atlantalarry

The McDonnell Scandal: sorting out the soap opera from the instructive information

The former governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, and his wife Maureen McDonnell, are under indictment and on trial in federal court for allegedly receiving gifts, loans, and trips from Jonnie Williams Sr., who was the CEO of Star Scientific when the events in the indictment occurred.

Politico, a prominent political website, ran an Associated Press article this morning focused on the testimony of Mary-Shea Sutherland, former chief of staff to first lady Maureen McDonnell.  Sutherland testified that Maureen McDonnell had frequent bizarre outbursts of temper, and described a terrible work environment.   The testimony was in the context of a defense assertion that Maureen Sullivan had a crush on Williams, was not communicating with Bob McDonnell because of strained relations, and that, therefore, there could not have been a conspiracy to take the improper gifts because the McDonnells were not talking to each other.

Sutherland's testimony described a tense soap operatic atmosphere in the governor's mansion, but she also stated that she saw no evidence that Maureen McDonnell had an infatuation with Williams, or that the relationship between the governor and his wife was strained.

Now that I've established the melodramatic aspects of the recent testimony:  why am I writing about this?

Scandals come and scandals go.  Members of both major political parties get caught up in corruption scandals.  Politics has  a ready pool of the four major elements of scandals: money, power, celebrity, and sex, so it isn't surprising that it's a source of high profile scandals and crimes. 

In general, I'm not interested in scandal unless there is something the public can learn from it.  I don't read TMZ or the Daily Mail, and don't care who's sleeping with who on the celebrity circuit.

I think the McDonnell scandal has instructional aspects, though.

First,  the public shouldn't pay undue attention to the superficial public images of political figures. Public relations machinery is going to paint politicians as superhuman, and the press often colludes in this, deliberately or sloppily, because "this elected official is different" is a better story than "this elected official is human".

The second thing to focus on is the gap between the public expectation of opulent lifestyle of top officials, and the salaries they are paid. There are two possible solutions for this. The first is to lower the expectation that elected officials will behave like show business celebrites, and to recognize that on a middle class salary, officials have to dress and entertain on a middle class budget. Alternatively, the public could subsidize the opulent lifestyle, either directly or through increased salary.

I say none of this to excuse any illegal behavior on the part of the McDonnells.  But we need to recognize that our officials are humans, and to structure the way we finance their living arrangements with that recognition in mind.  Also, the press should present a realistic picture of political figures from the time they enter public view, to the time they leave,

 

 

Duty, Blame, and Politics

I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about general philosophical and ethical topics lately.  Politics, duty, civility, responsibility, and a few dozen other seemingly pointless mental noises have taken charge of my cranium, since it was being used for little besides storing gardening information.  I seriously doubt I'll come up with any conclusions which will become classics of world thought, and in fact coming up with any coherent conclusions at all would be surprising to me, but I've decided to post some of my musings here.  If any of the posts seem contradicatory, they probably are.  Don't stress over it.  I'm not planning on founding a cult.

Often when my thoughts wander from the primary question in my 61 year old life ("What do I really want to be when I grow up"), I begin browsing the various postings on facebook, Politico, reddit, etc.  The political issues of the day seem more and more surreal to me.  Chicken sandwiches?  Really?  Has the metaphor for our political culture really become packaged in that much sodium, saturated fat, and indeterminable poultry fragments?  Humorless partisans on both sides can try to convince me that this sandwich is where the line in the deep fry tank has to be drawn, but I can't see the whole thing as anything more than absurd.

And it isn't just poultry-crisping-grease-tank wars, either.

I'm a fan of the 1990s British TV series Cadfael, based on Ellis Peters' series of novels about a 12th Century Monk who solves crimes.  One of the more interesting things about it is the political context which forms the backdrop:   the English civil war between partisans of King Stephen and those of Empress Matilda.  Never heard of them?  You're not alone.  Yet for nearly twenty years thousands of people set about the business of hacking each other to pieces, torturing each other, and ruining each others lives in the service of one side or the other.  Theological and moral justifications were developed by each side for their atrocities.  Yet today, for good reason, few know or care who won.

I'm not suggesting that people not be politically engaged.  Despite my overall cynicism, I'm a progressive, tend to vote for Democrats, and believe that the role of government in bringing about a fair and prosperous society is a considerable one.  But despite my beliefs I view the one-to-one correspondence of my political activities and the prospects for achieving the sort of fair and prosperous society I envision as very, very, small.  In a few decades most of the things I consider important will be as irrelevant as the Stephen/Matilda wars.  So if you're on the other side of the wall from me, and are a fervent Tea Partier, by all means follow the little inner voices which tell you to dress up in funny costumes and rant about Obama.  It's your right to do so.  Just don't imagine that your activities will have any meaning ten years from now.

Which brings me to the "Duty" part of the title of my post.  When I was young I believed that I had an absolute duty to change the world in a revolutionary way.  These days my vision is much more limited.  I vote, I speak out on specific issues as they come up, I contribute money to candidates, I recycle, and, most importantly to me, I send money to direct service organizations which have pretty good efficacy.  I figure sending people food or medical supplies now has much more impact than some sort of general and hypothetical revolutionary transformation.

So if you think my observations on "duty" seem tired and cynical, wait until I tackle the second word in the title, "Blame".