commenter noblesavage had the following to say in response to my previous post about the despicable philanderer edwards:
IMHO, I have never been much of a fan of Edwards, but I guess the question is, so what? He cheats on his wife and had a love child. As Bill Clinton or Jack Kennedy so ably demonstrated, personal foibles are not particularly well related to professional ability.
You are implicitly making such a connection without stating it outright. I'm not sure that is true.
you're goddam right i'm making such a connection, noblesavage, and i guess after ten years it's high time i put my thoughts about this issue into writing.
see, throughout the whole monica lewinsky debacle, i found myself having to rebut a never-ending stream of idiotic commentary from a lot of otherwise very intelligent people along the lines of, "yeah, so he lied? big deal--of course he lied; what married man wouldn't? whatever bill did or didn't do with monica/paula/gennifer/[your name here] should be between him and hillary."
and you know what? if we were in france, that would be true; it wouldn't make a goddam bit of difference--hell, it sure hasn't hurt sarkozy.
problem is, we're not in france; we're in provincial, puritanical america. and if you're an american politician and you cheat on your spouse--and knowing that nothing will alienate an american voter quicker than hypocrisy--you have to lie about it. and as soon as you start down that road, two things happen: (1) you become vulnerable to forces beyond your control; and (2) you become a chronic liar, conspirator, obstructor and coverer-upper--it becomes second nature.
and if you really don't think that combination doesn't have any bearing on an elected official's effectiveness, allow me to tell you the following story (widely documented everywhere--google it):
los angeles, august 1962: two fbi agents, watching the apartment of judith campbell (former lover of mob boss sam giancana and current lover of president john kennedy) observe a break-in into her apartment by two brothers whose getaway car, it later turns out, had been rented by their father, the chief of security of a little second-tier defense contractor by the name of general dynamics (maybe you've heard of 'em).
the fbi agents do not interfere; they merely file a report (which, thanks to the freedom of information act, is available to us today).
three months later, the pentagon just happens to pick general dynamics for an unexpected outta-the-blue multibillion-dollar defense contract. wow--lucky, huh?
later that same year, defense secretary robert mcnamara overrules strenuous recommendations by both the air force and the navy and, instead, orders the experimental tsx fighter plane (later named the f-111) to be built by--guess who? well, if you guessed boeing, mcdonnell-douglas or hughes, you'd be wrong. nope, it went to our old friends general dynamics--a huge coup of almost incalculable profitability for a company with relatively little aircraft experience that few thought was even in the running.
after a disastrous start-up of the tsx program by a company which was clearly in over its head and resultant outrage at billions of wasted dollars (yeah, we used to get outraged about shit like that), a congressional investigation is ordered for early 1964--which resultant scandal might well have torpedoed any chance at a kennedy second term (had he lived long enough for the investigation to occur, of course).
and all this blackmail, intrigue and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars simply because the president couldn't keep it in his pants.
it mattered in 1962--and it matters now.
as for clinton, if you really wanna try and convince me that the last two-and-a-half years of his second term weren't totally dictated by the fact that he--the most powerful man on earth--not only was fucking around, but was fucking around with whatever young, stupid, emotionally unstable little twits he could get his hands on, then you're gonna have to tap-dance pretty hard (and god only knows how he sold the interests of his country down the river in order to keep other scandals quiet that we'll never know about).
and that, noblesavage, pretty much sums up the problem i have with promiscuous-yet-pious family-values-type politicians--of whichever party.
you wanna rebut? be my fucking guest.
sober update: jeez, i worked myself up into a fine, drunken froth over that one, didn't i?
3 comments:
Well, it seems like there are three arguments you are making about politicians who have sex outside of marriage.
1. Affairious politicians are open to blackmail. I think I coined a word.
Perhaps this is true. I am not sure if anyone blackmailed Clinton. But, to the extent that you want to hide your transgressions, you are always open to blackmail. This is no less true of presidents -- although in that case there is probably have a higher price for the silence.
I am certainly willing to concede that people who want to hide something are open to blackmail.
2. Being a politician in puritanical America means you need to lie about your affair and because you lie about your affair, then you become Bill Clinton and lie to people's faces about everything.
I actually think Bill Clinton knew how to lie to people's faces before he reached puberty much less before the Lewinsky mess.
3. Implicit in your discussion of Clinton is how much of a distraction his personal foibles were from the real business at hand -- governing.
As a rebuttal, let me offer this: I do not know what Elizabeth Edwards thinks of John Edward's promiscuity (if it is true). I would think she would either divorce the bum or stand by him and if she stands by him, well then I really do not think it should concern anyone else.
Like the family that lived down the block from me, their rocky marriage might be good gossip, but did not affect me.
As for Edwards, it is really a private matter between him and his wife.
I have a friend whose husband told her to do whatever she wanted (because he had no sex drive). She did. She fell in love. The divorce is not quite final.
Having said that, as a gay man, I think men are men and want sex. It is sometimes a hunger that is really hard to describe and just not rational. I get it every so often myself. When I was younger, I would get it every 12 minutes or so. I think that experience is common although not universal and has nothing to do with professional competence in any profession I can think of (including clergy).
You could say that someone who chooses to cheat on his sick wife is a selfish bastard. I would probably agree. But, most of the politicians I have met are selfish bastards. So are most of the lawyers. So are most accountants. I just rarely meet anyone I think that rises above the level of feckless.
And I have seen that over and over again. Is it something to consider? Perhaps. But I am not waiting for the Messiah, I am trying to determine who to vote for and who to support among imperfect flawed people. Bill Clinton was and is a flawed man. But he also has some great gifts as well.
I have always thought John Edwards was no less big shake, but his work on poverty in America is not diminished by his own fecklessness.
Lyndon Johnson had mistresses in every hideaway office while in the Senate. Yet, he also was an accomplished majority leader and managed to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed in the face of Southern white resistance when he was President.
Surely, Johnson's own accomplishments (and his failure in Vietnam) are not diminished by his cheating on Lady Bird.
You do need to look at a politician's character and personality, but your railing against Edwards' affair is too narrow. He was a self-righteous hypocritical bastard before word ever leaked out of his affair.
Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite. He also composed some amazing music.
And then we can talk about our Founding Fathers and slavery.
We need to consider people as they are and personality does have a big impact on governing.
I regret that we all got sidetracked in the Clinton Administration. But it wasn't Clinton's fault that Republicans were out for blood and attempted to use the Lewinsky mess as a political opportunity to wound Clinton. That strategy failed.
Finally, I think of George Walker Bush. He is proudly faithful to his wife Laura. He is also an lazy and arrogant -- always a bad combination. His policy failures are so many and so profound, he is actually the perfect example of why you do not want a faithful husband as President.
noblesavage: while i agree with you that politicians should be measured by the color of their accomplishments rather than by the content of their character, the fact is that this simply is not the way it works in america.
and you fall back on the tired old "it should be between edwards and his wife" argument, but again--i'm not talking about what should be; i'm talking about what is. and the truth is, if this sordid affair gets the public airing it deserves, it'll probably finish him.
and while it's true that the republicans were on a witch-hunt when it came to clinton, that in no way mitigates the simple fact that he handed them the rope with which they, if not quite hung him, then certainly hogtied him and tarnished his presidency forever.
johnson is an interesting case; here you have a guy who was so powerful and so unabashedly himself, he might well have weathered the scandal had his affairs come to light--but i believe he's the rare exception.
you're also right that men are pigs and men are gonna cheat--and that probably goes triple for those men who hunger for, seek and attain the rarefied levels of power we're talking about here; i guess my point here really is, if you're gonna dabble in that kinda shit at that level, to the degree you keep it offa you is the degree to which you don't have to worry about exposure and, thus, ruination.
case in point: it's widely acknowledged that george h.w. bush conducted a long-running affair which was never even whispered about in common circles because, among other reasons, he was smart, shrewd, discreet and he chose his mistress carefully--she apparently had as much to lose by exposure as he did. the same could pretty much be said for fdr and eisenhower.
as for your last point about the vice of fidelity, don't forget about the trumans and coolidges--there were many presidents who somehow managed to be both principled men and fine public servants.
and finally: thanks for your considered perspective on this issue--as always, you tempered my views to a degree, and gave me things to think about.
OK.
I do think we have some common ground here.
The way things are, Edwards will not be running for office anytime soon.
Gary Hart's career was pretty much finished onboard the "Monkey Business" -- the most aptly named boat I have heard of.
Perhaps it should not be that way, but it is.
And for that, I cry no tears for Edwards. He certainly knew the rules going in to this -- if your sordid personal trysts somehow get exposed, your political career is finished.
Elliot Spitzer comes to mind as the sanctimonious windbag who was properly exposed for what he was.
As for Bill Clinton, he was so able a politician, he was merely wounded, but very much wounded by the details of his philandering.
From all of the rumors, Bill Clinton continues his old ways and it just does not get picked up by the MSM -- see
http://www.americablog.com/2008/05/slate-rumors-of-more-monicas.html
I do not know why some politicians just seems to be so reckless, but I think it just comes with the territory when you are dealing with egomanical men -- as any politician who gets to that level pretty much has to be.
One of the things that I learned in graduate school was that emotional maturity was definitely not correlated with intelligence or professional success. Sometimes I wonder if there is some sort of inverse relationship -- stable, content people just do not run for President and put up with all you have to put up with.
Just like the cutest guy in the bar that you have to fawn all over to get to go home with you, it's simply not worth it.
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