Sex Trumps Substance
There is nothing like a good sex scandal to get the juices flowing. It is so much easier to pose and posture about something that we can understand--and many even have experience with sex--scandalous or not. Healthcare policies or the nuances of Iranian elections or tactics in Afghanistan ate too complicated for credible pontificating.
So here is poor Gov. Sandford confessing to his adultery with his Argentine lover. The press loves the detail about her being from Argentina. Exotic.
Some would see a political pattern here, following close on the soiled sheets of Senator Ensign and his affair with a campaign aid and Sen. Larry Craig's sad tryst in a men's room in Minneapolis and Sen. Vitter's consorting with professionals. Some are charging that this is a Republican conservative family values trend. It isn't. Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, not to mention John Edwards prove this to be a bipartisan failing. I am tempted to say that it is male failing, but aside from Sen. Craig, females seem also to participate.
Adultery is not a partisan issue. It does not break down by left or right. It is not Christian versus Jewish or Catholic versus Protestant. It is a human weakness. It wrecks careers, brings down governments, and tears families apart. This week there is a report of a bunch of Mennonites charged with mass rape in Latin America.
Yes, there is a certain value added in the schadefreude department when there is not simply cheating--which is largely a personal family issue--but also hypocrisy. All of our political fallen, except Bill Clinton, were guilty of hypocrisy--preaching family values, condemning other fallen sinners and pretending to values that they did not live. Only Clinton, who may have been guilty of perjury and was certainly guilty of lust and abuse of power, escapes the hypocrisy charge. He never really pretended to be anything other than a salty dog. The other guys look worse because they organized much of their lives around lies--condemning the weakness of others while failing miserably with their own lives.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Faulty logic across the board, sir.
Exactly who "organized their lives around lies, condemning the weakness of others" ...? Are you saying every politician who has engaged in sexual misconduct organized their very lives around condemning others' sexual conduct? Because clearly, even for the conservatives, this is simply not the only or even the primary issue with which they were concerned during their careers.
More to the point--YOU just condemned the weakness of others. You said adultery wrecks careers, brings down governments, and tears families apart. And you're 100% right. But make no mistake -- you DID just condemn that weakness.
Now let's pretend that tomorrow we find out that Jonathan is an adulterer. Does it make what he just said any less valid? No, it does not. It just makes it even more sad, because clearly he knew better. And yes, the word hypocrisy is appropriate. But the fact that Jonathan may lose his wife and family over his misstep actually underscores the TRUTH of what he said, regardless of his personal behavior.
I just don't understand this insane liberal notion that somehow, because people mess up and cause incredible pain to each other by sexually going out of bounds -- that we should NOT be saying, as a culture, that it's wrong. It is exactly like the analogy I used some posts back. A toddler is told not to touch the hot stove. Invariably, some toddlers (not all, mind you) will touch it. Do we shrug our shoulders and say, oh well, no point in warning toddlers about hot stoves, because they all want to touch it! Let's just give them hot pads. Good grief.
Also, Jonathan, your singling out Bill Clinton as NOT a hypocrite is just so much diaper fill. The man took marriage vows, my friend, and I don't care how much he fancied himself a "salty dog" -- and how much he outright lied (I did not have sex with that woman) -- any man who cheats on his wife is not living by what he said he held to be true. And that, Mr. Dobrer, is the definition of hypocrisy.
Hard to believe anyone is still bedazzled by the so-called Clinton "glamour," but you appear to be in need of some glasses-cleaning or something.
One of the biggest issues that people have been making noise about has been same sex marriage, but in an obvious move to appease instead of pursue civil rights, the Obama Justice Department has committed to defending DOMA. DOMA, or the Defense Of Marriage Act, was a piece of legislation passed under President Clinton, which has been applauded by people that would give instant payday loans to have their fellow citizens under the heel of tyranny, and has been upheld. The law mandates that the Federal government will not recognize a same sex union, and many have put forth the view that DOMA is unconstitutional, but no unsecured loans or legal briefs can get the Supreme Court to review it.
Governor Sanford is soooo pathetic. He got caught with his pants down and now sings "Maria, I just met a girl named Maria."