Here is something I don’t understand.
John Edwards has an affair and everybody acts like it is something to be ashamed about?
Whence this leftover Christian conscience about sexuality?
Think about it. The ubiquity of affairs and adultery in our society is legendary. Bill Clinton had several. Bob Livingston who was set to become the Speaker of the House announced during the Clinton – Lewinsky affair that he would not seek to be Speaker of the House due to his own adulterous infidelities. Newt Gingrich had an affair while he was trying to pull down Clinton for his affair and for lying about his affair. Tom Delay was involved in an adulterous affair. John McCain cheated on his wife who stood by him while he was a POW in Hanoi. John Kennedy cheated on the beautiful Jacki and Martin Luther King cheated on Coretta Scott King. Franklin Roosevelt cheated on Eleanor (after looking at pictures of Eleanor one can only have sympathy for Franklin) Warren Harding cheated on Florence King Harding, and on and on it goes. Indeed, it would probably be easier to make a list of high profile politicians who haven’t been sexually immoral.
Indeed, so prevalent is the Washington Whorehouse attitude that in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment hearings House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said, “We need to stop destroying imperfect people at the altar of an unattainable morality.”
Clearly according to people in high places being faithful to ones spouse is a morality that is unattainable.
So if that is true, and it sure seems like it is for a great host of Americans, both in politics and not in politics, then what I want to know is why the Media believes it necessary to tells us when another high profile politician has fallen short of the unattainable morality?” To fall short of something that is by definition unattainable is hardly newsworthy.
It seems most Americans don’t see any problem in keeping time with somebody who isn’t their spouse, so why is it news when John Edwards is discovered tapping boots with a strange blond and why does anyone care?
Please allow me to answer my own question.
Somewhere in the American psyche there remains the Christian sense of right and wrong and even though many Americans cheat on their spouse they know it is wrong of them to do so and they know it is wrong when a high profile person does the same. On one level it doesn’t make any sense that adultery would disqualify anybody for anything given its prevalence, but on another level people desire their leaders to shape up to outwardly Christian norms… at least in obvious areas.
I figure though, with the passing of another generation, a high profile politician’s adultery will no longer be an item worthy of even the National Inquirer’s scrutiny. Sooner or later we are going to get consistent about this adultery thing. It would be nice if God would send Reformation so that we would be consistent by actually restraining our animal instincts and choosing to be loyal to our spouses.
