Imagine yourself in his situation. You're working for perhaps the most powerful person on earth, in what may prove to be the most consequential and exciting job you ever will have. Your commitment to the cause, and to the president himself, is fierce.

But then you learn that he is not worthy of your allegiance. Never mind how you might feel about such a turn. The short answer is like roadkill in the Ozarks. Consider instead what you should do under the circumstance: Resign as a matter of honor? Or remain faithful, perhaps as a matter of friendship, to someone who has been anything but faithful to you?

It's clear what route most senior members of the Clinton administration have taken. Unless there has been a major exodus from the White House in recent weeks, virtually every single key official, as I write, has opted for friendship, or lesser motivations, over honor.

This has been disappointing and another sharp sign of the sad state of current affairs, even though I invest great stock in sticking by friends when they're down. I had assumed that at least one cabinet officer, or maybe an assistant secretary somewhere in the bowels, would have found it morally necessary to resign once the president admitted to behavior that would cause any other CEO in America to be fired before breakfast.

Nevertheless, I don't want to come down too heavily on any one member of the Clinton team; certainly not on my friend, who isn't rich and has a family to raise and bills to pay. Not least, I don't want to be too critical because I'm not certain what I would do if I were in his position.

One reason I'm not sure how I would react is quite simple. Never was there a chance, given the politicians and public leaders I've been privileged to serve, that I would have been confronted with the kind of dilemma that Bill Clinton has forced on his staffers. An observation such as this, I might note, is called an understatement, and it's the segue to the main point I want to make.

I'm thinking here of two exceptionally good people in particular: C. Peter Magrath, whom I worked for when he was president of the University of Minnesota and, before that, at the State University of New York at Binghamton; and Al Quie, whom I served under when he was governor. I worked for both of them when I was much younger: Peter, when I was in my 20s; and the governor (I still can't call him "Al"), when I was in my early 30s.

Using jargon that was big then, I think back to how well I was "mentored." How, in addition to learning technical tools of several trades, I was persuaded to have confidence -- "faith" is not too strong a word -- in the decency of the great majority of men and women who lead public institutions in this state and nation. The idea that either Magrath or Quie could be party to anything suspect, much less sleazy, was beyond cogitation.

Compare, if you will, my luck going back more than 25 years ago to that of young professionals, including interns, privileged to work, say, in the White House. One would think their fortune to be at least as large as mine -- unless, of course, it has been their lot to serve the current occupant of the Oval Office. What enveloping lessons do you think they've learned about public service? Few, I'm afraid, as encouraging as those I did.

Let me tell you two quick stories, more for color than anything else.

If I retain one memory from my Binghamton assignment with Peter, it's of the time the two of us spent together in his office at the end of most afternoons and during most Saturday mornings.

They were personally enjoyable, obviously. They kept me clued in on what was happening at the institution just in case a journalist wanted to know. But most importantly to my career, they served as matchless tutorials on the subject of American higher education.

I frequently look back on that period, amazed by how a newly named university president took such personal and professional interest in a less-than-fully senior member of his administration. Yet while I remain amazed, I don't think I've ever been baffled, as it was clear from the start that Peter is an educator -- the most devoted of teachers -- deepest at heart.

What kind of teacher, what kind of mentor was Al Quie? I joined his staff in the spring of 1981 when it's fair to say the national economy (and therefore Minnesota's) was less than robust. In fact, Quie found it necessary to call what seemed like one special legislative session on top of another, both to cut spending and raise taxes, in order to keep the state's books balanced, as required by law.

I don't want to suggest that that stretch in the early 1980s was anything but wrenching. But never once did I ever see or hear him feel sorry for himself, and I'm certain no one else ever did either. A mutual friend recently told me that Quie said at the time that "God will provide," though, needless to say, that didn't stop him from making one tough decision after another, injurious to his reelection prospects as they were.

Retrieving language that isn't used in mixed company anymore but which nonetheless is perfect for grasping both that occasion in St. Paul and the present one in Washington, Al Quie owned up to own (cosmically different) problems like a man.

-- Mitchell B. Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis.