Indiana

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Standard

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

As I sat watching some of the news coverage of former Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards and his affair, I tend to take a different approach than most. My conservative friends are already yelling about a double standard of media coverage and if John Edwards were a Republican or a Christian Minister, it would be feeding time at the news zoo. How soon we forget.

As the old adage goes, “Democrats get in trouble over sex, Republicans get in trouble over money.” Libertarians tend to get in trouble over sex for money. (Just kidding on that one). The reason why the press gets more excited over Republican-conservative sex scandals because usually the Republican-conservative who gets caught with the guy or gal was out the night before spending a lot of time preaching about moral virtue or making it part of their political platform.

If you need me to jar your memory allow me to throw some names at you, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Glen Murphy, Ted Haggard, etc. etc.

When you spend time and make a living pointing out the moral failings and short-comings of others, the press and society as a whole, tends to get excited when you get your come-up-ins.

Now John Edwards biggest sin wasn’t the crime, it was the lie. He should have been honest and thrown out the line “yes, we’ve had problems in our marriage” or “I’m not perfect and have fallen short, but have worked towards redemption and my wife has forgiven me” blah, blah, blah. All that would have been much better than the flat out denial. That’s what happens when you let the little head do the thinking for the big head.

But as far as there being a double standard, I disagree. We’ve all fallen short; but some of us are midgets.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on August 10, 2008 (boomark / email).