As hard as it is to believe, there are people who are seriously asking if the disgraced New York governor, Eliot Spitzer, should resign his position. The argument is pretty much a throwback to the Clinton White House: “It was just sex, after all.” What a load of fertilizer.
Of course the man needs to needs to resign. Where are the morals of this country? Everything has changed since “Slick Willy” ruled the roost at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., hasn’t it? I know of a lot of liberals who, at that time, really downplayed the role of morals in our elected leaders. I said it then, and I’ll say it now, THEY ARE WRONG!
Moral leadership is desperately needed in this country. Yes, we did at least, and at last, get a moral president in George W. Bush. However, it can’t end there. We need governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, and maybe even dog catchers who have a code of morals by which they live.
I don’t remember the article, but one of the articles that will be in my new book, “Mr. Right Opinion-Unplugged and Unashamed: one man’s musings during perilous times in America’s history,” which will be available soon at authorhouse.com (shameless plug), talks about this very subject. About how drug use among teens went up after “Teflon Bill” admitted to smoking, but never inhaling, pot.
In this day and age it seems to be almost an epidemic among our “leadership.” Whether it be a senator looking for sex in a men’s restroom in an airport, a Louisiana congressman looking for a prostitute, a Louisiana congressman taking bribe money to secure a foreign country’s business, a president lying under oath about a sexual tryst which would later be revealed by, of all the things, a Clinton-stained blue dress, or the “F___ing Steamroller,” Eliot Spencer, who was going to get rid of unethical behavior in Albany, New York, the state’s capital seat.
And it most certainly is not just Democrats who have led us down this path of public corruption by way of “private behavior.” Republicans are just a guilty, at least on some levels, of the same thing. They have been caught up in sex scandals. And in fact, my own former Governor Ernie Fletcher was the target of a zealous, Democrat, Attorney General for a hiring scandal that broke during the Fletcher Administration.
After all, Fletcher, a Republican, ran on a platform of cleaning up the unethical behavior of his Democrat predecessor. It just goes to show you that greed and dirty politics is no respecter of persons. Greed is an insidious little critter that will sneak in at the very moment you let your guard down. Even the finest of us can have a lapse in judgment if we are not maintaining our spiritual life on a daily basis.
But alas, I regress. To answer the opening question: Yes. Spitzer most-definitely owes it to the state of New York, and to those who believed in his political aspirations, for his lewd, obnoxious behavior. Anyone who is put into a position of trust should be held to a higher standard than Joe Blow walking down the street.
Just as with Clinton, this has very little to do with “just sex.” I’ve heard all the spin in the last twenty-four hours. My favorite is that it was just a “sexual mistake.” Almost like an accident, like the man tripped, fell, and before you knew it, his chocolate bar was in her peanut butter. “It’s not like he laundered money or had any financial charges.” God knows that we can justify you corrupting our morals, as long as you leave our money in tact.
Again, what have we come to as a nation when we see this as “just sex?” Is there no honor and decency in keeping your vows in this country any more? Is there no honor in raising your THREE DAUGHTERS to think that prostitution is wrong. Or is it wrong for them, but OK for daddy? Mr. Top Cop who took down a couple of those rings himself as AG. I bet he told his girls that it was wrong then!
We need to start reclaiming this country. Reclaiming the values systems that led us to greatness. Demanding that our leaders do more than talk a good talk…they should also walk the talk. From the president down to the dog catcher, we need a standard moral code of conduct. And if you can’t live by that code…don’t even bothering applying!