Eags provides a contemporary Hall of Shame for our enjoyment:
A sense of moral superiority is sublime (and dangerous). Shame on us all. If this is (fair & balanced) moral relativism, so be it.
[x NY Fishwrap]
Shame Is Fleeting
By Timothy Egan
Tag Cloud of the following article
Barely one year ago, when New York Governor Eliot Spitzer made that cringe-inducing appearance with his wife after being named in a prostitution scandal, a friend of mine with keen radar about such things had an instant reaction: “We’ll never see him again.”
But here he is on the latest cover of Newsweek. Not only are we seeing plenty of him, after a round of television appearances as well, but it appears that Spitzer is blazing a new road to redemption — a shortcut, at that. Polls show him more popular than the current governor of New York, which isn’t saying much.
Of late, moralists, ministers, politicians and celebrities of varying degrees of self-regard have been felled by scandal only to rise after doing minimal time in the desert of ill-repute.
Whether this is a good thing is almost beside the point. Spitzer is trying one way back, a contemporary three-step: accept responsibility, show remorse, go away — for a while, at least. Still, he sounds strangely disconnected when he says in Newsweek, “We succumb to temptations that we know are wrong and foolish when we do it and then in hindsight we say, ‘How could I have?’”
In appealing to the “we,” he’s playing the weasel card.
At the other end is Rod Blagojevich. He skipped every step and wants the redemption right away, complete with television show, book deal and lollypop.
At the least, the public expects some groveling. Some admissions. Some contrition. And then, it helps if the disgraced is committed to a larger cause. In Spitzer’s case, reminding people that he tried to prosecute the bad guys who destroyed the global economy goes a long way toward making people forget that he was Client Number Nine, and those sad, hollow eyes of his wife during that haunting appearance.
Every month or so, the volcano in the village square chokes down a new offering. How long till it’s revealed that the amateur singer of the moment, the transcendent-voiced and plain-faced Susan Boyle, doesn’t actually live alone with her cat, and has in fact been kissed?
Shame, thy names are many, and they are most often coupled with hypocrisy. Newt Gingrich (infidelity-affair with young congressional aide while denouncing Bill Clinton after his affair with young intern). Alex Rodriquez (lying about steroids while holding himself up as a role model to kids). Jesse Jackson (fathering a child out of wedlock while moralizing on subjects great and small). Bill Bennett (gambling problems while lecturing on the decline of personal responsibility). Britney Spears (a mess, enough to fill the entire entertainment category).
Every one of them has made a comeback, and seems free to carry on without someone mentioning the asterisk. The Reverend Jackson, who said he needed to “take some time off to revive my spirit and reconnect with my family,” was back in an hour or so. Ditto Gingrich, who blamed “periods of weakness,” and has now joined Rush Limbaugh among the fallen faces that represent the Republican Party’s image to the world.
Those still doing time in the stocks, like former Senator Larry “I Am Not Gay” Craig, failed to follow the first couple of steps taken by Spitzer. John Edwards is also stuck, after trying to lessen his lies about an affair by claiming that he cheated only while his wife’s cancer was in remission.
Then there are people who had nowhere to fall from. Dick Morris, despised by nearly everyone he came in contact with while working for the Clinton White House, resigned from the campaign after reports of cavorting with prostitutes.
Of course, he’s now found a home as a public scold on Fox, along with Karl Rove. They must have a gym just off the green room for practicing moral flexibility.
Some people should never be allowed a second act. O.J. Simpson, for one. The jury that let him get away with it because of some fancy race-baiting by his defense attorneys, for another.
For most, a lifetime of shunning is not necessary. It was instructive to read the account of Charles Van Doren in The New Yorker not long ago. He was the handsome young college professor caught up in a cheating scandal in a 1950s-era television game show, “Twenty One,” and the subject of a Robert Redford film, “Quiz Show.”
After his fall, he resigned from his job at Columbia and disappeared — for what seemed like a lifetime. Hey, all he ever did was agree to be a fake on television. Van Doren now seems so sincere, so self-aware, so likeable. Or maybe it’s the years between his transgression and the modern follies that put him in a new light.
“It’s been hard to get away,” he wrote, “partly because the man who cheated on ‘Twenty One’ is still a part of me.”
In a similar vein, Spitzer has tried to live with the duality. He has said, “I have no one to blame but myself,” repeatedly, which negates some of the weasel language. Still, that may not be enough. At the end of the online version of the Newsweek story, a reader commented: “This guy just needs to stay in exile.”
I’m not so sure. Which is worse: giving him early parole from shame, or making him wander in a Van Doren wilderness? ♥
[Timothy Egan writes "Outposts," a column at the NY Fishwrap online. Egan — winner of both a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 as a member of a team of reporters who wrote the series "How Race Is Lived in America" and a National Book Award (The Worst Hard Time in 2006) — graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in journalism, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Whitman College in 2000 for his environmental writings. Egan is the author of four other books, in addition to The Worst Hard Time — The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West, Breaking Blue, and The Winemaker's Daughter.]
Copyright © 2009 The New York Times Company
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Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves
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