It seems like we've been talking about secrets, lies, babies, and lies about secret babies all summer. A good chunk of the conversation has been: is this a legitimate concern of "the public."
I had the weird opportunity to let Elizabeth Edwards borrow my computer about a month before we found out about John Edwards baby and the even weirder coincidence of running into John at Maggiano's a couple days before his pathetic little TV-admission. So I was hyper-focused on that home-grown scandal.
Before that, I was deliciously curious about the Durham Devilcrats*. Then I was all about the anti-gay Alabama attorney general who was allegedly caught in bed with a man named "Troy." And before that way too much of my brain was consumed with thinking up clever trivia team names that referenced Elliot Spitzer's fantastic fall from grace.
"Brittney who? Paris as in France? " Unless it's Clooney, I'm barely interested in Hollywood. But give me a good political scandal and I'm hooked.
So now, despite my best feminist intentions, I am breathlessly obsessed with Sarah Palin and which babies belong to which mamas.
In a world with just 24 hours, with only so much attention span for so much news, is this a worthwhile obsession? Do I as a constituent really need to know about this stuff?
I say: Yes. Yes, I do.
Because in almost all of these cases, we see that whatever a person is preaching about the hardest is often in reality, their weakest link. I think there is a "buyer beware" nugget of truth in all of these examples. Think carefully about what people choose as their selling point and why. Think carefully about what *your* selling point is and why.
Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of passion. And most folks in my world and the world at large are passionate about things such as corruption, alleviating poverty, social justice, having a strong family, etc. for the right reasons. But I think when evaluating candidates it is crucial to evaluate why people choose the positions and passions they choose.
When preachers tell the story of Sodom and Gomorrah they almost always omit the creepy incest part about Lott and his daughters. Similarly, when talking about McCain's passion for anti-corruption, the part about the Keating 5 is almost always left out.
And so I wonder about Sarah Palin. For someone so obsessed with corruption and telling the truth, she sure does have lot of seemingly unvetted skeletons. And for a woman who is allegedly excellent at fishing, she sure does have some tall and smelly tales....
*I'm not sure there is a lesson really in the Durham Devilcrats as they weren't actually elected to anything and didn't hold any power. The lesson is: If you don't want to get penned up in a dog cage and beaten, a good strategy is to not answer Craig's List ads for devil worshiping partners.
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