Nickyitis – An Epidemic of Humorous Proportions

Enough already!

The time is long overdue to simply remove infidelity from politics. And by that, I don’t mean to stop doing it. But simply to stop talking about it, stop gossiping  about it, and stop standing atop hallowed principles shouting about how bad "they" are and how good "we" are. Because the "we" that haven’t done it yet have a disconcerting habit of falling into the "they" camp.

Each new "shocking" revelation provides grist for the hyper-excited tabloid coverage of who did what, to whom, and are there any pictures we can get of the sinning couple? A week or so of distraction from events of real importance, damage to  a career and then on to the next titillation.

Back before the news media was as efficient at uncovering the dirt as it is today, guys like Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy could fool around without too much of a worry. And it could be argued (very persuasively) that they did their jobs just fine in spite of it. Of course, if it had come out in the news they’d have had to resign in disgrace. And what would the point of that have been?

Gary Hart had hopes of the presidency when photos of an enlapped Donna Rice caused a quick and permanent shutdown to that campaign. Who else? Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, John Ensign, John Edwards, and now Mark Sanford.  It’s not just political figures either. FIA chief Max Mosley was filmed at a private S&M session with half a dozen private hookers, almost certainly by someone who wanted  to force him down from his position as the FIA’s president. To Mosley’s credit, he refused to go quietly into the night and rightly said that his after-hours entertainment had zero to do with his day job and any extra-marital excursions were something he and his wife would deal with.

Doubly irksome is that it’s often the case that the guys who most loudly attack their political opponents for sexual misconduct are themselves subject to the same urges and failures. Sanford’s attacks on Clinton come to mind as we read about his Argentina vacation.

The problem is that we’re tied to millions of years of evolution and our intellectual constructs, such as  moral goodness, marital fidelity, and so forth, simply are no match for our biological imperatives. It’s been shown so many times that it’s tiresome just from the repetition. Guys DO this. Not all. But many. And it’s not particularly because they want to, at least in an abstract sense. Intellectually I’m sure they’d rather it didn’t happen, considering the fallout which inevitably follows. But when that deep limbic center says "go for it" they’re going to have a tough time ignoring the command.

So, what’s my point? That we should simply accept the fact that guys (and women too!) are susceptible to infidelity and then eliminate it from our public discourse. Simply off bounds. Don’t ask and don’t tell.  It’s an issue for the guy and his wife and their family to deal with. And that’s where it should end. I really, really, have no need or desire to know.

From my standpoint I want to know if the person is doing a good job or not. And if he is then I’m happy. His marital problems are his own concern. Seriously. The Europeans are SO much better at this than we are. Must be that puritan history of ours. But if we could let people’s private lives be their own (what a  concept), maybe we could start spending time on other issues. Like, oh I don’t know, impending war in Iran and Korea, massive die-offs of the ocean, catastrophic climate change – you know, stuff that just possibly will have a bit more importance to our future well being.

- And that’s today’s word from the bird