Americans are too preoccupied with the sex lives of their leaders.
Retired Gen. David Petraeus, the man most responsible for changing the War on Terror from a traditional war to an intelligence-based method, recently resigned as director of the CIA after an FBI investigation revealed an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
Petraeus didn’t resign under public pressure, but the puritan sensibilities of American culture have created the fiction that public figures must be sexually pure to lead effectively.
From President Bill Clinton’s blowjob from Monica Lewinsky to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal, the public has allowed personal problems to influence its assessment of our elected leaders.
A vivacious sexual prowess doesn’t necessarily inhibit one’s ability to draft effective legislation or to lead our great nation.
Despite the dome, Clinton still left office with a surplus.
Understandably, scandals place an undue burden in the way of progress, but it’s only because of the sensationalism created by the media.
News networks salivate at the mere thought of a sex scandal.
From the week of June 6-12, Weiner’s wiener constituted 17 percent of all news coverage, 6 percent more than the next leading topic, the economy.
To news networks, viewers are everything, but therein is the problem. The sheepish public would rather consume hours of gossip about a representative’s genitals than tough-to-swallow fiscal updates.
So, as leaders continue to dumb it down and slut it up, consider for yourself whether the next elected official’s personal life should be grounds for his or her resignation.
We think not.
