Crossposted from Brother Bobs Blog
The recent Anthony Weiner scandals brought back that old specter of whether or not politicians cheating on their wives should matter. We got to have rehashed the tales of Clinton, Gingrich, Edwards, Ted Kennedy, and now of course, Weiner. There are however, two angles that overall seem to have fallen under everyone’s radar.
When I first moved to DC back in 1999 my friends and I would often meet up for happy hours and shoot the breeze about any and everything which of course, included politics. As my friends here are mostly career bureaucrats of various degree they naturally lean to the left. When the subject of Clinton’s sex scandals came up they took the liberal stance of brushing it aside saying that it really didn’t matter and that other countries were amazed that Americans would care about such things. I had a much different perspective than that of my friends. Prior to moving to DC I had only briefly lived in the capitol, and had spent my entire career working in the private sector, excluding a summer job when I was in school working for a Department of Public Works. The Lewinsky scandal amazed me because of how different things are outside of the world of politics. Wherever I worked, if you fooled around with another employee on company property, you were fired. Period. You didn’t get to lie on national TV in your defense or have your wife stand up publicly and fabricate a conspiracy against you. Likewise, sexual harassment resulted in if not termination, serious disciplinary action, not public character assassination against the victim.
Going on my 12th year in this city has left me a lot less surprised by the antics of our elected leaders, but there was still one element of the Weiner saga that was digging at me that really came home with how the lefties in the press tried to cover for one of their own. It was the whole, “With all of the important work he’s doing why should his personal relationships matter?” argument thrown out by a few Democrats that the press diligently parroted. I’m not going to focus on how Weiner lied about a potential security breach in suggesting that his account was hacked nor how the story of his publicly acknowledging the scandal allowed the press to conveniently ignore the next piece of the story that broke about how he was stalking one of his twitter friends.
My problem is with the “what does it matter?” claim. I say that it does matter. For anyone who is reading this who is married look back on your own life. With the arguable exceptions of military service or religious vows, there is no greater vow or promise that one person can make other than the vows of marriage. You are promising yourself to one individual man or woman for the rest of your life. This means loving, caring for, and above all, trusting your spouse. One of the most thought provoking statements I heard on fidelity came, ironically enough, from a random guest on the Howard Stern radio show some years ago. The guest said something to the effect of, “Infidelity is not so much the physical act as it is the betrayal of trust.” Personally, I don’t have an issue with a married couple that likes to swing provided that both partners approve and are willing to conduct their relationship like that. An argument can be made as to how true their marriage is if they choose to be with others, but at a basic level this is a private matter between two consenting adults. (Author’s note to Sister Babe if she’s reading this: No Sweetie, I am in no way suggesting swinging for either one of us. Love you, Babe!) And if one partner feels the need to be with others and the spouse disapproves, there are divorce laws to remedy that situation. Or if one feels the need to sleep around, there is an even simpler solution: don’t get married in the first place.
Going back to the betrayal of trust angle, upon taking office, politicians are sworn in to uphold the law and serve the people who elected them as representatives. If you have no trouble betraying a vow to the closest person in your life, why should anyone in the public expect a leader to not hesitate to betray us? No I can’t pretend that my just under three months of marriage makes me an expert on the subject, but even if I were to one day get elected to higher office I would still hold my vow to Sister Babe more important than any I would take to office. Contrary to what the New York Times might say, staying faithful to your spouse and valuing that action in others does not equate being a Puritan. Nor does the sole act of staying faithful make you a saint by itself, but it does at least make some statement about your integrity, and how willing others should be able to trust you.
Over the weekend as I was making final edits I found the perfect quote to tie up this story. Over at PJTV Steven Kruiser posted a comment from one of his viewers who goes by the handle of darth1christo:
The same people who went to extraordinary lengths to enact legislation that restricted inappropriate behavior in the workplace are the first to dismiss these behaviors as inconsequential when one of their own sainted boneheads does something that would get them canned in the real world.
Amen, Darth Christo.
