I say this not because he is immoral. Hell, if we asked all the immoral elected officials in Washington or the various state Capitols around the country to resign, we would have very few elected officials running the show. No, Anthony Weiner must step down because he is stupid.
We have always had and will continue to have corrupt politicians. I understand that, even accept it. Power corrupts and regardless of their lofty campaign rhetoric, politicians are in the game for the power, for the influence and for the money that power and influence command. Notice that our coinage has the motto "In God We Trust," not In Politicians We Trust. We only trust those politicians who are beholden to a cause we hold dear. We do not need to trust their morality, only their loyalty to the cause.
We know about various politicians' peccadilloes. But because we have a vested interest in various special interests ourselves (tobacco subsidies, Medicare, corn subsidies, abortion, the military/industrial complex, Social Security, Welfare, big bank bail outs, the Interstate highway system, or some other government run/sponsored/supervised program) we tend to ignore them. We want OUR politicians -- the ones we support with our money and our votes -- to focus on the issue, while we focus on the crimes and immorality of other politicians. We know that it is only possible to get elected these days if you have some big money backing you. And big money goes to those who deliver on big promises. Promiscuity can be forgiven; straying from the party line is unforgivable.
Let's not be naive. It's not always members of the other party; it's politicians -- and it is us. There is more than enough blame to go around.
Why, then, should I pick on Weiner? Because he is dumb. He did something dumb, got caught, and then lied about it. That's just dumb.
I can tolerate his immorality. As I said, there's plenty of that going on in both political parties, at all levels. But stupid is hard to forgive. I would much rather have a smart politician than a stupid one who hides his/her ignorance behind a mask of morality.
Moral politicians will preach to me but accomplish little. Intelligent politicians, even immoral ones, will try to find a solution to some of the nation's problems. They are guided by answers, not beliefs.
There is an abundance of politicians claiming to be moral, upright, even religious. That's an easy act to carry off, as long they keep their dirty little secrets secret. It is harder to fake intelligence. A moral politician can talk for an hour about his sense of righteousness. A stupid politician will be discovered in five minutes.
Half of us are so disinterested or disgusted that we do not even bother to vote.
Look at the chart below. (This is only part of the chart that may be found at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html.)
National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2008
| Year | Voting-age population | Voter registration | Voter turnout | Turnout of voting-age population (percent) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008* | 231,229,580 | NA | 132,618,580* | 56.8% |
| 2006 | 220,600,000 | 135,889,600 | 80,588,000 | 37.1% |
| 2004 | 221,256,931 | 174,800,000 | 122,294,978 | 55.3 |
| 2002 | 215,473,000 | 150,990,598 | 79,830,119 | 37.0 |
| 2000 | 205,815,000 | 156,421,311 | 105,586,274 | 51.3 |
Read more: National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2008 — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html#ixzz1OcWEWHat
Just under 57% of the eligible voters in this county bothered to vote in the last presidential election, an election judged by all as historic.
Political pundits tell us that about one-third of the electorate will always vote Democratic and one-third can be counted on to vote Republican -- regardless of the issues or the qualifications of their party's candidates. Hence, elections are won or lost not by what politicians stand for or can do, but on how well they appeal to "their party's base" and that roughly one-third of the voters who are independent of intelligent enough to be undecided.
We cannot always know what a politician is capable of or what he/she will do once in office. (Remember, power corrupts.) Nor is it smart to talk recklessly about throwing all the bums out. (And replace them with who?) But when a politician reveals his stupidity, ala Rep. Weiner, we should demand his resignation and demand that his party, the Democrats in this case, get behind helping him make the decision to resign.
History is full of moral/religious people who have committed heinous crimes. And certainly, intelligent people can be wrong. But an immoral, stupid politician is more that we should tolerate.
Rep. Weiner has shown he is both. Resign your office as a U.S. Representative, Mr Weiner. It's the decent and the smart thing to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment