I noticed in the news recently, yet another politician has resigned his post as a result of a picture he sent to someone he connected with on Craigslist. What a fat juicy subject for me. I’ll use this space as a jumping off point for a much bigger and broader discussion. Where do I start?
First of all, as an aside, I just can’t wrap my mind around men in general. How is it they are considered the same species as women? It’s obvious we have a number of differences physically, mentally, and chemically. But it IS what it is. Generally speaking, they are driven by sex and we are driven by other things. I offer as an example the recent Superbowl commercial where the guy and girl are on a date. She is thinking, “I wonder how much money he makes. I wonder if he’ll be a good dad.” He is thinking, “I want to have sex with her. I want to have sex with her.” Funny, isn’t it? My point is that sexual deviance is commonplace in our society. While I, among many others, detest the act, it is accepted, more or less, by everyone. It is expected. So why are we surprised when our public leaders are found guilty of such things? In most instances, marital infidelity results in a loss of a host of things, marriage and family being the biggest casualties. But they don’t usually lose their jobs.
This is where I have even more questions. Why do we demand absolute perfection of our public figures? They are but human beings. I don’t know of anyone who has been perfect from the beginning of their life to the end of their life. Do you? The media made a circus out of the fact that Bill Clinton smoked pot in college. It became a joke. “I smoked, but I didn’t inhale.” Who cares? Did he do a good job when it came to being President? Why do we care about the personal lives of these people? The important question is, do they do a good job? If a firefighter saves the life of four people from a burning building, do we care if he had an affair with the girl down the street? No. We care that he did his job and saved some lives. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about whether or not they are committing treason, or if they are involved in a terrorist group? Or what if they bankrupted a city or state budget? Did they embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars? Did they strike down legislation that was important to the public good so they could satisfy lobbyists, or because of stubborn party differences? These are the things I look for when I choose to support a public figure. Sadly, I think in terms of choosing the lesser evils. Does anyone else out there agree? Disagree?
In previous generations, public profiles were kept separate from private ones. For example, a French reporter was being given a tour of the Whitehouse by Jackie Kennedy. She turned to him and told him that the woman in front of them was having an affair with her husband. The reporter was shocked, but did not report it because during that time, it was not considered newsworthy.
ReplyDeleteAnother example would be Martin Luther King Jr. The FBI contacted a reporter close the the Civil Rights movement and told him that they had evidence from phone tapping that King was having an affair. This would have been counter-productive to the movement and was also not considered newsworthy at the time; the journalist did not report it.
It is interesting that our generation mixes both the public and private lives of public figures.