Sex Scandals, Politics and Hypocrisy

It is a fact of life that peoples’ biological desires and urges pertaining to sex often conflict with societal norms. When a public figure, especially a prominent politician, acts on those urges and gets caught, the jackals in our corporate “news” media are sure to be all over it. That is, they’re sure to be all over it if the politician in question is one who typically acts on behalf of his constituents more than the corporate interests that use their vast wealth to bribe government officials to act in behalf of their interests.


A word about “character”

I acknowledge that the character of those who run for public office should be an important consideration in our (i.e. voters) decisions about whom to vote for. It should be a very important consideration. But we have to be careful about how we judge a person’s character. I believe that a person’s character should be judged primarily by how much s/he cares about and helps other people vs. how much s/he hurts them. That is important because we need public servants who represent the interests of their constituents – who are willing to stand up for their constituents even when it poses political risks by virtue of angering the wealthy and powerful.

How does that apply to sex? It seems to me that people often engage in sexual activity that can be embarrassing because it is at odds with societal norms, even when the harm to other people is small to non-existent. When such activity is engaged in by a married politician, it is often assumed that the politician is “cheating” on his spouse or causing his spouse great harm. But where does one draw the line? Sexual intercourse? Flirting? Sending nude pictures to people? Looking at pictures on the Internet? Looking at people when walking down the street? Lewd thoughts? The problem is that understandings of what activities are acceptable vary greatly from one couple to another. For some married couples, sexual intercourse with other people may not be unacceptable, whereas for others the line of acceptability is drawn much lower. To complicate matters further, misunderstandings often exist between couples as to what behaviors are acceptable (that is, hurtful) and what behaviors are not.

For all these reasons, I rarely judge a politician based on his or her sexual activity. Without knowing the context of the activity, the relationship with the spouse, the understandings between them, and other factors, I feel that judging them is beyond my capability or interest. Especially if the politician has an established record of public service, it is far better to judge him on that rather than on his sexual activities.

President Franklin Roosevelt aggressively pushed through Congress a huge package of economic reforms that lifted millions out of poverty and greatly benefitted the American people for many decades to come. President Kennedy stood up against the military industrial complex like no other president in our history. Yet their sexual behaviors of FDR and JFK deviated greatly from societal norms. Which is more important in determining their fitness for public office – what they did for our country in the performance of their public functions, or their sexual behavior?


The double standard

What makes the issue of sex scandals in American politics all the more worrisome and harmful is that the American corporate “news” media applies a hypocritical double standard to it. Newt Gingrich discusses divorce with his wife while she’s recovering from cancer surgery, in order to marry another woman – and that has little or no effect on his political career. Yet Anthony Weiner is found to have mailed some lewd pictures of himself to women, and even much of his own party ends up calling for his resignation. Where’s the consistency in that? The bottom line is that Gingrich is a fervent servant of the wealthy and powerful, whereas Weiner stands up for ordinary people.

We as a people can’t afford to lose public servants who represent our interests and stand up for us even at risk to their careers. We need all of those kinds of people that we can get. We can’t afford to let our corporate “news” media dictate to us who is or is not morally unfit for public duty.

whole different world.

severe pressure is applied only to those who are willing to stand up to the wealthy and the powerful, in behalf of their constituents. Weiner said when he resigned, "I got into politics to help give voice to the many who simply did not have one". Those weren't just words. His actions during his tenure in public office show that he meant it. That was a big reason for his downfall. It makes me sick that the leaders of the Democratic Party, including Obama and Pelosi, contributed to pressuring him out.

Do you want to know what your neighbors are doing in their bedrooms? Is it our business if our neighbor's wife is having an affair? How is it our business what a public figure does in his/her personal life so long as s/he is doing the job we hired them to do? Eg, I didn't hear any complaints about the job being done by Weiner, on the contrary, he was one of the few who actually was working for the people.

A nation of judgementalist voyeurs is what the media is turning this country into.

To paraphrase a Clinton catchphrase.

I've noticed network media coverage of Republican scandals must include equal time and parallel stories showing that "both sides" do it. The ratios or severity don't matter of course.

The Arizona shootings are the most recent example of many. I've seen plenty of coverage on CNN and broadcast news of Rep. Weiner's dumb but totally legal indiscretion but not even a whiff of "both sides do it". How long will the right continue claiming the media has a liberal bias?

As long as they think that doing so will distract us from their lies.

do with their woo-woo's, I do care if they lie.

their private lives. Their private lives should be private, but of course their political enemies will dig up anything they can to embarass them. Why should they play into the hands of their political enemies by admitting to embarassing, but legal things that they may have done in their private lives?

They owe it to us to tell us the truth about how they represent us in the performance of their public duties -- but not their private lives. And I doubt that more than one in a thousand politicians would publicly admit to an embarassing truth if they knew they could get away with a lie.

as politicians.

Their private life is their own matter unless they are committing felonies.

I have about given up on fair application of rule of law in the USA.

Justice and legislation in the USA is bought and paid for by $$$ and croneyism.

I’m just trying to figure out where I can get some myself. (Just kidding)

Nevertheless, it seems that that’s where our above reproach political establishment draws the ethical line, thou shalt not lie about sex, but don’t worry if other lies destroy the lives of millions.

Pelosi said, that "Bush took us to war on a false pretense, but no one could show her that he did anything wrong." “If someone could have shown her that he did something wrong she would have considered putting impeachment on the table.”

In other words:
Bush lied and we went to war, over a million people are dead, four million people became refugees, Iraq is a nuclear waste land, he (Bush) bankrupted the economy in the process, and his friends became a whole lot richer. But no one could show Pelosi that he did anything wrong...

Unfortunately, it seems American have grown so accustom to the phrases "All politicians lie" and "All politicians are crooks", that we are now only capable of electing and reelecting pathological liar’s and crooks, and people who think that theirs nothing wrong with being a pathological liar or a crook as long as it benefits greedy billionaires.

Exceptions being that we don't like it when they lie about sex, because sex without authoritarian consent is really, really bad, and it distracts the politicians from their most important job, i.e. fucking the entire country.

But most importantly, flogging a politician over sex is about the only time our political leaders can show the American people how moral and righteous they are when it comes to removing all the bad apples from elected office. We should all feel confident, that, only those of superior character are allowed to be in political office.

K&R Dr. Dale, I'm looking forward to reading your new book.

I would just add that a good part of the reason that the American people accept this situation is because the oligarchs spend tons of money bombarding us with their propaganda, to offset all the actions taken against us by our elected representatives who are bought off by them. Weiner wasn't one of their bought off public officials, so he had to go.

The question was asked, "Why then did they impeach Clinton for lying" over his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Pelosi commented back that it was wrong to impeach Clinton over that.

Hypocrisy is an amazing thing when there's an objective to be met.

I haven't been paying much attention, but, if Weiner got elected without Capitalist money;

where did he mostly side in politics, mostly liberal or mostly conservative?

1. If GWB was impeached and convicted, Cheney would be logical to follow, and we would have had POTUS Pelosi. Pelosi did not want to become POTUS for a variety of reasons including self-adequacy and fear.

2. Both GWB and Cheney would likely have been impeached nut not convicted in the Senate. This would have been a stark reminder to the Nation and World that the USA is a rogue nation and not a nation of laws and there would be blowback on Pelosi and the Democratic Party.

3. The neo-conservatives and neo-liberal Democrats have more in common with each other than with FDR/Kennedy/LBJ Democrats or any grass roots or populist movements. The neo-liberals intended to continue (and have continued) the same foreign, economic, and foreign policies when they next came to power.

He was working on holding Clarence Thomas accountable for his corruption when this happened. It's such a terrible shame.

Which is why he was popular with the people, not so much with Corporate America.

the problem there was he had plausible deniability so pelosi would have had a tough time proving he knowing lied especially with the republicans supporting him, do i believe he knowingly lied myself? IMO he did but I cant prove he did.

As for the current scandal with Wiener the sex was nothing, it was his calling multiple press conferences and lying and claiming he was hacked and it was a hoax again and again when he had the option of just saying "no comment" which would have been fine by me.

From his article Titled http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x607950">Sexual Puritanism and Empire: Sex, Shame, and Military Might

Republican right wingers played them for fools and got them to crush one of their most ardent organizing groups, and a group that also dedicated itself to continuing the Democratic war on poverty.

Yet so many Democratic leaders were so eager to join the outrage and call for ACORN to be defunded. All in response to a doctored video with a ridiculous fake pimp and ho. Self righteous Democrats were declaring that we had to set ourselves a higher standard-- all while they were being fools falling for a cheap hoax.

We lost ACORN-- a brilliant nationwide organization that fought to empower the poorest among us and inspire them to vote. You'd think the Democratic party would have learned its lesson from that.

I think Anthony Weiner's denial tour was dumb-- I even thought he must have a Republican mole in his PR advisers-- but even so, how thrilling it would have been to hear Democrats say that they would call upon Wiener to resign after Republicans demanded David Vitter's resignation. Or ask that "he who is without sin cast the first stone"-- Speaker Boehner, are you still seeing your mistress, or would you like to step forward? Paul Ryan, you're willing to kill Medicare, but perhaps you haven't engaged in racy extramarital sex...

If we do "hold ourselves to a higher standard," I agree with you in wishing that we held ourselves to strongly support our representatives who fight for the Democratic base and our core values as passionately as Wiener did.