Can’t we call truce on outing politicians’ peccadillos?
{A} big part of me is rooting for Vitter to survive because I so want to return to a time when we ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ that “we” includes the media ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ chose to pay little attention to the extracurricular sexual activities of our politicians. The magnitude of our public problems does not afford us the luxury of indulging in crusades about politicians’ private lives, even those involving a high degree of hypocrisy. Interestingly, the party that has preached loudest about “family values” has the greater interest in avoiding too fastidious an examination of such matters. Kate O’Beirne, the conservative writer, deserves a place in the annals of political commentary for her remark on the divorce rate among the top Republican presidential contenders. She noted that the only one with “only one wife would be the Mormon,” Mitt Romney.
Personally, I could care less if a politician buggers goats in his off-hours. If that person does the job they were elected to do, their own particular perversion should be no one else’s business- as long as no one is getting hurt.
Having said that, though, there is a sizable exception to the above rule that I also happen to strongly believe in. If you made your nut politically by playing to the holier-than-thou, “family values”, uber-religious and judgemental segment of the electorate, you’d better believe that I and other wags will have all sorts of fun with you when you’re caught in flagrante delicto with said goat. If you owe your position in large part to your self-portayal as a moral man of God, you can bet that the discovery that you patronize prostitutes or molest underage boys will be grist for the mill. This is as is it should be; hypocrisy is the one political quality I detest above all others.
I’m not about to postulate that all perverts of this nature are Republicans. Far from it. It’s just that the exposure of a holier-than-thou Republican is something that always gives me great joy. I’m sorry if E.J. Dionne sees things differently, but as long as there are politicians who beat the “family values” drum, there will be people like me there to celebrate when they’re caught with their pants down.
I’d like to be able to discuss issues that actually matter, but hypocrisy to me IS an issue that matters. When a politician displays a “there’s a different set of rules for me” attitude, that in my mind goes to the very heart of the problem. When a politician can represent his constituents despite such a pronounced lack of integrity, they deserve to be dragged through the mud. This holds every bit as true for Republicans as for Democrats (and, yes, even Democrats can be moral reprobates)- it’s just that Republicans seem to have a corner on the moral trangression market these days.
I don’t expect to find choir boys wandering the halls of Congress (unless they’re servicing a Congressman, I suppose), but when you being preaching against the very behavior you yourself are happily and eagerly engaging in, you’re an accident looking for a place to happen. If I and people like me get to take pleasure from the exposure of your particular hypocrisy and perversion, so much the better.
Party on, Garth….
