As I watch (figuratively, since I get all my news from the radio) LA’s mayor’s marriage slowly dissolve, I’m reminded of the Clinton debate: is what you do in your private life at all applicable to what your public life might be?
Clinton & Villaraigosa both protest that promises made (or broken) to their wives are fundamentally different to any promises they may or may not have made to their constituencies. Now, divorce is something that’s very common in society today & in many cases may be a good thing. Divorce is just two people saying, “hey, this isn’t working out anymore & both of us would do better if we moved on”. Having a mistress is something entirely different. That is a breach of trust (unless they have an open relationship) and, in my mind, that does constitute a valid concern for me, the constituent. (If there is an open relationship, that needs to be made clear to the constituents to the extent that it changes the status of the “mistress”.)
This also comes up in the more touchy case of Mitt Romney. Previously, Kennedy dealt with this (and it’s not the first time I’ve heard the similarities between Catholics & Mormons) with some success, and recent studies regarding how many atheists hold “positions of power” indicate that Americans care what their elected officials believe.
What role should a public figure’s private religious beliefs have on their public duties and what role should a public figure’s private indiscretions have on their public duties? We would all rather, of course, that our public figures be above reproach & without blemish, but aren’t mistresses indicative of a fundamental lack of character? Is baptism or church attendance indicative of trustworthiness?
When Clinton & Lewinsky were dallying, I was as yet unable to vote but was a republican by osmosis. I believed then and I believe now that trust is trust and a breach of trust to someone much closer to you than a voter ever could be is most certainly a tidbit I would take with me to the polls. I’m not trying to revive long-dead ghosts of blame or impeachment, I’m simply trying to come to terms with the humanity of my elected officials. I would love to be able to defend Clinton and I do believe it’s not as bad as what Bush is doing, but I can’t come up with a defense that I can get behind. Where is the line between public & private? Or is there one? Once you get elected, is your whole life open to interpretation by your constituents & the media? Villaraigosa (whose current last name is a combination of his father’s last name & his wife’s last name) constantly says he wants his wife & his children to be spared the media; this is a noble goal, but his extramarital affair dragged his relationship with his wife into the fray. This is something his constituency is entitled to know because it acts as a character witness for someone they can only know through the media.
5 responses so far ↓
1 John // Jul 4, 2007 at 11:47 am
Hmmm…complicated.
Some (controversial/poor) leaders who were/are probably faithful to their spouses:
- George W. Bush
- Jimmy Carter
- Richard Nixon?
- Pat Robertson
Widely respected leaders who weren’t:
- Martin Luther King, Jr
- Many of those sainted white guys who founded the USA
- Albert Einstein
- Joseph Smith (w/Fanny Alger)
I suspect that history is full of faithful tyrants and unfaithful reformers. Can anyone add female examples to this list?
It’s just a grab bag–trying to mix things up a bit. I think that fidelity to one’s spouse should be a factor in considering the character of a political leader, but only one in the many. And it probably should be something for the electorate to consider, but I think in the U.S. it often gets emphasized while screening out a dozen other major character flaws or strengths. (our choices seem to be limited to symbolic votes or the lesser of a few evils.) I would rather have an adulterer who valued the lives of our young people, for example, over a faithful one who didn’t.
2 Elaine Frei // Jul 4, 2007 at 2:53 pm
My feeling has always been that if being unfaithful to a life partner disqualifies one from holding leadership positions, most (or at least many) of the past leaders in world history - political, social, and religious - should never have been allowed the positions they held.
I’m not saying that being unfaithful, whatever that means in a culture or in a relationship, is a minor thing. Certainly it isn’t. But I guess I am saying that perhaps here in the US we are more Victorian in our attitudes toward sexual infidelity than is probably strictly necessary when it comes to evaluating an individual’s suitability to lead. Maybe it just comes down to the fact that I don’t believe that because someone lies about what they do sexually, that means they are going to lie (or cheat) in other areas. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know.
And, yeah, what John said in the last sentence of his comment.
3 TammyT // Jul 5, 2007 at 6:46 pm
If this were France, everyone would be all like, “So what?”
In my opinion, decisions of the mind are much different than decisions of the penis (er….heart).
I have known enough guys who are kick-ass in their management business roles but who have a horrible time in their personal lives.
Politicians should be judged solely on their ability to be politicians. Personal lives shouldn’t matter one bit unless it causes them to be unable to do their jobs. For example, is the person they are sleeping with on the side manipulating them into making bad decisions?
As for trust issue - I don’t trust any politicians. The fact that they’ve cheated on their wives doesn’t change that much. I pretty much expect it for most of them. I want to know - what did they actually sign, who are they supporting and can they be bribed?
That said, I think politicians are dumb if they think that having an affair can 1) be hidden or 2) won’t effect public opinion of them here in the states, where showing a boob is traumatizing.
4 nee // Jul 7, 2007 at 2:48 pm
I heard a report on NPR about this mayor this past week. His proclivities aside (and with a media gal at that… not a smart move), they made it sound like his character and connections were questionable to begin with he was lucky to have gotten elected.
Not everything is black and white, indeed few things are. Some people are crappy employees yet great and faithful lovers and vice versa.
Everyone has areas of their life where they act less than ideal - tax cheats, law breakers, addicts (pick your poison), liars, thieves (from petty office supplies to grand larceny), traffic law violators, to just plain being rude snots at times. We work with these people. We are these people. In one form or another, we’re all less than ideal.
However, my dismay when finding out about philanderers is greater. If the people who are supposed to be able to trust someone the most cannot, why should I as a coworker or constituent trust them? They owe me far less consideration than their family.
When it comes to being in the public (or military) eye, affairs are even worse because the potential for blackmail is high… very, very high. I knew someone in the military several years ago who faced penalties for having an affair with a married woman.
One of the few things that even remotely redeems an adulterer in my eyes is culpability and confession. Not the act of deny, deny, deny and saying stuff like, “It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.”
I expect people to be human. I expect us all to make blunders big and small. Not all blunders carry the same weight, however, and the blunder of cheating on one’s spouse is going to weigh heavier than some others on my scale.
5 Jonathan // Jul 9, 2007 at 11:30 am
Go nee! I couldn’t have said it better if I tried…
“One of the few things that even remotely redeems an adulterer in my eyes is culpability and confession…”
Yeah - if a person with a good heart who tries to be moral screws up, this is the kind of behavior we need to see to have our faith restored in their ability to lead and govern with moral bearings.
Unfortunately, with bad moral choices come the inevitable bad repercussions. Even though you are truly sorry, you have forever sacrificed the support and trust of your closest friend in life - your spouse. Just in my short lifetime, it seems that so much of my happiness and success is tied up in my closest relationship - with my wife. To loose that relationship would cause my life and my dreams to fall to pieces. To anyone else, I imagine the same would happen to a greater or lesser degree.
My sister just told me a chilling story about a friend of hers talking to a satanist on a plane trip. The satanist was going to a national convention with the sole purpose to pray (to Satan I guess) to destroy the marriages of Christian pastors.
So it appears that great leadership can be destroyed by sabotaging a leader’s closest relationships - whether they do it themselves out of ignorance or if others help.
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