The Liberals/Democrats Eat Their Young….Once Again

Once again, the Democrats (I shall use the term Liberal interchangeably) have demonstrated the self-destructive capacity to figuratively eat their own young.  Representative Anthony Weiner of New York was basically forced to resign.  He lost the support of his Liberal colleagues and was going to be the subject of a long, personally destructive and embarrassing investigation.  He  was also going to be stripped of his committee assignments, all at the hands of his own Party. 

Weiner was arguably one of the brightest rising stars in the Democratic Party.  He was young, bright, charismatic, and was a firebrand with regard to Liberal issues.  Very clearly, he was destined to be great and do great things, which makes it all the more tragic that he has been forced to resign.  A bright, and possibly the brightest, light in the Democratic Party has been extinguished, and we broke the bulb ourselves, in the interest of intellectual honesty, and the appearance of impropriety.  Unfortunately, the negative consequences of this action far outweigh either the benefits or the offense, not to mention the fact that the opposition would never have committed themselves to this kind of destruction simply because it might be the right thing to do.

I cannot state it any better than the comment made by “DLW” regarding my previous post entitled, “Scandal….The Zombie Cat of Politics”.  He points out that individuals who may have perfectly dreadful decision-making skills in their personal lives can be extraordinary decision-makers in their professional lives.  I would only add that most of us tend to lead compartmentalized lives.  We try to neatly divide our lives into manageable parts that we can handle.  It is seemingly easier to manage life one compartment at a time, and I can tell you, from exquisitely painful experience, that sometimes, one compartment can bleed over into another; try running a business and getting divorced sometime.  However, for the most part, we do manage to keep the compartments separate.

History has shown us that this separation is entirely possible as great Presidents have had less-than-stellar personal lives.  We of course know of Bill Clinton.  He got impeached for what I refer to as “the BJ heard round the world.”  Once of our most revered Presidents, John F. Kennedy, can hardly be held up as an example of chaste behavior.  If you go back to the Founding Fathers of this great country, we have now nearly confirmed that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings.  It was used by political opponents of the time against Jefferson.    So peccadilloes are nothing new in politics.  Now, however, in spite of the fact that he wrote The Declaration of Independence, contributed in large part to writing The Constitution of the United States, was the first Secretary of State and the Third President of the United States, under the circumstances, we would humiliate him, force him to resign or impeach him for lying about it (Jefferson did deny it, by the way).

I think that the Democrats can take a lesson from the Republicans on this one.  Senator David Vitter remains in office, blocking every single Liberal effort in the Senate at every opportunity, by the way, after being found to be utilizing the services of prostitutes.  Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho managed to stay in office after trying to pick up a man, who happened to be a police officer, in a Minneapolis Airport restroom; the infamous foot-tapping incident.  Let us forget for the moment the continuing hypocrisy displayed by the Right Wingers, the fact that they display this kind of party unity, loyalty and take care of one another, has placed them in a position to remain the disloyal opposition and thwart every effort to change the politics of our federal government.  They manage to remain in a position to be hypocritical by being, well, hypocritical.  Maybe it is time for liberals to be more consistent, and a little less intellectually honest.  This is politics you know, and we all know how to tell a politician is lying, right?

Anthony Weiner was sacrificed, unnecessarily in my opinion, on the altar of intellectual honesty, in the philosophical interests of morality.  Us Liberals seem to have this enduring dedication to near chastity as it relates to politicians, and we expect to them to fess up the minute they are confronted.  I am not sure there is a man or woman on the planet that, upon being first confronted with some sort of extra-marital, sexual indiscretion, whether it be in the virtual world and ether of the internet or real life, will not try to deny the accusation; it is human nature.  Apparently, it is the nature of Liberals to eat our own young, even the best and the brightest among us.