Herman Cain’s presidential campaign has finally collapsed under the weight of sexual harassment allegations. This is no surprise, of course — many an American politician has been removed from office for less than what Cain has faced. Meanwhile in Europe, however, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has resigned, ending a long political career riddled with scandal.
The contrast between the two cases is remarkable. As soon as the first few harassment allegations came to light, it was the beginning of the end for Cain’s campaign, whereas Berlusconi enjoyed years of power in spite of his numerous scandals, including underage prostitution. The scandals that sank Cain’s campaign would be nothing compared to Berlusconi, yet he was not only elected as prime minister, but also managed to hang on to his power for quite a while. Why is it that Americans hold their elected officials to such a high moral standard in regard to their personal lives?
It is, I assume, a matter of honesty. In America, the view seems to be that if an official can’t be trusted to remain faithful to his wife, how can he be trusted to act in the best interests of the country? To a degree, I agree with this idea. There’s certainly a lot to be gleaned about someone’s character from examining his or her relationships. But is moral character the first thing that we should be looking for in a candidate?
I am in no way implying that the accusations against Cain are to be taken lightly. Sexual harassment is extremely serious and should be dealt with as such. It just strikes me as odd that it was the allegations that sank his campaign, rather than the fact that he was obviously unfit for the office. The fact that Cain allegedly sexually harassed several women is deeply unsettling to me, as I discussed in a previous column, but ultimately the biggest problems I had with Herman Cain were his uninformed foreign policy (or lack thereof) and irrational tax plan. The harassment allegations were just icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
There comes a point where this obsession with honesty and perceived moral uprightness crosses the line. Take the Anthony Weiner case, for example. The congressman broke no laws — he did initially lie about the photograph, but not while under oath — and yet he was thrown under the bus not only by his political opponents but even members of his own party. This seems ridiculous to me. Regardless of what he got up to with other consenting adults via Twitter, I agreed with Weiner’s policies and was sorry to see him ousted over something that, in my mind, had no effect on his ability to serve his country.
In Europe, the idea that a president could be impeached for having an affair with an intern is ludicrous. There just isn’t the same perception of privacy and emphasis on fidelity that there is in the States, and I have to wonder if they’re not better off because of it. If we stopped letting what elected officials get up to in their free time distract us from how they’re doing their jobs, we might choose candidates who were better at actually serving their country.
