Do Politicians and Public Figures Deserve a Private Life?

I’m Randy Feldman,
Anthony Weiner, Bill Clinton and apparently Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF and presumed future President of France all broke the trust with the public they represent, but not because they had intimate relationships outside of their marriage. That is between them and their spouse, the place where intimacy and trust, or the lack of it, belongs. These men and political figures broke their trust by lying to the public and/or committing a criminal act. This is what, and only what, the public has a right to know and to feel angry about their trust being violated, them being betrayed.
What the public has a right to question and to judge is when and how actions of political figures affect them. Public deceit and lying to the public by politicians affects all of us; their private actions do not. Thus, only when a reporters question can legitimately be asked, must the answer legitimately be given. All other questions about one’s personal life should be met with “It is not a legitimate concern of the public how I conduct my private (non-criminal) matters”.
It is not my business, or yours, if Bill Clinton had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. To this question Bill Clinton should have said “it is none of your business” and then had a heart to heart, mea culpa conversation with his wife. But he didn’t because he was too afraid, ashamed and did not want to experience the vulnerability of telling the whole American public that he was not as good a man as he hoped for us to assume him to be. But it was all of our business when he lied to us face to face about it, and especially when he arguably lied to a grand jury about it and thus perjured himself, perverting our system of justice. Whether his marriage is satisfactory, whether his sexual, intimate, egotistical or testeronic needs are fulfilled are only his and his spouse’s business, whether our system of justice or public trust is violated is ours.
Whether human beings are flawed, incomplete, and weak and sometimes act bad, as we all are and do, should not be the barometer of whether one gets to contribute to the world according to their skill and commitment. What “we” did to Tiger Woods by hounding him for our own perverse pleasure was almost as disgraceful as what he did to himself and his family.
Anthony Weiner engaged in activity on digital media that showed that he was out of control. That he probably sometimes used government computers is an issue for the Congressional Ethics committee. However, if his activity was not criminal because no one was underage, than responsibility for his lack of good sense falls primarily to his wife and his conscience. Is it offensive to me and you? Yes, particularly if it was offensive to the recipient in cyberspace. If it was not offensive to the person consensually receiving Weiner’s texts, then it is very unfortunate he feels the need to act this way, but he would not have deserved such scorn that he needed to be shamed into resigning, if he didn’t lie about it. Lying directly to the public, instead of saying that it is a personal matter that he will not discuss, affects all of us.
The French public agreed that Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s reputed philandering and sexual hunting is between him and his wife. In France it seems kind of the norm, or their concession to the difficulties of monogamy. Committing an alleged crime against another is, however, all of our business. Short of criminal acts or publicly expressed falsehoods, public figures deserve private lives.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s repeated and continuous grouping of women, who apparently did not want to have sexual contact with him, as he was accused many years later, (shortly before he ran for Governor of California), was an alleged criminal act not just an offense. Somehow, he was easily elected. Yet Schwarzenegger having an affair and child with his housekeeper is between him and his wife and children. He was neither a better nor worse California governor for it. Senator David Vittor was caught with his name in the address book of a Washington D.C. madame who provided prostitutes. He was re-elected by his constituents who probably found it offensive and unfortunate, but more of his business than theirs.
There was a time in America, before the Drudge Report, Andrew Breitbart, The National Inquirer, and TMZ that politicians’ personal lives, such as JFK’s philandering with Marilyn Monroe, was held by news organizations to be beyond a reporter’s, reader’s and viewer’s purview. We should return to that standard, short of accusations of criminal activity or public deceit.
Public figures deserve a personal life. No outsider knows how another’s intimate and personal relationship is going, and it is no one else’s business except those personally involved. That is the nature of intimacy or the lack thereof. Running around, including texting and sexting others on your own computer, even deceiving one’s spouse or family about it, is their personal business. Lying to the public about it or committing crimes is ours.
This is Randy Feldman on WCRN’s midday report. Hear more on my website bigmouthmanifesto.com