To be clear: I'm not an Obama supporter. At this point I'm for Edwards, even though I came to that conclusion pretty recently, and am not one of your more full-voiced Edwards advocates. In fact, I don't participate much in candidate diairies, mostly because my enthusiasm for any of our leading candidates is tempered by disappointment that they've all been quite weak on getting us out of Iraq. (But that's a discussion for another time --which is to say, I won't defend that statement in this diary.)
My main question goes to not only this primary, but American elections in general: What in a candidate's past is "fair game?"
In the case of Obama's cocaine use, it seems heinous to use it against him, since not only did he bring the subject up first, pre-campaign, but he did it as an example of how drugs were harmful in his life. To make the case that Obama is not fit for the Presidency because he once did cocaine, and therefore his judgment is fatally flawed, opens up a whole can of worms. To wit:
-- Is any major life mistake, admitted freely, a disqualifier for the office?
-- If not, which mistakes DO show judgment so poor that even decades later, a person should not be trusted? Only drug-related ones? Only ones that involve skirting the law in some way (cocaine being an illegal substance)? Or any big mistakes -- in business, in relationships, in abuse of substances that are technically legal, other addictions (i.e. gambling)?
-- OR do we confine our discussion to a candidate's policies, and politics? ...As well as past abuses of public trust (coughcoughRudyGcoughcough)?
-- Is it incumbent on someone leveling a charge against a fellow candidate to say, point-blank, that he/she did NOT make the same mistake? So -- if you start talking about someone else's cocaine use, you'd better say upfront that you have never, ever done it?
-- Is is actually a character flaw to admit to past flaws, upfront, without being caught, as Willard Romney believes? Here's what Willard said about Obama, remember:
GOP candidate Mitt Romney, who was campaigning in Iowa Tuesday, called Obama comments a "huge error."
"It’s just not a good idea for people running for president of the United States, who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people, to talk about their personal failings while they were kids, because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘Well I can do that too,’" Romney said.
This was George W. Bush's position about his own cocaine and alcohol use and arrests. He claimed he didn't talk about it for the sake of children, his children specifically. But the self-interest is crystal clear here -- it's hardly an act of kindness and self-sacrifice to hide your own sins, especially when you're a politician running for office. You should only be a role model if you deserve to be a role model, and that should not be determined by your own dishonesty and/or P.R. (Of course, Romney's statement makes me wonder: Just what the hell are YOU hiding, then, Willard?)
I'm a recovering addict. In our world, we have to take honesty very seriously in order to beat the addiction. I've sat through enough 12-step meetings (some wonderful, some excruciating) to know that listening to others describe their past mistakes isn't simply a matter of letting them blow off a bit of steam. It's crucial for their recovery, and our own.
You don't have to agree with that premise. That's fine by me. But the question remains -- what is fair game?
If you want to criticize a candidate (or fellow candidate's) current sins, that's one thing, and perhaps a whole other level of discussion. But going after someone for a past failing which she/he has addressed publicly, and eloquently (unlike George W. Bush, for the most part, and apparently Willard Romney too...) seems bizarre unless it's some kind of capital crime.
I know the HRC campaign has addressed the issue, and we've heard that Clinton has apologized personally to Obama. Good for her, then. I loathe the general idea of bringing up a fellow candidate's failings in the guise of "this is what the Republicans will go after her/ him about" for the obvious self-interest and passive aggression in such an attack. But at least HRC acknowledged in public that this was over the line, whatever her eventual motivations.
Even given the smashmouth politics of today, and stipulating that politics isn't for the delicate, it's worth looking at this issue: what can, and should, be used as an example of a candidate's fatally bad judgment, especially if it's unrelated to politics and policy?
What say you?
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[UPDATE: Reading comments, I see that I should have defined "fair game" better.
I don't mean an area that a candidate leaves open to attack, fair or not... I mean what is YOUR opinion on what constitutes legitimate grounds for questioning someone's character?]
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