There's a disconnect in American politics. While polls show that politicians join journalists and attorneys at the low end of respected professionals spectrum, we expect political candidates to be squeaky-clean and angelic. We can't possibly reconcile these two perceptions, so maybe we're just looking for candidates we can pretend are perfect models of human behavior. It's not so much a matter of being perfect, as it is of looking perfect. Everyone knows it's not true.A New York Times story that broke last night illustrates my point.
Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
My reaction here was "so what?" I mean, we're not hiring the church choir director here.
Actually, let me qualify that "so what"; I don't care if McCain had an affair eight years ago, but I do care that he was way too close to a lobbyist. And, despite the media coverage of the revelation, that was the focus of the story. The headline isn't "Horndog McCain Gets Himself Some Lobbyist Ass," it's "For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk." It's actually a substantial piece of investigative journalism that the rest of the media have turned into the sex scandal of the moment. The problem isn't that McCain may or may not have slept with a 40 year-old lobbyist, the problem is that McCain may or may not have used his position to swing deals her way. According to the piece, "[N]ews organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client," and, "some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement."
The problem isn't that McCain may have been unfaithful, the problem is that McCain may be crooked. I could give a crap about the former, but the latter is the sort of thing that makes a difference...
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