Is it me or does it seem like there are a lot of sex scandals in the news lately? Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child with one of his workers several years ago and it’s just now come out. We have Dominique Strauss-Khan, the former head of the International Monetary Fund and former potential French presidential candidate from the Socialist party (DSK as the French call him), accused of sexual assault against a hotel worker. We also have comedic gold from Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) who has been sexting over Twitter with several women. Incidentally, Congressman Chris Lee (R-NY) engaged in similar activity over Craigslist earlier this year and has since resigned. Furthermore, there are rumblings about whether the King of Sweden frequents strip clubs. John Edwards is now facing criminal charges stemming from his own sex scandal. And the list goes on.
I don’t really want to discuss the details and my views of each case. After all, you can find those kinds of details very easily. Instead, I’d like to address a different question here, namely what degree of privacy politicians are entitled to regarding personal affairs like these.
I’m conflicted on the question of how much privacy politicians should get. On the one hand, they’re people and as such, they’re bound to have issues like this. The attention and lack of privacy makes them that much harder to deal with, so from an individual perspective, I’m highly sympathetic. It’s hard enough learning that you’ve been cheated on, but when the whole world knows and the media’s grilling you about each excruciating detail, it’s that much worse and makes addressing the problem even harder than it already is. That’s hard on the politician and the politician’s family.
On the other hand, these are also elected officials. These are people that we’re voting for/against. These are the people we’re choosing to represent us in our republic. These are the people who are making the tough decisions. Because of the intense responsibility of public office, we do have a right to know who we’re voting for and who’s representing us. We have the right to know if the elected official has his/her own life in order because whether they do or do not impacts their decision-making. Character matters, and these kinds of things go to character. We can’t hold a politicians mistakes and/or shortcomings against him/her indefinitely unless it’s something truly terrible (the same applies for something good), but we need to know about them.
Here are some examples.
To me, a person who doesn’t have his/her own finances in order likely isn’t as qualified to make decisions regarding the finances of the town/state/nation as someone who does have his/her finances in order. Note there can be valid reasons to have financials in a less than ideal state, but it’s not always the case that there are.
I’d want to know if a politician has anger management issues because it could make him/her more likely to do something rash out of rage (starting a war is an extreme example).
We should know if a politician has a history of drug/alcohol abuse because that can cause all sorts of problems if a relapse occurs, or even worse, if he/she is still secretly abusing. On the flip side, this can also be a positive because the person may be determined to never go back. As with the finances, we need to know the full story.
Knowing that a politician cheats on his/her partner(s) naturally leads to the question, “If a politician has such little regard for the person/people he/she has committed to, how little does the politician think of voters/taxpayers/citizens like the rest of us and myself?”
And here are some positive examples. I include these for completeness and balance, however note that politicians generally aren’t shy about extolling their good sides.
I’d want to know if a politician donated, say a kidney, to save someone’s life. That’s the kind of selflessness we need in our elected officials. In the same light, we should know if a politician sustained serious injuries serving his/her community/state/nation.
Knowing that a politician has a proven track record as a leader and decider is a big deal to voters. Along those lines, voters have the right to know if the politician generally ‘plays it safe’ or likes to ‘take a risk’ because this can influence how someone perceives reward and risk, which is vital to understanding a person’s decision-making. This one can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the situation because sometimes the truly riskiest thing one can do is to play it safe and sometimes the truly safest thing one can do is to take a risk. Dana Milbank wrote an excellent article about this topic earlier this week that can be found here.
By choosing to seek public office, I think they’re inherently forfeiting a certain degree of their right to privacy. It comes with the territory, but some privacy is needed to deal with difficult issues. There has to be a balance between allowing politicians to deal with these issues in private versus our right as voters to know the politicians we’re voting for/against.
Links:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/574740/201106081800/Pols-Peccadillos-Pale-Vis-A-Vis-Official-Actions.aspx?src=SeeAlso
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