I have been a John Edwards supporter since 2004, when I campaigned for him in both the primaries for President, and in the general election for VP. Though the recent revelations of his affair have somewhat shaken me up, I still am a John Edwards supporter in many ways. I don’t regret for a moment the support that I gave to him in 2004 or 2008. If he ran again, I very well might support him again. And this talk about his political career being over, and that he has disqualified himself for a cabinet post in the Obama administration is very upsetting to me. John McCain’s affair, which was so much worse than Edwards’, apparently doesn’t disqualify him for the Presidency. Yet Edwards’ affair disqualifies him for any role in politics altogether? What kind of world is that?
My reasons for saying all this are quite simple. I am a liberal/progressive Democrat, and Edwards’
views and actions, most importantly his efforts and plans for ending poverty in our country, are more in line with my views than are those of the great majority of other Democratic politicians.
Having said that, however, I do
not subscribe to the view that considerations of a politician’s private actions should have no bearing on my willingness to vote for them or support them. To the contrary, my view is that one’s private actions have a good deal of bearing on their fitness for public office.
It may appear to some that my third paragraph contradicts my first two paragraphs of this post. But this is a very complex issue in my opinion. If you feel that I’ve contradicted myself, I ask you to bear with me.
Why I feel that consideration of one’s private actions bears on their fitness for public officeI believe that one’s “character” is perhaps the most important consideration in deciding whom to support for public office. By character I mean who the candidate is as a person. I also believe that the most important character issue is one’s capacity for empathy, which I have previously written about as the main source of morality. Here is what I said about empathy in my
previous post:
E
mpathy is the quality whereby we imagine ourselves in another’s shoes – what it is like to be that person (or animal) and experience what that person is experiencing. And it’s more than just imagining it, it’s actually
feeling it – which is where the expression “I feel your pain” comes from. The reason that I believe morality is impossible without empathy is that I cannot imagine what possible value any morality could have if it is not ultimately based on empathy…
Empathy is the most important quality I look for in a U.S. President. Someone with a great capacity for empathy is probably highly unlikely to send our young men and women off to be killed in unnecessary wars. Such a person is also likely to push for domestic policies that are fair for
all Americans, rather than tilted towards the rich and powerful.
Clearly, a person’s actions in their private life can contain many clues as to their capacity for empathy. That statement seems so obvious to me that it hardly needs to be defended.
And if a person demonstrates a large capacity for empathy in their private life, it seems likely that their empathy will have a substantial influence on their public policies. How could it not?
I am not at all saying that one’s private life should be the main area of emphasis in considering one’s fitness for public office. I’m just saying that it can potentially offer important clues.
What is one to make of politicians who appear to exhibit a great deal of empathy in their private lives, and yet in their public lives support right wing policies that greatly hurt ordinary people, for the benefit of the rich and powerful, on whom they depend for campaign contributions?
Trying to answer that question leads me to the conclusion that one’s public actions are usually much more important than their private actions in consideration of their fitness for public office.
Why private actions are usually of limited value in considering one’s fitness for public officeNotwithstanding my belief that one’s private actions can
potentially provide important clues as to one’s fitness for public office, the value of basing our support for a political candidate on his or her private actions has significant limitations.
To explain why, let’s get back to the candidate who appears to lead an exemplary private life while supporting heartless right wing policies that hurt people. How does one explain that?
Perhaps the best way to explain it would be that the
appearance of an exemplary private life is just a mirage. How do we know what kind of private life a person really leads? How do we know that, despite a candidate’s public persona, he or she doesn’t habitually treat other people with insensitivity or cruelty? Though we can get various clues as to a candidate’s character through what we learn about his/her private life, we can never know the whole story. Therefore, I believe that the most likely explanation for politicians who push cruel right wing policies in public while
apparently living exemplary private lives is that their private lives are not what they appear to be. Their public life is a matter of public record, whereas their private life is largely a matter of conjecture, from our vantage point. Therefore, it should be a no-brainer is to which we give the most emphasis.
An alternative to that explanation would be that the politician really does exhibit a good deal of empathy and other positive character traits in his/her private life. In that case, perhaps the explanation for the cruel right wing policies that they push is ignorance or ideological inflexibility. But who would want to vote for such a person? The bottom line is that I would not want to vote for a person who supports cruel right wing public policies
regardless of how virtuous their private lives appear to be.
Adultery in politicsIn my post on empathy as the source of morality I briefly talked about adultery by considering two extreme cases:
At one extreme, consider a man and woman who get married with the express understanding that adultery is not off-limits within the bounds of their marriage. One or both of the spouses commits adultery, and neither one feels hurt about it. Furthermore, there is no dishonesty involved in getting the third party to participate in the adultery, and the third party isn’t hurt either. The way I see it is, no victim, no immorality.
At the other extreme, the couple had a definite understanding when they married that adultery is not consistent with their marriage vows. One partner commits adultery for no good reason other than that he wants to, and the result is that his spouse goes into a depression and commits suicide. And, the adulterer had a very good idea of the pain he would cause when he did it. In my opinion it is the callousness of the act, which in turn derives largely from a lack of empathy, which accounts of the immorality of the act.
But most cases of adultery are not characterized by either of those two extremes. Human relationships are very complicated. The great majority of human acts, including adultery in my opinion, are neither purely saintly nor purely evil. They mostly fall somewhere in between those two extremes.
Should the private affairs of public figures be considered legitimate news?Since I believe that knowledge of a person’s private life can offer clues as to their fitness for public office, does that mean that I consider the details of their private lives to be legitimate fodder for public news stories? I do have some ambivalence about that.
On the one hand I strongly believe in the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution, which protects our right to privacy from the government (or at least it did before the recent FISA amendment was voted into law).
On the other hand, there are limits to our Constitution’s protection of our privacy when we go out in public. The question of the right of the press to report on the private lives of American politicians is more of an ethical than a legal issue.
I do believe that in the run-up to the 2000 election it would have been legitimate for the press to report that George W. Bush
blew up frogs for fun when he was young. Perhaps that’s just my political bias showing there. But it seems to me that such reporting could have offered some legitimate insight into Bush’s sadistic nature, which would have been useful to American citizens in considering whom to vote for. In retrospect, given what we now know of the lack of empathy that Bush has exhibited as our President, such an insight would appear to have been right on the mark.
In any event, if the press believes that it is fair to report on the private lives of political candidates, they should do so responsibly. It is nearly impossible to describe exactly what I mean by that. But I would say first of all that responsible reporting means that it should only be done if the reporter sincerely feels that the issue bears upon the candidate’s fitness for office. Among other things, that means that the same criteria should be used for everyone, irrespective of a candidate’s political views or Party affiliation. Enough said about that.
And one other thing: The press may have the right to report on such things, but to castigate a candidate for lying about something like that is the height of hypocrisy. Such criticism implies that the candidate is morally obligated to tell the truth about such things to the press. He is not.
What to make of John Edwards’ affairSo, why did I say that I continue to support Edwards (morally) and would vote for him again, despite the fact that I believe a person’s private life can offer important clues as to their future actions in public office?
Well, first of all, as I explained above, I think a person’s public behavior is a much better indication as to how they will perform in public office than their private behavior. It was mostly John Edwards’ emphasis on the need to solve our poverty problem that caused me to admire him so much and support his candidacy in the first place. Poverty is not a popular subject in American politics today. In fact, it is almost considered a taboo subject. Edwards’ willingness to address this issue pushed other Democrats to address it as well. Edwards proved to be a real leader on this issue. I believe he acted courageously in doing so.
But what about his adultery? Doesn’t that show that he has no character, and therefore his rhetoric on the poverty issue was just a political ploy? No, I don’t believe so. John Edwards has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to fighting poverty in our country, at a time when it was not at all considered a popular thing to do.
What about FDR and Martin Luther King? FDR is routinely ranked as our second greatest President, and rightfully so. He courageously took on the rich and powerful when he pushed through his New Deal, which did more to improve the lives of the average American than any U.S. President in our history. Martin Luther King has a holiday named after him because of his courageous leadership of our Civil Rights movement – and rightfully so. Do FDR’s and MLK’s sexual affairs negate their great epochal achievements? Absolutely not, in my opinion! Does anyone really believe that their affairs negate their achievements?
That is not to excuse them for their affairs, nor is it to excuse Edwards for his. I am extremely reluctant to judge people for what they do in their private lives in the realm of interpersonal relationships because it is so difficult for me to place myself in their shoes or understand the circumstances that led them to their actions. But a sexual affair is one aspect of a person’s life. If one human being is to judge another for doing that, at least the person should be judged in the context of their whole life, not just on that one issue.
Here is
Edwards’ public explanation for his affair:
I went from being a senator, a young senator to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences."
"I am imperfect," he said. "And anybody, anybody watching this broadcast or who hears about this who wants to beat me up for this, they should have at it. The truth is – you can't possibly beat me up more than I have already beaten myself up."
In my opinion, that is an extraordinarily humble admission. It goes along with my previous impression of John Edwards as a very humble man, not withstanding the fact that he admits to egotism and narcissism.
Conclusion – putting things in perspectiveWith all the hullabaloo over Edwards’ affair, it seems to be that almost all reasonable perspective has been lost. People, even DUers, talk about Edwards’ political career being over and that he is no longer eligible to be Attorney General.
Did David Vitter’s liaison with a prostitute end
his political career? Did John McCain’s affair end
his political career? What about FDR, JFK, LBJ, and MLK? Did discovery of their affairs after the fact mean that they occupied positions that they weren’t qualified for?
It burns me up to no end that John McCain gets a free ride on this, while John Edwards’ affair is all over the news. Let’s put
that in some perspective. John McCain
left his invalid and disfigured wife for a younger woman after his wife waited for him for several years to return from his military duty. John Edwards had an affair, but he and his wife stuck together, and their relationship seems to be pretty strong. I did say earlier that “I am extremely reluctant to judge people for what they do in their private lives in the realm of interpersonal relationships.” So attribute this to my political views if you like, but I do see a very big difference between what Edwards did and what McCain did. And Edwards isn’t currently running for President – or any other public office. So why does Edwards get castigated while McCain gets a free ride?
I think we all know the answer to that. John McCain is our corporate media’s favorite candidate of the moment. John Edwards on the other hand is perhaps the person in our country whom our corporate media most fears. There is nothing they would like better than to drive the nail through his political coffin and eliminate him forever more as a threat to themselves. And does anyone believe for a second that Obama would get the same free ride that McCain has gotten if an affair was discovered in
his past?
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