How should the public address sex scandals involving elected officials?
February 6, 2009
Overcoverage distracts from more important issues
By Chris Jordan
I’m sure we all remember it like it was yesterday. It was a sunny summer day on Aug. 9, 2008, when the biggest story of our lives hit the wires: John Edwards had admitted to an extramarital affair.
How could he do this? Was he really sneaking around at a hotel that one night? What if he had won the nomination and this had come out? Is there a child? What will this do to Barack Obama’s campaign?
So many questions were racing through our minds at such a high speed, it took us almost two weeks to fully recover and start talking about any subject other than who John Edwards chose to sleep with and how his choice might impact the upcoming presidential race.
On another summer day, Aug. 11, just two days after the Edwards story broke, disaster struck the African nation of Burkina Faso. In a mine in the town of Boussoukoula, 34 workers died, crushed in a mudslide. While the news media fixated on the Edwards affair story, many Americans were not informed about this tragedy or what they could do to help. What better way to show America’s good intentions than to send donations to the families of victims of such a terrible catastrophe? Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. There were other things to talk about that day.
Many have argued that personal character matters in public officials, and I agree. Our politicians, after all, put themselves in the spotlight with their high-profile career choices and should be expected to behave as role models. However, this doesn’t justify the incredible obsession with which we pursue these political sex stories in America.
A simple Google search using the terms ‘Burkina Faso, mudslides, 2008’ yields about 6,300 results. A second search using the phrase ‘John Edwards affair’ yields a staggering 9.6 million results. In other words, for every result Google finds relating to the mining tragedy, it digs up about 1,500 results relating to one man and his poor personal choice.
While the United States is fighting two wars abroad, genocide has been perpetrated in Darfur and extreme poverty kills one child every three seconds. It’s amazing we can find so much time to talk about John Edwards and his loose zipper.
Ultimately, it is our country that is hurt when we fail to talk about issues that really matter. We hardly ever hear poverty discussed, yet it breeds conditions that can lead to violent extremism. We hardly ever hear about the conflict in Afghanistan, a war that many experts now believe America is starting to lose. Every second of airtime wasted on John Edwards is time we could be spending learning about and discussing some of the great challenges of our day. Unfortunately, that kind of problem-solving just doesn’t sell like a juicy sex story complete with lies, a possible love child and late-night paparazzi run-ins. How could it get any better than that?
Sex scandals help reveal a politician’s true character
By Russ Wung
Before 2008, Ashley Alexandra Dupre was just another down-and-out pop singer working as a call girl. Then, on Feb. 13, 2008, at the Mayflower Hotel, appeared “Client 9,” as federal court affidavits called him. This john turned out to be Eliot Spitzer, then-governor of New York and former state attorney general.
Stories soon peppered media outlets — as well they should have. Sometimes the private sex lives of elected officials can say even more about their ability to serve the public.
A month later, Spitzer resigned under threat of impeachment and Dupre had her ticket out of obscurity. Today, her MySpace account reports almost 12.5 million total profile views.
It wasn’t always this way. Emperors had concubines; sultans had harems; Henry VIII of England went through six wives. Grover Cleveland had an illegitimate child prior to running for president. John F. Kennedy’s extramarital affairs were kept quiet by what the BBC called the press’s “code of silence.”
The Spitzer incident, on the other hand, was an instant sensation. Increasing media influence from a profusion of competing outlets has increased scrutiny of public figures’ private lives. This attention breaks the rule that “any publicity is good publicity,” and politicians’ careers almost always suffer from it.
Lying under oath makes things even worse. President Bill Clinton supposedly had oral sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, but that wasn’t what he was impeached for. Clinton committed perjury, eventually asserted that oral sex is not sex and split hairs over the meaning of the word “is,” among other things.
The age and sex of the other party can also play a role. Florida Representative Mark Foley sent underage House pages explicit texts and had sexual liaisons with several male ex-pages.
Sexual affairs even devolve into political corruption. Jim McGreevy, governor of New Jersey, resigned after admitting he had a gay extramarital affair and, even worse, appointed the man to be his Homeland Security advisor.
So why do we care about what politicians do behind closed doors? Concern about their outright lawbreaking is one reason. The conflicts of interest surrounding sex can be another, as in the McGreevy case. The final problem is character: All other things equal, would you rather vote for a politician who cheats on his wife or one that is faithful to her?
The betrayal and fundamental dishonesty intrinsic to most sex scandals goes right to one of the core character requirements of any public figure: honesty. A high-ranking politician can do far more damage than any average Joe on the street, and sexual dalliances only lead us to question integrity even more.
1 Comments
Some things like marriage relationships are private to be discussed between the persons involved. People need to stop pretending they are outraged. The only person with a right to be outraged is Elizabeth Edwards, and she has decided to spend much of her time working for universal health care for Americans. She has also said she and her husband want to dedicate their lives to fighting poverty. Let's not hinder them. Other things like jobs, labor rights, the collapse of our economy, and government bailouts are public matters to be discussed by all Americans. And, yes there are still two Americas. One asked for and got billions of dollars in government bailout money in a matter of hours. Sorry, the names of the con artists who got the bailout money have not been revealed by the National Enquirer or the Main Street Media. The other America is still begging its government for affordable healthcare, the right to a roof over their heads, and jobs. I don't want to see working Americans treated like the workers in "third world countries". John and Elizabeth Edwards are well aware of their short comings, but they also know how to fight and work for the American people. Watch the video see the America worth fighting for:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L52faN...
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#1 Cherubim
(Antioch, TN)
on February 15, 2009 at 7:57 a.m.