“Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
--Abraham Lincoln--
“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.”
--Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.--
“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson--
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”
--Eleanor Roosevelt--
I have argued with friends of mine for years that we as voters should pay less attention to things like how faithful a politician is to his/her spouse or how good or bad he/she appears to be as a parent instead of how honest they are with the American people or how much sense their plans make or how they have conducted the affairs of their office. My friends have steadfastly advocated the idea that how a person conducts himself/herself in their private life reveals their character and character is of paramount importance when it comes to choosing a leader. Well, the events of this past week present me with an opportunity to highlight the difference between public as opposed to private behavior.
Ever since this country was born we as Americans have been more than willing to make and pass moral judgments on one another. It is not surprising that most of “us” conveniently ignore the directions given in the New Testament of the Bible that says “why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Luke 6:41) Yet that does not stop most of “us” from getting on our moral high horse and passing judgment on everyone else but ourselves. I think that is why we love to delve into politicians’ past and their personal life, which in my opinion makes it easy for politicians to avoid issues of importance by selling “us” an image of the perfect family man or woman. It does not matter whether that image is in fact true because how well they handle their family life or their children or how much they love their spouse or how pristine their past is does not usually address the issues that will affect me and my family.
I elect politicians to affect matters of policy that affect me and my family. It is the decisions that they make around policies, regulations, and laws that affect me and my family. That is what I am concerned with the most. The situation with President Bush and how he handled the warnings before 9/11 and whether he lied to country to get “us” to invade Iraq is a perfect example of what I am writing about.
President Bush was elected after President Clinton. Many people believe that the whole affair with Monica Lewinski and President Clinton may have played a role in President Bush being elected. I have heard many people pass judgment on President Clinton, and by extension Vice President Gore, regarding Clinton’s lack of character for having the affair (and for lying about it, which I can understand). The contrast of these two Presidents and the nature of the two scandals illustrate my point. The best way to summarize the difference between the two situations is to say that in one situation there was a President that was unfaithful to his wife while in the other situation there is the argument that there was a President that was unfaithful to the American people. The bottom line is that no one died because of President Clinton’s affair, while we as a country have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of soldiers have died and their lives have been irrevocably changed because of the decision to go to war with Iraq by overstating the threat of WMD by the Bush Administration. Which one do you think had or has the most impact on the American people?
I want to be clear. I am not trying to apologize for President Clinton’s stupid decision to cheat on his wife. I am not trying to argue that it is morally okay for people to cheat on their spouses or that President Clinton was a better President than Bush. That is not what this article is about. I just want to raise the issue that maybe if we as Americans, and especially as African-Americans since we have so many issues to address in our community, start to pay more attention to the things that a politician can or will do in their capacity as an elected official that affects “us” directly then maybe we will have less tragedies like the Iraq war.
By the way, two very good Presidents in our country’s history were unfaithful to their wives but had the character to steer us through some tough times. They are JFK and FDR. One kept us out of nuclear war over the course of thirteen days and another steered us through the great depression and the Second World War. I am so glad the moral police did not keep them out of the White House because if they had who knows where we all would be today.
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