'Character' Vanishes From Public Discourse

This was a cornerstone of the republicans in 2000, returning 'character' to the White House. Robert Steinback would like to know why isn't character on the table this time?

Just a few bits from his op-ed.

Character, we were all so piously told seven years ago, was what elevated Bill Clinton's lie about an extramarital dalliance to an issue of national gravity and justified his impeachment.

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isn't it curious how in the public discourse today one rarely hears references to character as a material issue with respect to political leadership? If an extramarital affair was proof of a vacant character, wouldn't questionable actions that actually affect people -- soldiers, covert agents, Congress, storm victims and the like -- be exponentially more serious?

Apparently not. The word from the character crowd today is that we mustn't involve ourselves in the ''blame game.'' We're told that we must wait until people are actually found guilty at trial before we dare venture an opinion on whether their actions were unseemly.

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We're told not to question the character of the man who assured us that anyone found to be involved in the matter would no longer be part of the administration -- yet has fired no one.

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We're told that intentional efforts to manipulate public opinion with undisclosed payments to talk show hosts, a White House-planted phony reporter (who ran a gay escort service on the side; what would the Clintonphobes have made of that seven years ago?) and actors posing as genuine TV news reporters in what amounted to taxpayer-supported propaganda pieces -- deeds the General Accountability Office has called out-and-out illegal -- was just a little enthusiastic advocacy.

We're told that hiring incompetent cronies to run an agency charged with preparing for and responding to disasters -- well, no one has tried to defend that one, though the usual suspects have tried mightily to shift the blame.

We're told that there's nothing odd about the president nominating yet another close crony -- his own counsel -- to the Supreme Court, and then calling her the most qualified candidate for the position.

We hear excuses for a top party figure who thinks black babies are criminally inclined at the moment of birth, and mostly silence regarding an influential party supporter who openly advocates assassinating a democratically elected foreign leader.

We're told that profoundly misleading statements by leaders we implicitly trust and that caused Congress and the nation to support the invasion of another country, shouldn't be considered lies because, well, they haven't admitted they were lies. We're told it's immaterial that but for those inaccurate statements, the public, and possibly even Congress, might not have supported the war campaign.

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none of this has stirred the old ''character'' crowd to comment. Character, as I understood its usage seven years ago, referred to those qualities that went beyond minimum expectations

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Evidently, character is only an issue when the other side's is in question. Is hypocrisy also an element of character?

My current theory is that we just misunderstood what the republicans were saying. They didn't want 'character' in the white house, they wanted to put 'a character' in the White House. On the other hand, Bark Bark Woof Woof this it is just that the IOKIYAR Rule applies.