Hypocrisy

Our society loves nothing more than tearing down our tall poppies. Public life these days is increasingly literal - a life lived out in public - and synonymous with being placed constantly under the media’s glare. The press pack sweat on indiscretions from our most revered members and (rightfully to a point) airs them to a hungry audience. It’s got a gladiator, Colosseum feel to it sometimes, as we delight in the in the devouring of another contender.

Lately, politicians and their increasingly unbelievable sex scandals are in high rotation. It seems that a week can’t go by without another (formerly) well respected official getting brought down for immoral behaviour. Most times the frenzy is accentuated by a second highly combustible ingredient: hypocrisy. In 2006, US Congressman Mark Foley admitted soliciting sex from underage male Whitehouse Page’s – while chairing the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children (who sought to target sexual predators!) Similarly, Megapastor Ted Haggard – who took a hard line against homosexuality (and was by all reports a raving wacko), was poetically exposed for buying crystal meth from another man he paid to have regular sex with. In 2007, US Senator Larry Craig completed an unlikely trio, convicted of soliciting his stall-mate for sex in the bathroom of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport following 16 years of strict conservatism (and a voting record to match).

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is the most recent to join the line of disgraced public officials, discovered employing the services of a $1000 an hour prostitute. Spitzer, likened to Eliot Ness, due to his campaign against impropriety in NY – and his alleged uncorruptability – fell hard and heavily from grace. My greatest disappointment though was not that Spitzer has a taste for expensive company (speculation is that he’s spent over $80,000 at the place, and I’m sure that’s the tip of the iceberg) – but that he dragged his devastated wife up on stage to share the spotlight during his apology. As you can see in the picture, she would’ve much rather been sitting down to a streaming hot bowl of razor blades…

I guess then, there are two issues here. First, have the common sense to stay out of trouble. Being a politician these days mean that all your skeletons, past, present and future will eventually be torn from the closet. Make the smart play and resist the temptation to abuse the power that comes with your office. Second, if you just can’t help yourself, have the courage to get on stage by yourself and take your lumps. The last thing anyone wants to see is your poor spouse ‘supporting’ you. It just makes us angrier.

While I’m here, I just want to send a warning out to my man Barrack. You’re our last hope that there can be a different kind of politician. The kind that isn’t secretly gay, while they rail against homosexuality or the kind that hunts down corruption, while lining their own pockets with cash. You're a clean cut, hope-peddling, family man. If by some twist of fate you end up plastered all over the press for not living up to the high standards you have set, then so help me, I will never trust another public figure again.