chrishansenhome (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chrishansenhome) wrote2011-02-10 08:43 am
chrishansenhome) wrote2011-02-10 08:43 am
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Today's Tapper McWidestance Politician
You will all remember the Senator from the great state of Idaho who was caught in a stall in a Minneapolis airport men's room, legs planted wide on the floor and tapping away to attract the attention of men in the next stall over, won't you? I call former Senator Larry Craig Tapper McWidestance and I now see that the Tapper McWidestance Award for Miscreants in a Legislative Body has been won by former Representative Christopher Lee (R-NY), a married man with a family, who used Craigslist to post a personal ad with a shirtless picture of himself. He described himself as a lobbyist and shaved a few years off his age in correspondence with a woman who contacted him from his post on "Women Seeking Men". When she googled him and found out that the goods weren't as represented, she sang to the news media and made the picture public.
Former Rep. Lee voted against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". He obviously was applying it in his own life.
I do not rejoice that people who make wrong choices in their personal lives get bitten back from it. I have made wrong choices too, and have been duly bitten. Even people in public life have the right to a private life as well.
However, people in public life, especially those who advocate a moral code of some sort, should not break that moral code in private unless they are prepared for that to become public.
I'm not gloating (a male Democratic representative from NY had to resign a year or so ago when he was caught groping a male House page, so goose's sauce is gander's sauce). But what I'm continually learning in my own life as well as in reading the news is that consistency in one's public and private lives is so much easier than doing one thing and advocating something entirely different. This cognitive dissonance in one's life really makes it difficult to be authentic. It also makes it difficult to be a legislator.
Former Rep. Lee voted against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". He obviously was applying it in his own life.
I do not rejoice that people who make wrong choices in their personal lives get bitten back from it. I have made wrong choices too, and have been duly bitten. Even people in public life have the right to a private life as well.
However, people in public life, especially those who advocate a moral code of some sort, should not break that moral code in private unless they are prepared for that to become public.
I'm not gloating (a male Democratic representative from NY had to resign a year or so ago when he was caught groping a male House page, so goose's sauce is gander's sauce). But what I'm continually learning in my own life as well as in reading the news is that consistency in one's public and private lives is so much easier than doing one thing and advocating something entirely different. This cognitive dissonance in one's life really makes it difficult to be authentic. It also makes it difficult to be a legislator.
no subject
Not that this matters much...
With new media, I suspect there will be more stories like this in the future. How will these scandals affect the public sector?
Who knows.
Re: Not that this matters much...