Christopher Hayes has a thoughtful argument in The New Republic arguing that the scandal is based on a meta-sin. One thing that is troubling about the story is that in-itself is that his sex life is his business. But what I think the author misses is in the last paragraph:
The point is not that a candidate’s private life is sacrosanct; it’s fine for the press to inform us of the personal moral failings of our potential elected officials. The point is that Ryan shouldn’t be taken to task by scolds for mishandling embarrassing allegations when it is these same scolds who incorrectly define the allegations as embarrassing in the first place.
I think it would be embarrassing that you take your wife to a swing club on three different occasions and in one she ends up crying because to which you respond, crying doesn’t turn you on. Disqualifying no. Embarrassing yes. Bombshell–not quite, but Wycliff agrees that was a poor headline.
Often embarrassing sex information is buried pretty quickly if you disclose it. We know about John McCain’s dalliances in his first marriage and no one cares. Other politicians have other issues as well. Ryan played a game of chicken in which the allegations aren’t that great, but he made a huge effort to conceal them magnifying the entire issue.
The second thing is that while going to a club with your wife isn’t the worst thing in the world, it is embarrassing to many. Suburban women and downstaters simply don’t understand the reason one would go to a sex club. It’s just out there to them. And it appears to be embarrassing to Jack Ryan who tried to have the file sealed to avoid such a disclosure. If there is nothing embarrassing in the file, than why was it sealed? One part for his child, but much of it because of the political damage it might due–he even says Jeri’s accusations are made to hurt his potential ambitions in the file.
What led to the media frenzy is that Ryan denied there was anything there. This creates two problems. First, he lied. Second, it gave people something to blackmail him with. So say he wants to appoint a strong, independent US Attorney, the Illinois GOP had a trump card on him.
So, not a meta-sin. But an allegation about a fairly minor incident that by hiding he made seem a lot worse than they probably are. If it is a meta-sin the start to tearing down the views about sex lives is to be honest about them and not act like the “scolds” Christopher laments.
I do think it is a good article and an important one in checking ourselves and how we react to ‘sex scandals’.
UPDATE: Eric Zorn has a different take on it. While I generally agree with Zorn’s logic, I don’t think Chris’ point is a bad point in thinking about the scandals.
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