Les Jones

Politics > In Defense of John Kerry and Other Political Adulterers

I've already said that I won't vote for Kerry, but the intern scandal is making a lot of people's partisanship pretty plain. When Clinton got caught, many on the right took it as a sign of his moral unfitness. When Schwarzenegger - a Republican - was accused, the right ignored it, or brought up the specter of Clinton.

Now that Kerry - a Democrat - is accused, many members of the right are all over it. I'm not above poking fun at Kerry, any more than I was above poking fun at Ahnold, so I don't begrudge those folks, but let's keep some perspective. Either marital infidelity is a disqualification for office, or it isn't. Pick one. I happen to think that it isn't.

And just to even the scorecard, recall that Neil Bush is divorced following his late night rendezvous with a prostitute in Asia. Of course, he's just the President's brother, and wasn't in office. OK, then I'll go with Newt Gingrich. Want another philandering Democrat? Gary Hart. The point being that infidelity isn't confined to one party.

I don't like John Kerry, but if I were already planning to vote for him, the allegations that he cheated on his wife (assuming they're even true) wouldn't stop me. As a character issue, the only thing that counts will be how he handles the allegations. He denied them on Don Imus's radio show the other day. Now that he's made his "I did not have sexual relations" stance, it had better be the truth, or he had better come clean, pronto.