John Edwards finds himself in a bad situation and I don’t think he deserves to be condemned. Each person makes their own accommodations. Mistakes and missteps of a personal nature deserve to be allowed to happen in private and solved in private. I don’t think fidelity or not in a marriage has anything to do with the talent or capability to govern. Nixon was faithful to Pat and nearly destroyed the presidency. I’ll take my chances with someone who is having an affair.

Quotes on the news from “common folk” who were interviewed elicited this response from a woman, “Yes, I am disappointed in him.” Oh, please. The myth of perfection in our candidates merely guarantees that people of worth who have erred will never run for office because they can’t afford to be examined microscopically. I don’t know anyone who is perfect. Do you?

Somewhere along the way between 1940 and now, the mass of the country has come to think that it is possible to achieve a personal ideal and still be competent to lead. It will never happen, it has never happened. Our great leaders have all been flawed. It is the human condition. We can’t afford to elect Santa Claus, even if we could find him. For one think, he’d be too fat to sit in the Oval Office and/or too busy flitting around chimneys to be any good at all. And you might want to ask Mrs. Claus if she is entirely happy with the fact that he’s never home at Christmas.

I’ve heard the notion that we must hold elected officials to a higher standard than we do ourselves. But, ask yourself, which standard? The ones I’d hold most important have everything to do with the ability to lead and nothing whatever to do with personal choices.

Years ago Gary Hart, running for president, dared some reporters to find something wrong. That was a foolish challenge because they then became determined to find something, and found him cavorting on a yacht with some young lovelies. That torpedoed his candidacy. The problem here, in my view, wasn’t that he was partying with other than his wife, but that he had the lack of judgment to dare reporters. It was the judgment thing, not the cheating that dismayed me.

Anyway, as long as we are in the grip of an idealism that does not exist we will continue to ask the impossible and to be “disappointed”. We will then proceed to elect squeaky clean incompetents to high office. If they say they believe in God, wear a flag pin, put on a pious expression, and mispronounce almost everything (hey, Emmylou, he talks like us’n. Ima gonna vote forim) that’s good enough for a lot of people. If you want an example of how well we have done with that kind of thinking, look no further than GWB.

And before you dump on me for dissing the rural dialects of our great nation, be advised you can be illiterate and still be a fine person who I would be happy to know and respect. I just don’t want you leading the country.

xx, Teal