DAILY BEAST: …It will surely come as a welcome balm to a failed statesman in his twilight years that a widely respected political journalist—and a wonderful writer to boot—has re-examined the senator’s stretch on the spit and basically signed on to his theory of the ordeal: namely, that Hart was the first victim of a political news media that had finally, in the spring of 1987, succumbed to the mob-pleasing temptation to display entertainment over serious reporting, gossip and trivialization over policy and substance, and take “character” simply to mean “character flaws.”
Woe to the Republic, Bai argues, that visionary if imperfect leaders like Hart aren’t permitted to put their talents to the benefit of the people because of a cheap, tawdry media barrier that is every bit as impassable as the Berlin Wall once was. “The Week Politics Went Tabloid” is Bai’s bold subtitle, suggesting that Hart’s nightmare was a transformational moment. (Bai’s argument is somewhat undercut by the fact that 15 years later, in an even less hospitable media environment, Bill Clinton survived a much tougher scandal—not only the Whitewater business and the Gennifer Flowers tapes but allegations of draft-dodging and lying about it—and went on to win two terms in the White House. Of course, maybe Clinton, who even post-Lewinsky ranks as one of the country’s most admired public figures, wasn’t as fine a president as Gary Hart would have been.)
When all these particulars came light to light—including Hart’s spectacularly ill-advised dare to The New York Times Magazine (“Follow me around. I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’ll be very bored.”)—the resulting media feeding frenzy was unparalleled up to that point in the ongoing melodrama of American democracy. It reached its climax at New Hampshire’s Hanover Inn, where, in an overheated event space, Hart faced down a feral pack of reporters, and The Washington Post’s Paul Taylor asked his famous question, “Have you ever committed adultery?”… (more)
EDITOR: Confucius said “The goody goodies are the thieves of virtue.”
I came across the quote while in high school and have never ceased to wonder at the harm done by hypocrites and often scoundrels who are self-anointed spokespersons for ‘virtue.’
The less we pay attention to people’s private lives so long as they act within the law and the more attention we give to their contributions to society, the better off we will all be.
Please note the below concernign the prevelance of adultery. My impression from living through Gary Hart’s era is the prevelance of adultery may have been even higher. As is often pointed out, most of our past presidents have been adulterers.
This is not to advocate adultery. It is to face reality and place human behavior in proper perspective.
WIKIPEDIA: Prevalence of Adultery
Durex’s Global Sex Survey found that worldwide 22% of people surveyed admitted to have had extramarital sex.[39][40] A 2005 scientific review of international published studies of paternal discrepancy found a range in incidence from 0.8% to 30% (median 3.7%), suggesting that the widely quoted figure of 10% of non-paternal events is an overestimate.[41]
In the United States Alfred Kinsey found in his studies that 50% of males and 26% of females had extramarital sex at least once during their lifetime.[42] Depending on studies, it was estimated that 26–50% of men and 21–38% of women,[43] or 22.7% of men and 11.6% of women, had extramarital sex.[44] Other authors say that between 20% and 25% of Americans had sex with someone other than their spouse.[45]
Three 1990s studies in the United States, using nationally representative samples, have found that about 10–15% of women and 20–25% of men admitted to having engaged in extramarital sex.[44][46][47]
The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample described the occurrence of extramarital sex by gender in over 50 pre-industrial cultures. The occurrence of extramarital sex by men is described as “universal” in 6 cultures, “moderate” in 29 cultures, “occasional” in 6 cultures, and “uncommon” in 10 cultures. The occurrence of extramarital sex by women is described as “universal” in 6 cultures, “moderate” in 23 cultures, “occasional” in 9 cultures, and “uncommon” in 15 cultures.[48][49]
