If you tear the lid off of some of these practitioners of politics, the smell of rotting goop will overpower you. That is why they seek guides from the professional ranks of seers–to provide them with cover and polishing for their private and public sins, past and present.

We need more tearers-of-lids at an earlier point in the soddy careers of many politicians. Plus, we need a surer mechanism for shedding those who have outstayed their welcome or have committed egregious sins at citizen’s expense. Quite a few names come to mind, but I will refrain from calling them out here. Perhaps term limits will help.

Virtue is happiness! — Socrates

Never mind anyway, it doesn’t matter.

I fixed it for you.

Seriously, who would ask a man to do what they won’t do?

I would disagree with McDonald on the basis of private virtue — keeping sacred one’s promise to be faithful - as being reflective of and relevant to a politician’s basic trustworthiness.

Quite so, and I’ll tell you this, Rick: It seems to me that this is where we get ourselves into trouble when we try to separate the personal from the political.

First of all, I have always held that the political is the reflection of the personal. Politics is not a game unto itself, it is ideally a tool by which we implement our most personal values. On that basis, then, is it logical not to question how someone is going to be operating in the political world in terms of trustworthiness and so on, when one turns their back on their most personal promises and values? Put another way, how am I going to trust a bill Clinton to keep his word to me, when he can’t even keep his word to himself and his wife and his God, Vis’ a vie’ his marriage vows, and Lewinsky et al?

Now, I’m quite sure I’m going to be told and no uncertain terms by some of the left, that these problems would seemingly include Newt Gingrich for example. John McCain. And that’s quite right. It does. You mention Giuliani, Rick, so let’s include him on that list as well.

Is such a transgression a showstopper, particularly years down the road after the fact? Should it kill off someone’s political chances going forward for all time? Perhaps not. But it doesn’t make sense to me to exclude such considerations altogether, particularly when the event is a recent one.

There’s another level of this, as well. Time was, when someone getting elected to a higher office meant that he was among the best our country had to offer itself. In terms of respect, for the person elected was an honorable person. Certainly this was true in this country’s early days. Not so much, anymore, I’m afraid.

Someone above, mentions that this is a mere reflection of the society as it has developed. That certainly can be argued. But in our acknowledgment of increasing levels of depravity in our society does that mean that we must make increased allowances for it in those we elect? Or should we be in fact more diligent in our choices of those we elect to high office?

At the risk of throwing a conversation off the rails entirely, I will close by suggesting that most of our problems in government today and for the last 60 or 70 years are so can be directly attributable to our lack of diligence about who we give the power of government to.

Yes, it would be nice if our politicians would be examples of upstanding virtue.

However; they merely reflect society at large. They are just imitating their Corporate Masters; who have forced their “winner take all” mentality on the rest of society.

Back when I worked in Corp America I learned the promotion depended not on qualification or experience but on friendship or nepotism.

Many times I watched as managers did questionable things; but got away with their decisions because of their positions.

VDH struggles mightily to identify some theme to make sense out of the ways moral flaws and hypocrisies are played out in the politics of today.
While I admire his effort and his examples, I think he mostly misses a simple point, the one Lyn…