As the Monica Lewinsky scandal unfolds, many conservatives are crowing that it demonstrates the moral emptiness of the Clinton administration. What it really reveals, however, is the moral emptiness of today's conservatives.

Why have Republicans, in searching for a means of attacking this administration, chosen to focus almost exclusively on Clinton's sexual transgressions? Why are they ignoring his substantive political activities, which certainly warrant far greater condemnation? In 1995--the last time the Republicans had a discernible ideology--they were still trying to fulfill their "Contract With America." The "Republican Revolution," despite significant flaws, presented a refreshing contrast to today's dismal political environment. It was a time when GOP candidates ran on a clearly defined platform, as they took strong stands against the welfare state and for a limited government.

If Republicans today were still willing to fight for the principle of smaller government, they would find no shortage of issues on which they could denounce Clinton. There is Social Security--which urgently needs to be privatized, so that workers can begin to save for their own retirement rather than remaining dependent on a bankrupt government program. There is the growing horde of antitrust prosecutors--who need to be reined in, so that they stop throttling businesses for becoming too successful in a free, open market. There is Al Gore's global warming campaign--whose massive restrictions on the use of fossil fuel needs to be opposed and whose bogus science needs to be debunked.

The problem is that the Republicans have now abandoned even lip service to this ideological battle. They have been disarmed by the Democratic counteroffensive that was launched in 1995. At that time, the Democrats began screaming that Republicans were "mean-spirited"--that they were enemies of the poor, the minorities, the young, the old. The Republicans could find no convincing answer to those charges.

Rather than challenging the fundamental moral principle of the welfare state--that the individual has no right to his own wealth if others are needy--the Republicans timidly claimed that they were not really cutting welfare spending. Rather than arguing that government should be strictly limited by individual rights, they insisted that they wanted only to make regulations more "efficient." Faced with the necessity of making a moral case for economic freedom, the Republicans caved in. And when they wanted leadership, they turned to the least ideological man in the party--Bob Dole--and promptly lost the 1996 presidential election.

One of the consequences of this moral default is the Republican Party's capitulation to the Religious Right. These "social conservatives" are fundamentally unconcerned with individual freedom; their goal is to expand the role of government in order to establish "traditional values." Thus, the latest conservative crusades have been, not to reduce the power of government through regulatory or welfare reform, but to increase it through abortion restrictions and mandated prayer in public schools.

This trend feeds the conservatives' Lewinsky fever by justifying its obsession with sex scandals. The religious conservatives want to turn everyone's sex life into a political issue--so why not start with the president's?

Yes, Clinton's sexual relations with Lewinsky show him to be unprincipled and dishonest--unprincipled in his willingness to commit adultery, and dishonest in his readiness to lie about it. But these aspects of Clinton's character are also evident in his political policies. Why aren't Republicans condemning Clinton for his deceitful flip-flops, for his expedient evasion of China's atrocities, for his unprincipled waffling on Iraq? Isn't it because the Republicans too have expediently abandoned principle?

The same Republicans who celebrated an ideological overthrow of liberalism in 1994, when they won majorities in the Senate and the House, will go into this year's congressional elections with no legislative platform and no statement of principles. In 1994, they initiated a debate on the fundamental role of government. Today, they hope to fight the Democrats by means of a safely non-ideological weapon: a tawdry sex scandal. Few Republicans genuinely care whether Clinton seduced an intern--but they are thrilled at the opportunity to defeat Clinton without having to stick their necks out by taking a resolute stand on ideological issues.

If the Republican Party is to have any lasting political influence, it needs to bring something better to the nation's political debate. It needs to discover how to mount a principled defense of limited government, free markets and individual rights. If it doesn't, it risks becoming the party of a petty authoritarianism, whose overriding imperative is to inspect the president's dirty laundry.

Robert W. Tracinski was a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute between 1997 and 2004. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.