Commentary: March 2008 Archives

This is definitely the way to go. Instead of waiting nervously for his skeletons to fall out of the closet one by one, the newly appointed New York Governor David Paterson, who replaced his disgraced colleague Eliot Spitzer, took the bull by the horns and confessed all just hours after taking office.

After rumors of infidelity surfaced, Paterson and his wife Michelle admitted they had both had affairs during a rocky period in their marriage in a joint interview with New York's Daily News on Monday. The pair then faced reporters together at a news conference held this morning in the Capitol's Red Room.

"I didn't want to be compromised, I didn't want to be blackmailed, I didn't want to hesitate taking an action because the person on the other end might hurt me or my family. I just thought this was the time to come forward and reveal this," Paterson told reporters.

Perhaps this may serve as a new model, with politicians and statesmen confessing all before they take office (which Paterson didn't strictly do, but it's not like he got to pick his timing here) so they can get on with the important work at hand unfettered by sins of the past. After all, public officials only become truly accountable to us at the point that they begin their public service (or, if elected, start campaigning for office), and some of the best and brightest hopes are surely likely, at the very least, to have follies of youth buried in their past.

What are mistakes but opportunities to learn and grow? We, in turn, should learn to be more pragmatic about sin. To quote the big J.C., "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." If we allow our politicians to admit to more mistakes without fear of hysterical or over zealous judgment, we also allow them to better serve us. So let's be grown-ups about this, and get such compromising information out in the open where it is rendered benign. This has to be a more evolved policy than our current one, where the cardinal sin is getting caught.

It's at this point I'd like to give Obama the opportunity to hit the public confessional. McCain and Clinton have been in public service so long that their dirty laundry is by now well aired, but the press have only just started digging into the life of the new kid on the block.

If Obama does indeed win the Democratic candidacy, as it very much looks like he might, it'd be sad if the Republican's won the election by default were an unrecoverable scandal to break closer to November. The tenet of public service is to put those you serve above yourself (and your own career prospects). I'm therefore urging you, Obama, if you have anything you're hiding, whether it be financial or sexual impropriety, or something that could appear as such, to take a leaf out of Paterson's playbook and get it out there now. Your best shield in the upcoming battle is the truth.

"Stand By Your Man" was written back in 1968. A lot has changed since then. So why are women still doing it? Especially when, as in Silda Wall Spitzer's case, you've been hurt and humiliated in a very extreme and public way. In an article entitled "Women ponder why Spitzer's wife stood by," writer Jocelyn Noveck interviews several women who hypothesize that Silda (mutely) stood by her man at a recent press conference for the good of her kids. But is such behavior really in their best interest?

The Spitzer's have three teenage daughters. Are they sending them a healthy message by showing that Daddy can behave in such a disrespectful way to Mommy without consequences as far as their relationship is concerned? What kind of message is that? 'Boys will be boys' I guess. Personally, I'd like to have seen Silda force her husband to face the press alone. Or at the very least make a statement of her own, rather than mutely standing by as the world her and her husband worked so hard to create shattered around her.

Even if she doesn’t ultimately choose to leave him, a break from her husband, and a vacation from the humiliation should at the very least be on the cards for Silda and her children (charged to her husband, of course). Silda, we're here if you need help packing.

Controversial conservative talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger has scored yet another own goal for women, this time blaming Eliot Spitzer's wife for her husband's infidelity during an appearance on the Today Show.

"Men do need validation," said Schlessinger, during a panel discussion lead by Meredith Vieira on the sex scandal. "When they come into the world they're born of a woman. Getting the validation from mommy is the beginning of needing it from a woman. When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like our hero, he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. These days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need."

Vieira then asked, "Are you saying women should feel guilty, like they somehow drove the man to cheat?" Schlessinger responded by saying, "You know what, the cheating was his decision to repair what's damaged, and to feed himself where he's starving. But, yes, I hold women accountable for tossing out perfectly good men by not treating them with the love and kindness and respect and attention they need."

It's this kind of fuzzy logic that's making it so tough for Hillary to move beyond the kitchen in the White House. Too many people still blame the presidential hopeful for her husband's infidelity. Again, the Daily Mantra asks, on what planet is this OK?

Click HERE to view Today Show video courtesy of The Huffington Post.

Click HERE to visit StopLaura.com.

The Daily Mantra loves this stylish video short in which a mysterious DJ is sent to a busy city block to mend a series of tragic events that occur (click HERE to view). Using vinyl that's plugged into the spacetime continuum, he remixes events, manipulating what time shifts can't fix with some very special EQ. If only he could spin things back eight years, before the first election was stolen when Al Gore was poised to be president, and remix things so he was.....if only.

The Daily Mantra watched tonight's primarys at a Drinking Liberally soiree in Santa Monica, CA. All we can say is the political organization which boasts it "promotes democracy one pint at a time" works!

We were rooting for Hillary, and when we arrived at the Nocturnal Bar on Lincoln Boulevard she was two percentage points down in Texas. By the time we'd downed our first glass of red wine, God had apparently had a word in Mike Huckabee's ear and had persuaded him to give up his presidential bid, and Hillary had taken the lead over Obama in Texas by four percentage points, and had also won Ohio and Rhode Island. Sadly we were driving, so couldn't consume another glass of red wine for our blue cause. If we had she may have won in Texas by an even bigger margin. We'll plan better, and try harder next time.