What do you mean? A politician LIED?!?
Aug 11, 2008 | Filed under Misc., Rants
Despite my general policy of steering clear of politics on this site, I think it’s pretty safe to say that John Edwards’ political career is pretty much finished. In case you live under a rock, or haven’t taken your eyes away from 14 year-old Chinese gymnasts pretending to be 16, former senator Edwards ‘fessed-up to having an affair with a campaign staffer who apparently gets around. A lot. While cheating on your cancer-ridden wife falls somewhere between “intentionally making babies cry” and “kitten-rape” on the Miserable Bastard Scale, it’s not my place to judge. After all, it’s a private matter, and I actually feel bad for his family having to re-open old wounds in public. That is not my concern.
Cheating on your wife doesn't count if you're in a different area code or she has incurable cancer. I'm sorry, what? Neither of those are true? Oh...shit.
My concern is the public’s reaction to this news. Why are people “shocked” and “angered” when they find out that someone lied about having an affair? He wasn’t cheating on you. He’s not even in office anymore, and unless you live in North Carolina, he never even represented you. Why do you care? Someone you don’t know and have nothing to do with cheated on his wife, whom you also don’t know. And when someone asked him about it, he lied. What do you expect him to do?
It was the same thing with Bill Clinton, back in the day. If you were married and someone asked you if you got a mouth hug from a chub scout while you were at work, you would say no! That’s the sort of thing you would expect people to lie about if asked. Especially if you were in front of a group of reporters. And especially if your wife would find out. That’s generally not the sort of information that people go around volunteering. Not only for his sake, but his wife and family, too. Why would anyone expect him to do otherwise?
“But,” you say, my argumentative straw friend, “his hypocrisy and deception speak ill of his character! He has betrayed us!” Again, he didn’t buy you a ring and make you a promise, so stop taking this personally. This is his mess and his family has to deal with it, and you should have a little compassion for these people. Secondly, character in public office is overrated. Public officeholders are basically hired to do a job by the people. Let’s say you ran an accounting firm, and one of your star accountants, I dunno, trolled for man sex in airport bathrooms. As long as what he was doing was legal, didn’t affect his work, and didn’t hurt anybody, you wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t know, either, and there are policies and laws in place that keep you from even asking about it. So why do we treat politicians any differently?
Here’s another example: Richard Nixon was so evil, he probably should have just grown one of those old-timey villain moustaches and tied women to train tracks, cackling gleefully until those pesky Woodward and Bernstein kids foiled him again. But the Olympics in China this week are a direct result of his opening trade with them — without his presidency, we might even be involved in a second Cold War. So when an election comes to a choice between a morally-upstanding moron and a highly-qualified kitten-rapist…I’m thinking those kittens may have had it coming.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
This just made me sick. Life sucks and yes, many politicians lie, but there are a few that don’t. I am devistated that he is among the majority now.
::sobbing::
August 11th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
But that’s the thing: it’s not like he lied about a government contract or his intent to pass a law. This was a personal thing, so why does it matter? In fact, his lie probably protected his family, so isn’t it the more noble thing to do?
This could probably be an entire other blog post, but I really want to swim away from politics as quickly as possible. In his statement about the affair, Edwards said his ego was inflated by the campaign process, which led him to believe he could get away with shagging the video girl.
This reminds of a few years ago — I was working for a large company associated with a particular color, and Pete Sessions scheduled a visit to our local office. There was an email sent to everyone stating that our “senator” was coming to visit and we should all be on our best behavior and grateful that he was coming. Besides the obvious error in title and position (he’s a congressman, although sadly I’m sure the distinction was lost on most of my coworkers), the attitude of respect and reverence that the email conveyed made me sick. He’s not special, he’s not royalty. He’s a public servant, and he works for and is answerable to US. There’s not much hope for government in our country until people grasp that idea.
September 28th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Your website looks great and is very interesting even though I don’t understand the technical article about the sad story of your packets whatever those are.
In response to the issue of Edwards, I think that some people get angry and upset because they see the public officials symbolically reflecting the moral environment of the society and thus feel threatened by immoral behavior. And it is easier to point fingers outwardly than to turn them on yourself and look at what you are doing wrong and change it, so maybe that is part of it, too.
I’m not sure if I would agree though that lying doesn’t matter if it is about personal behavior–it seems to me that deception is always a problem whether personal or public as I have recently been reminded.
I came across a very interesting verse in the Bible this past week that I would like to share: (Isaiah 58:10-11) “If you take away the yoke from your midst, (they were oppressing workers) The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
I include this because when I read it, I was struck by how our society (including me or especially me) has chosen to be finger pointers as an almost full time occupation. And it’s so seductive because if I am point ing my finger at someone else, I don’t have to deal with my own mess. I think, for me, it is a mental battlefield.
Just some thoughts. . .