I don't need a political role model for my personal life

Yesterday and today I got into a discussion about Barack Obama's relationship with his wife.  I think it is great if they love each other.  I think it says a lot about a man that he has a woman as a chosen life partner (or a man with him, if that floats your boat) who is as intelligent as he is.  That is something I really like about John Edwards, and Barack Obama, and, yes, Bill Clinton, and for that matter Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  

So... some of those men cheated on their wives.  Does it matter?  Some people think it matters very much.  I don't.  If they were engaged in criminal wrongdoing, it matters (and don't give me the "I gotcha" stuff about Clinton's impeachment.  Sexual harrassment was something else, and he got caught with that.  Stupid idiot, and shame on him.  And he has paid for that.  But not really for that, and that illustrates the problems of making sexual harrassment accusations stick.  That is another issue.

But I don't look to Bill Clinton, or FDR, or Edwards, or Obama, for role models for my personal life, and my relationships with others.  I look for what they have done in the public sphere, and I think you can argue each one has made impressive contributions.  I think there are things that one can see in another person that don't have anything to do with sex, or sin (or whether the person is involved in either).

I simply don't care.  I don't care about a lying, cheating spouse.  It is not any of my business.  If a woman chooses to stay with him of her own free will (and unlike some cases, you cannot argue that Hillary Clinton would not be able to walk away from her marriage if she wanted to -- he would not track her down and kill her, keep her away from her children, steal all her money, etc., as happens to some women), that is her business.  If McCain calls his wife X, then that is his business, and hers.  There are a million other reasons I find him despicable, and a bunch of reasons I (sadly) have problems with Clinton, but their personal lives have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with whether I will vote for people or not.  Someone can try for consensual sex in an airport bathroom (as long as it is not performed publicly it is fine with me what they want to do with their private parts).  Someone can wear leather clothing, and stick whatever manner of whatever wherever they want to stick it.  It DOESN'T MATTER TO ME.  I do not NEED a role model.  

Just wanted to provide a different point of view from the one I saw expressed so enthusiastically last night.