Does Character Count?

The final three weeks of this election cycle seem destined to be dominated by the wife of a sexual predator arguing that being a sexual predator disqualifies a person from being fit to be president, unless said sexual predator is her husband or a member of her political party.  Because of course that's the most important issue at stake in our nation right now.

Character counts.  But there are two issues that muddy the water when we try to apply that truth to politics.  The first issue is that poor character in one person does not imply virtuous character in his or her political opponent.  We are sometimes left with a choice between two people with poor character, and 2016 is decidedly one of those instances.

The second issue is that "character" in modern American media has become synonymous with "sexual behavior".  A person's sexual behavior can indeed often be relevant to their overall character, but sexual behavior is far from being the most important component of a person's character in most cases.

Mr. Trump has huge character flaws, and it takes zero imagination to believe that those flaws probably have often expressed themselves via unwanted sexual advances.  It is also relevant to his character because he was married during most of these alleged incidents.

But for the Democratic Party to collectively clutch their pearls and feign shock and outrage at Trump's comments and the allegations levied against him is disgusting.  If there is such thing as morality, character, and virtue (and there is ) then that morality, character, virtue is only sincere if it is applied to all people equally.

If Democrats claim that sexual behavior is central to character and fitness to serve, then John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton were not fit to serve.  And perhaps they were not.  But they did.  Some of them were bona fide sexual predators.  Their affairs were legion, and not always "consensual" by our 21st century standards.

I think relatively highly of President Kennedy.  I consider his American University Peace Speech and his Civil Rights Address, both delivered in the last months of his life, to be the two greatest speeches by an American leader in the post-war era.

But John F. Kennedy engaged in behavior that is so beyond repulsive that it literally defies belief. Kennedy was fortunate enough to live (and die) in an era when taking a teenager's virginity in your wife's bed was considered an "affair" and kept private.

 Republican Presidents of the last 50 years stand in stark contrast.  Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II have never had any allegations of boorish, aggressive predation, or even adultery.  According to Democrats' newfound evangelism, they must be the greatest presidents in American history.

We have, unfortunately, no shortage of men in modern American history who have behaved in ways that virtuous men would not, but that did not render them wholly evil or incompetent, and the only Democrat during that period that managed to keep his pants on, Jimmy Carter, is not remembered as being a very effective leader.

Nobody's perfect, but some of us are more imperfect than others.  Human beings are complicated, and great sin and virtue can coexist within the same human soul.  But implying that keeping your clothes on makes you a person of great character is lazy and dangerous.

Hillary can't argue that Trump's sexual rhetoric and behavior makes him unfit without delegitimizing her own husband.  And we can't pretend that voting for the invasion of Iraq showed good character just because she was fully clothed when she did so.