Contributors

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Another Republican Adulterer Bites the Dust

Markadelphia has long said that he thinks it's foolish to call politicians out for having affairs. I can see the point: if your spouse can live with you banging the babysitter, what's the big deal? Newt Gingrich's recent rise in the polls indicates that even evangelicals are giving politicians who cheat on their wives a pass. As long as they admit their error and then sign a pledge not to do what they've already done twice...

But there are some times when marital infidelity says something about candidate's fitness to hold office. In Herman Cain's case there were charges of sexual harassment, which he denied, and when it was came to light that Cain was having an affair until very recently those charges gained a lot more credibility. His reaction to those charges told us more about his character than the charges themselves. In hindsight, Cain must realize that he should have acknowledged his harassment of those women, and publicly apologized to them, finessing the issue by calling his advances honest misunderstandings instead of demonizing the women publicly. Had he done that, it's entirely possible his paramour would have kept quiet and he'd still be in the race. But he ticked her off with his rank hypocrisy.

The reason extramarital affairs are bad has nothing to do with the immorality of them, but more to do with how vulnerable they make you to blackmail. One summer in college I obtained an application for the CIA. One of the questions asked about using heroin. That's nuts, I thought. Who would ever admit to using heroin? But answering yes doesn't immediately disqualify you. By answering such a question truthfully you can't be blackmailed by future revelations, and you show a certain ... flexibility that can actually be very useful in CIA operations. The CIA doesn't need angels.

Last Thursday Amy Koch, the Republican Minnesota Senate majority leader, resigned without any credible explanation. Friday the news broke that she was having an affair with a male staffer, and four high-ranking Republicans had demanded she step down immediately. Koch is married and has one child.

Why is this relevant?

In 2010 Republicans won a majority in both the Minnesota House and Senate. They immediately set to shoving their agenda through the legislature, making big cuts to programs, including huge cuts to cities, counties and schools, and making a bunch of gimmicky short-term accounting changes instead of actually solving the problem. Democratic governor Mark Dayton shut down the government to try to force them to give him a decent budget, but the Republicans wouldn't budge.

Another big push was to put an amendment to the state constitution to ban gay marriage on next year's ballot. It's the same old thing about a union of one man and one woman, the sanctity of marriage, blah blah blah.

The question then becomes: if Republicans constantly violate their marital vows, how can they possibly be serious about the sanctity of marriage? To avoid making the argument next year about Amy Koch's violation of her marriage vows, the Republicans had to jettison her as fast as possible. This, along with tidbits like Republicans getting divorced more often than Democrats, Herman Cain's harassment and infidelity, Mark Sanford's Appalachian hike, John Ensign's payoffs, and thrice-married Newt Gingrich potentially winning the Republican nomination, puts the lie to the idea that the Republican Party is the party fighting to preserve the sanctity of marriage.

Instead, they look like the party that won't stick it out when the going gets tough, breasts start to sag, or hubby can't get it up. How can people like this claim the moral high ground if gays want to declare their eternal love for each other? It makes the marriage amendment look a small-minded attempt to stop people Republicans don't like from getting a benefit that the majority of people enjoy. So their answer is to boot Amy Koch out the door and hope everyone forgets her before next November.

The right answer is for us all to cut each other some slack and stop telling people who aren't hurting anyone how to live our lives. How can you preach about freedom when you want to take away the most basic freedom to be with the person you love?

5 comments:

Angela said...

What an absolute load of hypocritical bullshit. Gay people aren't any sort of threat to marriage. People like Amy Koch are, though, when they set ridiculous standards that even they can't follow

rld said...

You must not think there are more important things going on nowadays, like the details of the National Defense Authorization Act or the caving by the democrats on the millionaire tax and Keystone pipeline. Well, as last in line says, you guys just need to stay on offense.

Mark Ward said...

You must not be from MN, rld. Koch's resignation along with the state GOP being in debt from overspending are pretty big deals here these days. In addition, I'd check you facts on the "caving." It's not like you want to win the argument or anything, right?

Anonymous said...

I blame Republicans.

sw said...

nobodys ever heard of amy koch. besides, i saw where the republicans in minnesota didnt cut budgets or taxes like they said they were and now republican voters here stopped contributing to them. no, they dont march in lockstep markadelphia.