… The late 1980s and 1990s marked a high-water mark for a kind of giddy journalistic derangement over politicians’ adultery, drug use and draft avoidance — a somewhat arbitrary trio of offenses inflated into mortal sins. Candidates and nominees for various public positions were barraged with questions on these issues, although no one ever showed that they bore on a person’s fitness for office. These orgies of saturation press coverage, feverish speculation and moral righteousness were dubbed feeding frenzies.
In time, the manias subsided. Bill Clinton was elected president as an admitted philanderer. Barack Obama confessed to having used “a little blow” in his youth and no one cared. Not one of our baby-boomer presidents served in Vietnam — a fact that troubles few people today.
So are we now able to evaluate aspirants for high office dispassionately, on the basis of their experience, achievements and qualifications? It sure isn’t looking that way. More likely, we have just dropped one bucket of shark bait and picked up another. CONT.
David Greenberg (Rutgers), New York Times