Honestly, Who Cares!

With the race for president heating up, some of the candidates dirty little secrets are bound to come out. Whether the allegations are true or false, the presidential hopefuls are always looking for a way to get ahead. The most recent case involving John McCain is a perfect example. Mr. McCain supposedly had an affair with a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman.

Of course they both denied the relationship ever happened but don’t they all? Politicians pretty much make their living of being liars, and if they’re not lying then their bending the truth. Okay, so maybe the affair never happened, but Mr. McCain should know that he is a public figure and is held to a higher standard than the rest of us.

Not everyone thinks that McCain is guilty of infidelity. In a blog called Hoystory, the focus of the John McCain article was believed to be a little slanted. Apparently the writer of this article doesn’t agree with how the focus of the article was on the affair. The author of this blog said “If I started out a news article claiming that Keller had an “inappropriate relationship” with a goat and then talked about his journalistic lapses a la Greenhouse and when challenged insisted that readers pay attention only to the ethical claims — well, you’d rightly laugh your butt off and question my ethics. As you should.” (www.hoystory.com/?p=4821) Although he may be right in some part, the author can’t control what people are going to focus on. He/she may be able to lead a reader to what he/she wants the reader to focus on, but there is no guarantee that every reader person is going to focus on the same thing. I’m sure that every person that read that article did not solely focus on the part about an alleged affair.

In another blog about the McCain affair called McCains Bimbo Eruption?, the author Matt Welch seems to be sick of hearing about how politicians are treated as “saints” and that they can never do anything wrong. Welch asks the question “but what of the charges themselves? Those who really care about such things have known since at least 2000, and likely much earlier, that McCain does favors for campaign contributors, and has not always been the most faithful of husbands. I care not at all about the latter; while the former is one of many constant, low-level irritants people like me experience when reading yet another newspaper editorial about what a saint the guy is. I’m still surprised as to why people are so up in arms about politicians having affairs.” reason.com I’m not saying that infidelity is a good thing, but high ranking political figures have been doing this forever. I mean most of us with an ounce of common sense know that politicians are not the most honest people, otherwise they probably wouldn’t even be at the positions they are in now.

In a blog called Was McCain In Bed, Literally, With Lobbyists? Is he still?, I found a something a little different than the rest. Apparently the author of this blog knows that John McCain was having an affair with his current wife while he was married to his first. If that is true, then his credibility will pretty much be out the window. But then again, this was written in a blog, so the author’s credibility is questionable. When talking about John McCain, the author wrote “John McCain, a once respected U. S. Senator is again quickly losing popularity as his history of changing votes for lobbyist money, trips, and now apparently more continue to come out. Do we really want more of the same Washington Corruption? We didn't think so.” kcblueblog This person obviously has a bias against McCain, which doesn’t really give him/her much standing.

In a blog called Further Thoughts on the McCain Story by Dan Kennedy, the blogs looks at how the affair between McCain and Iseman shouldn’t be that big of a deal . He wrote that the New York Times simply wrote about speculation and did not write about McCain and the lobbyist actually being caught in the act. He wrote that If McCain and Iseman really did hop into bed with each other, that's their business, and the media ought to leave it alone.” medianation.blogspot.com/2008/02/further-thoughts-on-mccain-story.html) I couldn’t agree more. Honestly, how many times is the media going to dig up some irrelevant issue about some politicians past and then raise hell about it?

I looked at a blog called the Whistleblower Support, and there was a quote that pretty much summed up what I’m trying to say about this alleged affair. “Even if oneself or ones family members are not really doing anything wrong, if it appears on the surface there is some questionable action going on, it will be questioned. Most federal employees are drilled about even the appearance of doing something illegal or unethical being a problem, particularly in the case of maintaining security clearances. (http://whistleblowersupport.blogstream.com/v1/pid/292139.html) It never surprises me when a political figure is accused of an affair or anything else considered to be immoral. They should know by now that there are people out there who do nothing but try to dig up dirty on political figures. It’s time for the public figure of the world to wake up.

I think that if the New York Times ran this story back in November, it wouldn’t be the same story that it is today. Yeah, maybe someone would bring it up, but it wouldn’t have nearly the impact. When it comes to whether they were right or wrong about running the story, I honestly don’t know. When I first heard about it, I didn’t care. Besides I honestly don’t know why people are so surprised when controversy like this comes out. This is election time, and crap like this comes out all the time. So he may or may not have slept with another woman. That issue alone is irrelevant, at least to me it is. I honestly could care less what he does in his personal life, as long as it doesn’t affect his job or decision making.