February 22, 2008
Adultery, honesty and the presidential election
I was glad to see that the subject of adultery - which has long played such a central and entertaining role in American politics - has reared its head again. Hillary Clinton made a guarded reference to her marital problems in her closing remarks in the most recent debate.
But the big news - of course - is the New York Times’s suggestion that John McCain had an affair with a lobbyist.
McCain has denied the story. His wife Cindy has said that he “would never do anything to disappoint our family and, more importantly, to disappoint America.” More importantly? That seems excessively high-minded of her.
I’ve no idea whether these latest allegations are true. But McCain has not denied accusations of adultery during his first marriage. He left his first wife - who had waited for him while he was a POW in Vietnam. She alluded to his affairs by saying - “John turned 40 and wanted to be 25 again.” Perhaps as he approached 70, he decided to be 30 again?
But - salacious details aside - the interesting question is does it matter? Would America have any right to be “disappointed” or to think less of McCain as a candidate, if he had committed adultery?
Allegations of infidelity are certainly awkward for a man who has made much of his integrity and whose campaign bus is called the “Straight Talk Express”. The usual line of criticism is that - “If he lied to his wife, he might lie to the country.”
I think this line of argument is specious. Governing a country and running your private life are different things. Lying about sex and lying about politics do not fall into the same category.
I assume that most people who have committed a sexual indiscretion will try to cover it up. Even if Bill Clinton had not been a politician, he would have tried to avoid telling the truth about the Lewinsky affair. It was embarrassing. And - as a politician - he could plausibly argue that it had no bearing on his ability to balance the budget or bring peace to the Middle East.
Anyway, I think it is much harder to be honest as a politician than as a spouse. The nature of their trade sooner or later forces most politicians into lying - on an almost daily basis. It doesn’t mean they are bad people. It is just that they are constantly asked questions that it would be foolish to give a straight answer to. Have you thought about sacking X? Have you been conducting secret discussions with country Y? As a politician, you will inevitably have to lie.
The issue of (in)fidelity should be kept within the ambit of yellow journalism. Who cares if he slept around on his wife? In fact, if John McCain admitted to getting off on the feeling of pyrex, I’d probably respect him more as a person. America needs a Mitterand to sanitize this wasteful issue.
Posted by: Crusk | February 22nd, 2008 at 5:50 pm | Report this commentI agree. None of our business. Similarly the American obsession with ‘flip-flopping’ is overdone — as Moshe Dayan (a veritable womaniser) once famously remarked: only a donkey never changed his mind (in response to his support for ‘returning’ Sinai to Egypt).
Posted by: RCS | February 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm | Report this commentI think Bill Clinton should abandon Hillary and join McCain’s campaign
Did Moshe Dayan seduce the women by winking at them?!
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | February 22nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm | Report this commentI live in Africa where Bill Clinton is widely praised and loved ! It does not matter !
Posted by: Petri Bario | February 22nd, 2008 at 6:48 pm | Report this commentThe point is not so much whether or not McCain was having an affair, more whether or not someone who brags endlessly about his own uncorruptibility was actually doing favours for a blonde lobbyist. While he denied it, he directly intervened in matters for Iseman’s clients (it’s on the record). Claiming you’re the most honest guy in the world is fine, but don’t embarrass yourself. This goes way beyond “lying for his country”, this is just old fashioned corruption. Whether the favours are sexual or financial is beside the point.
Posted by: PAW | February 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 pm | Report this commenta propos Moshe Dayan and winks: During the Six-Day War Lyndon Johnson is said to have remarked to his aides: “if I ever discover who started this war, I’ll take out his second eye!”
I don’t believe it (that Dayan started the war).
Posted by: Ron Cohen-Seban | February 22nd, 2008 at 6:59 pm | Report this commentCould this not be a ploy to take some of the thunder out of Obama’s campaign?
Any clue as to what lobby she hangs out in?
Does she know Bill? (Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Or did someone already ask that one?)
Posted by: WCM | February 22nd, 2008 at 7:55 pm | Report this commentThe issue isn’t adultery. The issue is corruption. I don’t care at all about McCain’s sex life but I do care that he was flying to fundraisers on private jets belonging to clients of this particular lobbyist. I do care that McCain acted on behalf of clients of the lobbyist. I do care that, public rhetoric aside, McCain appears to not have changed at all since his association with Charles Keating, a financial disaster that left the taxpayers footing the bill. This is hardly a good display of conservatism.
Posted by: jr | February 22nd, 2008 at 7:59 pm | Report this commentPerhaps that is why Mike Huckabee is being so doggedly persistentin staying in the race- could there be any unexpected surprises ahead of the convention?
Posted by: Ipanema | February 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm | Report this commentAlso agree with WCM above- McCain could also show vulnerabilities, especially if Obama gets the nomination
Posted by: Ipanema | February 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm | Report this commentNo…the issue is not adultery…nor is it corruption…the issue is Shoddy Journalism…the NY Times has become the story…as it deserves to be…
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | February 22nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm | Report this commentYes, Lisa-Helene Lawson, let’s blame the messenger. That will solve the problem every time, just as it did when the Republican lunatic fringe right called for the Times’ editor to be prosecuted for treason for revealing the truth about Bush’s illegal spying, or way back in the Vietnam era, when the same paper (with the blessing of a Supreme Court that really believed in democracy in those days) published the Pentagon Papers, revealing the government’s lies about the Vietnam war.
I don’t care particularly if McCain is an adulterer. In fact, I am inclined to take him at his word, as I believe he is one of that comparatively rare species known as honorable Republicans. But it makes a huge difference to the Republican right whether he is an adulterer or not, as will become clearer and clearer as time goes on.
And it should make a big difference to all of us if McCain does turn out to have been a hypocrite on lobbying. Go, go, go, NY Times. Follow the truth, wherever it leads. This is not the time to pay any heed to Rush Limbaugh or anyone else who seeks to muzzle a paper which, again and again, has been the conscience of America when there has been no one else to fill this role.
Posted by: algasema | February 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm | Report this commentOh dont be ridiculous…it was a poorly written article…and to run it front page and center…unbelieveably stupid…this has nothing to do with “blaming the messenger”… NYT has egg on their face…I love journalism, my father was one of the best…this article was a journalistic embarrassment…
“Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction (including more than 2,400 reader comments posted on our Web site). I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot. And, frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story… Bill Keller [NYT]Executive Editor”
Well such a hapless clueless person perhaps is in over his head being an exec editor…What can you say, but that it would have been a very important article IF it had been written and sourced properly…it wasn’t.
Posted by: Lisa-Helene Lawson | February 23rd, 2008 at 5:45 am | Report this commentI think this puritanism, or rather false puritanism, of the Americans is ridicolous. What has to do a man’s private life with his capicity to rule a country ?
Posted by: Roberto Castellano | February 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 am | Report this commentOf the five years that John McCain spent as a prisoner of the Vietnamese, about four of those years were because he refused to be exchanged — as the son of a US admiral, the Vietnamese were eager to exchange him for propaganda purposes. Because of that reputation for honor and integrity in the face of torture, most people feel safe about his basic honesty. I think he would only be vulnerable if he were caught actually taking money.
I think the NYT makes no sense. They had the story, it seems for months, yet they “endorsed” McCain as the Republican candidate. The war in Iraq has damaged the credibility of the Times, perhaps beyond repair.
Posted by: David Seaton | February 23rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm | Report this commentUntil yesterday, I had not realised how much of the McCain story I had missed by not being exposed more to his televised image and personal coverage in US media.
Conventional wisdom, sufficiently well argued for me on the Reason;tv clip of Tucker-Buchanan-Gillespie, seems insistent on the point that McCain’s sex life is irrelevant.
Watching McCain and his fits-a-stereotype third wife and reflecting back on his Bomb-bomb-bomb-bomba-Iran performance, I realise this guy is every bit a candidate for an eternal-Bachelor ranch show. I had underestimated just how powerful this guy may play with women.
I would agree with the referenced panaelists who conclude conservatives have nowhere to go. I disagree with their thinking that independents may be focused squarely on the lobbyist and damage-control sides of the story.
Back to my first response: this story seems a bit set up. It does help Hillary, and it seems unlikely to hurt McCain. Now it is Obama who seems naïve when it comes to the games the adults play. Clever.
Posted by: WCM | February 23rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm | Report this commentMy apologies for seeming to be an elitist snob, but direct democracy does not engender the best results: witness Bush, Sarkozy and Obama (not to mention the rise of Fascism and Nazism). Of course there is great danger in the other extreme — a prinicpled leadership like that of China or Singapore is rare. Therefore a balance needs be struck between the inability of an open-ended council of all willing citizens to reach considered decisions, and the tendency of elites to be self-serving.
Churchill famously reamrked that democracy is the worst system of governance except all others. But which kind of democracy? Parliamentary democracies — as in the UK, Germany and Japan — pass the test: they balance between the catarthis provided by competition, and the stability provided by the continuity of an experienced political class.
Those lamenting the non-existence of separation-of-powers in the UK are wrong. The US constitution is a formalisation of the English constitution of the time (with Government accountable to the King, not Parliament, ie a separation-of-powers between the executive and the legislative). The English constitution has indeed since evolved away from that model, but it is the parliamentary system — not the US system — which is the lessor evil of Churchill’s aphorism.
Posted by: RCS | February 23rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm | Report this commentThe issue is his unethical and possibly illegal conduct with a lobbyist. The sex scandal is what gets it on the front page. McCain dealt with the adultery accusations by saying his aides were essentially lying. His own aides lying? That reflects poorly on McCain’s judgment. Also, McCain’s Az. co-chair, Renzi, got indicted and McCain has been caught trying to have it both ways with Public Financing. This guy is fast becoming Bribey Mc Crook-crook and the sex scandal dragged it all onto the front page.
Posted by: Politico | February 23rd, 2008 at 5:08 pm | Report this commentMcCain’s campaign is rotting from the head down.
WCM We could all do without the principles of Tianamen Square; mass suppression, incarceration and torture of Falun Gong practitioners; child slavery; and China’s extra-judicial police hit squads. You’re fooling yourself, if you think China has anything to offer us, except a path to hell. FYI we don’t have direct democracy in the US, we have representative democracy.
Posted by: Politico | February 23rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm | Report this commentI am not a fan of McCain but I think that it is worth noting that the egregious favour for the lobbyist was that he wrote a letter to the FCC asking it to come to a decision regarding her client (Mr Paxson) after they had delayed for TWO years.He did not ask them to come to a decision favouring her client. Even lobbyists may be in the right sometimes and politicians do have the right to respond to problems raised by lobbyists as well as by constituents.
Posted by: Ian | February 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm | Report this commentRepeatedly resurfacing debate if marital infidelity of elected officials matters or not, including if or how it affect his/her in office execution of public trust are - clearly - statnadrd tool in political warfare’s toolbox.
I believe that it DOES indicate something when a leader (naturally, conservative or liberal) preaching moral standards cheats on the most private (some believe sacred) contract: marrital “until death …”.
QUESTION is: Can we do anything about that. I believe, rather strongly, not emotionally, but based on facst, modern and old history, that the saying “Behind any fortune are swindles.”
This applies to Bill Gates, Morgan, your employer’s CEO, even your town mayor, and clearly to top leaders in every country.
Like Casanovas in world “love” (lets call it seduction to satisfy one’s needs for gratification on one side and somehow desperate need to be “loved” on the other side), sucessful people in everything in which human society sees a sign of sucess, is often endless track of swindles, snake oil salesmanship, geting something for nothing or - at best - get consistently more then one gives out.
Not only Van Gogs, in poverty dying true inventors (i.e. also those who did not have slaesmanship skills of Edison) but a majority of people who are not so alle to “sell” and “negotiate” end us as loosers or at least as not making it “to the top”.
So when we desire a pure as snow candidates for highest office (or any other leadership position) don’t fool ourselves that we’ll get one looking for tem among already accomplished ones. That’s naive like believing in Santa Claus or tooth fairy.
Besides: Modern “moral standards” are too remote to harshness, punitive, “free-will” enslaving orthodoxy of too many uears ago, which most would not be likely to adopt and behave by if given choice between an adulterous presidential candidate and “moral community”.
That American society gets so pumped up about leaders’ marrital infidelities doesn’t necessary mean that US politics is better than the rest: Mitterand’s out-of-wedlock daughter, Czech “konservative” president, Mr. Klaus, extra-marrital affairs with flight attendants, while his “conservative” party, ODS, sucessor in helm and as PM, Topolanek, not only is infidel, doesn’t divorce, lives with his party MP’s and fathers her child, yet both are “good allies” of US, leading EU in giving US all kinds of personal data on their fellow citizens who travel to the US and promising to OK a radar (which makes, so far not infidel husband of Mrs. Putin, great discomfort).
McCain has not only age, oratory disadvantage compared to Mr. Obama (as only a miracle can make Billary a nominee?): McCain, great patrior from distinguished family of military service will crack up in debates and if extreme right will continue not to be willing to deliver the numbers in coming November, if the race card (this time not from Clintons but prom Republicans) will not generate enough fear and again bring the milions to the voting places … Mr. Obama and the top 1 or 2% of US population will have a lot to think about: how to accomodate each other w/o rocking the boat.
Posted by: Sidney | February 23rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm | Report this comment>>Politico–You have confused RCS for me. I decided to pass on commenting on his post, and would agree with you on this point of China’s governance virtues.
Procedurally, what options are open to the Republicans if they decide McCain is unworthy?
Posted by: WCM | February 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 pm | Report this commentWill be offline for a few days, but would suggest there is much that is worthy to read on the exploding debate in France on its recently elected right-wing, Neocon charmer in the weekly Marianne (23-29 fév; www.marianne2.fr). More than 10.000 leading parliamentarians, journalists and “intellectuals”, including many of the top names in his own UMP party, have signed a lettre call “l’appel du 14 février”. Dominique de Villepin and Ségolène Royal, along with Hubert Védrine, led the list, which was published in newspapers on Valentine’s Day. It condemns his recent political and, implicitly, personal conduct as a threat to republicanism.
Among his offences are his call to restore the Church and the Temple as “pillars” of the very secular French Republic. He said recently that state teachers cannot teach our children right from wrong as well as priests, curates or rabbis. He also said that he had made it possible for Islam to thrive in France when he was Interieur Minister, but then the Arabs voted against him in the presidential election. So, screw them. Last week, he promised Israel unbending support and said that school curriculums would be changed to teach every child the true history of the Holocaust.
L’appel du 14 février has now taken on the historical weight of the famous “J’accuse!” letter by Emile Zola 110 years ago during the Dreyfuss Affair.
A survey today shows that 69 percent of the French are in accord with l’appel du 14 février. The media can still be employed to carry messages that its owners (largely friends of Sarkozy) do not agree with. Refreshing, but as Marianne details the Sarkozyistes are quite clever into turning this into an attack on their beloved bad boy.
Posted by: WCM | February 23rd, 2008 at 9:30 pm | Report this commentWCM
Figaro reports today that Sarko”s attempt to foist the holocaust story on french 9year olds is resented by 85% of the french.
The majority of americans voted for an exit from iraq in the last congressional elections.
Will any of the present canditates listen to their wishes?
Posted by: MP | February 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm | Report this commentThe Holocaust — as well as the Armenian Genocide, Cambodia, Ruanda — should be taught to every child on earth. In this I applaud President Sarkozy.
MP, what brings you to single out this issue from the many raised by WCM? Tired of your equations?
Posted by: RCS | February 23rd, 2008 at 11:12 pm | Report this commentBravo, Politico! Ironically, a clash over the same “principles” of China’s dictatorship that have made such a favorable impression on WCM (I wonder what he thought, if anything, about Pinochet’s “principles” or Suharto’s, not to mention those of Kim Jong-Il or the Burmese generals) supports Lisa-Helene Lawson’s point that the NY Times does not always get it right. (And no one is making a claim of infallibility for the Times, even though it was one of the few papers in America to get the Iraq war right BEFORE it began, and it has been right on many other issues that no other paper had the guts to mention at all.)
The Times has recently been accused (by Echo Times, a newspaper that is not afraid to print a lot of “inconvenient truths” about China’s abysmal human rights record) of unfairly panning a show entitled “Chinese New Year Spendor” merely because it had some scenes putting Falun Gong in a favorable light. Having neither seen the show nor read the NY Times article, I am not the right person to comment further. But if there is any truth to Echo Times’ claim, it would be a hundred times more disgraceful to the NY Times reputation than anything in its article about John McCain.
As for the latter article, there seem to be two types of journalism in George W. Bush’s America. One is “investigative journalism, i. e. attacking a Democrat, and the other is “shoddy journalism”, i. e. doing the same to a Republican.
Posted by: algasema | February 24th, 2008 at 12:39 am | Report this commentIt is very late here and I am returning from a very pleasant evening. Nonetheless, I MUST say that I am NOT the one who held China or wherever up as governance moldes. IT WAS RCS.
Posted by: WCM | February 24th, 2008 at 1:27 am | Report this commentMcCain lied in his statement to the press . His face and eyes were a dead giveaway . McCain may not have had sex with the young blond lobbyist but he wanted to and he loved a 32 year old woman giving him so much attention .That attention from a young blond drove him to do her bidding for her clients in hopes of more attention and sex .Vicki Iseman seduced him with her flirtations and Paxson seduced him with contributions as Charles Keating had done with Lincoln Savings and Loans .
Ironically, the day before the Times story ran McCain’s wife tried to put down Michelle Obama for her statement about being really proud of America ,politically ,for the first time for embracing change . McCain commented that Obama was naive for his view on Pakistan . It was pure poetic justice that John and Cindy McCain had to eat Crow before the Press and the Nation . Who is Naive and a hyprocrite to boot :John McCain .
This senario of McCain and his wife throwing insults at Obama and his wife will continuously boomerang back to beat McCain without mercy throughout his campaign for the Presidency . McCain is a War-Drunk Patriot who should retire for the good of the Nation .He can only prove himself by starting and maintaining and supporting the wrong wars i.e.Vietnam ,Iraq and his Bomb,Bomb Iran diatribe . Retire McCain Now
Posted by: Simo | February 24th, 2008 at 4:38 am | Report this commentMost were thinking that the big surprise woukd likely come on the Democrat side (Al Gore as a consensus candidate). However, if this story takes on more life, I believe that we should not exclude an unexpected surprise (how about a Bloomberg/Huckabee ticket) from the Republicans!
Posted by: Ipanema | February 24th, 2008 at 5:19 pm | Report this commentPut me down as agreeing with the people who emphasize the possibility that the lobbyist advanced her client’s interests and distorted the regulatory process by sleeping with McCain. That’s fairly serious stuff, and it also raises the hypocrisy issue in a big way. On the disclosure-of-extramarital-affairs issue, I’m pulled both ways, but I do think that it’s highly relevant information. Like one of the respondents, finally, I too wonder if Huck has been hanging around in anticipation of the Times story.
Posted by: MikeP | February 24th, 2008 at 5:19 pm | Report this commentRegarding RCS’ statement that “democracy does not engender the best results”, it’s important to express a more nuanced view, namely that the more imperfect the democracy the more imperfect the democratic decisions that get made.
RCS also asks which kind of democracy is best. Important though this question is, my view is that more important factor is getting the supporting pillars of education, access to balanced information, rule of law, controls to prevent undue influence on legislators etc. in place.
Many imperfections in each of these domains are well documented in the US, UK, Palestine or anywhere else one cares to look. (An interesting analysis of the US is Mann & Ornstein’s The Broken Branch http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Politics/AmericanPolitics/LegislativeStudies/?view=usa&ci=9780195174465))
The prospects of any country changing from one model to another are at best remote. A more productive focus should therefore be improving the institutions on which the functioning of our democracies rely. In that regard, it’s interesting to hear the unprecedented focus on lobbyists and special interests in this presidential campaign…
Posted by: DKM | February 25th, 2008 at 11:56 am | Report this commentIf someone tells the voters “vote for me because i will do XYZ”, his private life should be respected. If he tells the voters “vote for me because I am a good familly man”, or because “I have a beautiful wife and children, and btw, here they are for everyone to see”, i think the voters have every right to know whether that’s true or not. All US candidates put their family in the spotlight, so i don’t feel sorry for the destroyed privacy of any of them. Needless to say, i find hard to explain the attitude of the us electorate, who want the candidates to put their families forward and pretend to be good family-men. Any ideas Gideon?
Posted by: AA | February 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm | Report this commentMy apology to WCM for mixing him up with RCS.
Posted by: algasema | February 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm | Report this comment