kathrynt's political poll

[browngirl]

Wherein she asks this question: "A currently prominent and powerful man in the United States is married to a woman who, by her own admission, stole the prescription narcotics she was addicted to from the medical relief charity she founded and ran, for years. Do you know who I'm talking about?" Please take the poll; she asked me to point people to it, and I was planning to ask her if I could. :)



(And larded with personal examples, while discussing a political situation. Bear with me, I'm writing fast.)

I found myself thinking about whether/when it's fair to judge someone by the actions of a close associate (family member, spouse, etc) vs when it's not. On the one hand, that kind of judgement can often go too far: one of my many guiltinesses towards my parents is that I know that people judge their Christianity by my lack of same, and that seems incredibly unfair to me, my life is my own.

On the other hand, there is having a close associate involved in wrongdoing vs actively supporting them in that wrongdoing. One aspect of the above situation that seems important when evaluating the 'prominent and powerful man' is that this woman stole the drugs from her charity, and threatened employees to keep it quiet, and her husband supported her in these actions. There's an idea that close associates, especially family members, must support each other in anything and everything: I'll never forget when I was told that I had no right to be upset with a former landlady/roommate/friend for letting her brother drive me out of that living situation, because the sibling relationship trumped any financial or social agreements I had ever had with the lady in question, and when watching a documentary about Thomas Capuano, whose brother helped him dispose of his girlfriend's body, I was struck by the fact that more than one interviewee said the brother was wrong to tell the police he'd helped his brother commit murder.

I don't think I agree with that idea, though, not least since some of the best things that people who love me have done is to call me on things I've done wrong: I tell the story of how WD broke me of the habit of stealing towels from hotels in part because I think he improved me thereby and I love and respect him all the more for it. Needless to say, he'd never let me get away with bullying employees and stealing drugs (were I in a position to do so, which thought makes me laugh doubtfully, but never mind that), nor should he.

Another aspect that seems important to me is that, as I said in kathrynt's journal, this woman's counterpart (if you know the answer, you know whom I mean by her counterpart) could never in a million years have gotten away with anything like that, and yet this woman basically has and is. I only know this fact because Kathryn told me; about her counterpart it would have been front page news months ago. Do I even need to say more about the unfairness of that?

Once again, ah, politics.

Comments

[cereta.livejournal.com]

Is it sad that what strikes me most about this is actually that the McCain campaign isn't using it? It's exactly the kind of "I used to be trouble, but overcame!" story we love in this country.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Republicans (generically speaking the patriarchal mindset) never truly forgive drug addiction and theft (or welfare receipients, or...)

Though it'd be great to have it in the open by McCain, for many reasons:

1) to get it out there first, open admission (which they already did: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/drugs/index.html )
2) to show compassion and understanding of criminals in a way (ie, we know what's good for reform because we reformed ourselves!)
3) to show that anyone can overcome anything.....

but...yeah. For the record I had no idea before this post, which inspired me to research it.

The other question is "what is meant by supporting?" Should her spouse have divorced her for being a black mark on his record? If I found out Tony was doing something bad, or even horrific, I'd want to help him through it, make sure he got therapy....but I'm also forgiving of just about anything, which is kind of a flaw.

[ckd]

Well, since McCain divorced his first wife for being injured in a car accident, why shouldn't he divorce his second for being a fraudster and thief?

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe after the first wife McCain learned compassion. ;)

[rmd.livejournal.com]

or maybe it's because the new wife has the money.

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I did hear about this story years ago, but when I vote to elect someone, I elect them, not their spouse.

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

I totally know what you mean about her counterpart not being able to get away with it...

[sophinisba]

Seriously.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Huh. I knew Cindy McCain had had a drug addiction problem but I hadn't known those details. That's rather disturbing especially her husband's part in it.

[solvent90.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's fair to judge someone by another person's actions just because there's a relationship between the two. e.g. A's daughter, B, kills C; A isn't to blame just because she's B's mother. But active, proven complicity - A hides the body and lies to the police - in blameworthy actions is blameworthy in and of itself, I think, and I don't think the fact of the relationship is any excuse. That sounds kind of harsh but. Well. I don't think loving somebody, great though it is, is an excuse to avoid one's basic responsibilities to the rest of the human race - people love C too, after all, and it isn't okay for A to assume that that matters less than her great and consuming love for B. Which is easy to say, of course, and horribly tough to live out in less dramatic contexts than murder. But I think that's the standard, for what it's worth.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

Have you ever had a moment of stupid? I just did. My brain said 'It's *****' (correct answer), and my fingers typed in something...well, related by stupid.