The topic was Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it sounded a lot like the Year of Monica Lewinsky on NPR's Diane Rehm Show on Wednesday morning. Randy Cohen, the former writer of "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times Magazine, mysteriously announced that "I would argue against this notion of character" when it comes to the marital fidelity of politicians. "There are many people who would've preferred a philandering JFK to a monogamous Richard Nixon. That I think this notion of character that we're purveying is sentimental but false."
That is, unless the unfaithful one was a social conservative, like Newt Gingrich. Then Cohen pounced: "If you had an ounce of integrity, you would have to withdraw from public life or burst into flames or go straight to Hell and, you know, reserve a spot for simply being flamboyantly dishonest."
Cohen began by suggesting Schwarzenegger was never a good governor, so the adultery was of no consequence:
Then he asked if he could "jump in here" to add his two cents about the falsehood of character:
I would argue against this notion of character, at least the way we're using it in our conversation. The character assumes there is a kind of consistent behavior, consistent set of values that people will have. The way they act in one situation tells us something important about how they'll act in another. That's why these kind of scandals are thought to have public importance. But I would say history tells us that's not true. That people are very able to compartmentalize. People who behave quite appallingly in their marriage turn out to be very, very effective public servants....
There are many people who would've preferred a philandering JFK to a monogamous Richard Nixon. That I think this notion of character that we're purveying is sentimental but false.
But what about Newt Gingrich? Then Cohen unfurled his moralism against moralists:
REHM: So Randy Cohen, what does Newt Gingrich's sexual infidelity have to do with his whole approach to politics?
COHEN: Well, here I think it's very much germane, because he himself declared marital fidelity a measure of a person's fitness for public office. It's something he repeated over and over again while he was lambasting President Clinton, and we should point that -- and while he was going out and dating his current wife while he still had an inconvenient present wife. So he fails by his own standard. He and his crowd of family values guys, they say, here are the criteria for a defective public official. They must behave certain ways in terms of marriage. They must be monogamous. So they fell by their standards, not by mine, but by theirs.
And so, it's not merely that these guys are hypocritical or comical or that they're practical implications, it's an utter failure of integrity. You declare these values. You fail by your own values. If you had an ounce of integrity, you would have to withdraw from public life or burst into flames or go straight to hell and, you know, reserve a spot for simply being flamboyantly dishonest. Here, it's relevant, but for Arnold, not so much. I understand why it makes Maria feel awful, but I don't see why it cares -- why it matters to a California voter if Arnold, you know, again seeks public office.
At least, when it turned to the rape charges against IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Cohen felt the rape charges were completely different and more serious. But Eric Pape of Foreign Policy magazine brought the sympathy for the socialist cause:
REHM: Your piece yesterday was headlined "Sarkozy's Favorite Sex Scandal." First, what's been the reaction in France to the allegations that he was involved in rape?
ERIC PAPE: It's hard to overstate the reaction in France, the sense of shock. This is a man who was as likely as anyone to become France's next president in an election next year. He was seen as, given his background in financing and the economy, as maybe the perfect leader for a time when people are so stressed out. The idea that he, a man with that background who's also a socialist and who has conveyed sort of a warmth and a comfort with people who are suffering, this helped to galvanize people around him.
Maybe DSK is the perfect leader -- except for those rape charges.
