truth and render justice under the law. But in a political context the tendency to pursue moral objectives without compromise, at any cost, can be self-defeating. Playing for broke, one risks losing all.

    In practical terms, insight into Ken Starr’s conscientious, controlling character has predictive utility for anticipating his likely moves:

• If Starr has determined that he can indict the president, he probably will. Rigid adherence to rules, regulations, and procedures is integral to the conscientious style.

• Starr will not be hostage to threats or intimidation. His blend of conscientious and controlling traits ensures that he will assert his independence and protect his institutional prerogatives.

• Starr will not be lured into public debate. Conscientious personalities pride themselves on their adherence to propriety and their formally correct behavior.

• Starr will keep his composure under fire. The conscientious style is quintessentially respectful, polite, civil, and courteous; they keep a tight rein on emotions and display reasonableness in situations that may evoke anger or dismay in others.

Conclusion

    Though cast by his critics as an obsessive moral crusader, there is scant empirical justification for this assertion. Starr’s conscientious qualities fail to reach the clinical threshold for obsession; moreover, his personality profile is substantively devoid of the paranoid undercurrent that typifies the "puritanical compulsive" syndrome described in the clinical literature. On grounds of character, my assessment casts doubt on Kendall’s charges of prosecutorial misconduct and lends some credence to Starr’s denials of alleged leaks. While by no means inconceivable, the larger truth is that ethical or professional misconduct is inconsistent with the content of Kenneth Starr’s character.

Page maintained by Aubrey Immelman

www.csbsju.edu/Research/Starr.html

Last updated August 31, 2000