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To Hell With Morals, Let's Talk Hypocrisy

by Miki Saxon

(Today continues a conversation initiated last Thursday and added to yesterday.)

Everybody lies about sex. Those who aren’t getting any say they are and those who are getting it where they shouldn’t deny it.

Governor Mark Sanford followed the same path of Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Rudy Giuliani, John Ensign, David Vitter, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Helen Chenoweth (the first woman) and many more.

But you know what?

I don’t care. At least, not about the sex—or even the lies. Even the lies under oath, because I don’t believe that an oath is going to change someone’s attitude about admitting something they don’t want to admit, it just adds another layer to the lie.

As Becky Robinson pointed out in her comment I could have just as easily used the Evangelical community—Jimmy Swaggart, Marvin Gorman, Jim Bakker, Lonnie Latham, Earl Paulk, Paul Crouch, Douglas Goodman, Frank Houston, etc., etc., etc. and, of course, the Catholic Church.

Dan Erwin made two very salient points.

In his first comment he said, “If you reframe the context from leader to bureaucrat, then the ethical expectations change.”

Amen, Dan. To assume that an elected official or any person-out-front automatically possesses all the sterling qualities of a “leader” as defined by the media, pundits and leadership industry has no basis in fact.

The second point that hit me was, “The notion of “standards” etc. is often a set-up for failure.”

This is getting closer to what angers me so much.

Not the sex, not the lies, but the standards.

Standards that they defined, preached and worked so hard to shove down everyone’s throat—standards that not one of them has even come close to practicing.

Mark Sanford voted for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment citing a need for “moral legitimacy” as his reason. Now he cites the Bible and the story of David and Bathsheba as his reason for not resigning.

As to the apologies, are they for the action or for getting caught? Americans are so focused on the sex and accept the apologies so readily that the hypocrisy becomes mere background noise.

It’s the Richard Nixon mentality all over again. As Nixon said in 1977, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal,”

The reigning slogan these days for too many “leaders” seems to be “do as I say, not as I do,” which both angers and confuses their followers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dan also said, “No question but what they’re hypocrites…of the worst kind. They made claims they didn’t follow through on. However, the issue parents (and grandparents, too) have to deal with is the education of your children.”

We’ll explore Dan’s thoughts and personal example of this in the next Leadership’s Future on Thursday. Please join us.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: Poldavo (Alex) on flickr

2 Responses to “To Hell With Morals, Let's Talk Hypocrisy”
  1. Becky Robinson Says:

    Miki, well said. I will look foward to Thursday’s post.

    As I said before, this whole topic is a challenging one simply because none of us are immune to making similar choices for ourselves. The difference with these high profile leaders is that they are doing it in front of a larger audience… and, as you have so clearly pointed out, those of us with lower profiles are also not broadcasting one set of beliefs and then doing the opposite.

    Both our proclamations of our personal standards and our strays from them (when they happen) are (mercifully) less public. All the more reason people should think carefully before they take positions that put them in the spotlight.

  2. Miki Saxon Says:

    Hi Becky, I probably shouldn’t, but I have to ask; why do you keep calling them leaders? I know from your writing that you view leaders as possessing a set of positive attributes, but, as Dan pointed out, they are bureaucrats. Maybe a few might be considered leaders in the popular sense, but none will ever be considered statesmen.

    Beyond that, for me the real hypocrisy isn’t about putting your beliefs in the spotlight and then falling short; it’s about insisting that everyone else follow them whether you CHOOSE to or not.

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