Sanford's Sordid Sex Saga: Why We Like Publicly Shaming Hypocrite Politicians

By David Rosen, CounterPunch. Posted June 29, 2009.

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Sex scandals date from America’s earliest days. Those involving Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton were fodder for both the colonial press and political mudslinging. Who recalls how “Old Hickory,” Andrew Jackson, was slammed when he married the “bigamist,” Rachel Robards Davidson, or how “Old Buck,” James Buchanan, was lambasted over his friendship with Sen. Rufus King?

However, it was during the post-Civil War era that sex scandals among American pols reached its zenith. Grover Cleveland’s affair with Mary Crofts Halpin became the basis for competing campaign chants during the 1884 presidential election: Republicans shouting, “Ma! Ma! Where’s my Pa!,” and Democrats rejoining, “He’s gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Other 19th century scandals put to shame the puny indiscretions of our media-hungry age. The scandalous ways of congressmen William Breckinridge, William Taulbee, Arthur Brown and William Sharon make today’s affairs seem so banal.

Rep. Breckinridge (KY) had an adulterous affair and out-of-wedlock child with a college coed who he, after his wife died, refused to marry; taking him to court, the woman not only won the judgment but precipitated his electoral defeat. A reporter revealed Rep. Taulbee’s (KY) adulterous affair and, when the two crossed paths at the U.S. Capitol, they had a fistfight, and the reporter got a gun and shot and killed the congressman. Sen. Brown (UT) had a decade-long affair and out-of-wedlock child with a woman who he ultimately refused to marry; incensed, she shot and killed him, was put on trial and acquitted. Finally, we come the saga of Sen. Sharon (CA) who had an on-again, off-again “marriage” that went through more then a decade of federal and state court litigation, gun threats in court, the arrest of a federal judge and the final commitment of the apparent “wife” to a state mental institution for 45 years. It was the golden age of American political scandals.

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When Sanford took the podium of the South Carolina Statehouse and publicly admitted to his affair, he was participating in one of the oldest social rituals in American history. Initiated by the Puritans four centuries ago, the ritual of public shaming is a spectacle with two increasingly contradictory social functions.

First and foremost, a scandal is a morality tale, intended both to punish or shame the perpetrator and to educate the public as to what is socially acceptable. Second, over the last century, the scandal has changed, while maintaining elements of its original function, it has becoming a form of entertainment, intended to distract or fascinate the public. The shift in the social function of the scandal is a measure of how the moral values of the secular marketplace increasingly replace the power of religious tradition.

The long arm of Puritan moral vengeance hovers over public life today. Social shaming continues as the price paid by those caught refusing to abide by moral conventions. This vengeance has a particular meaning for those holding public office or in the public eye.

A revelation about a heretofore-secret sexual indulgence makes the perpetrator not only subject to shame and ridicule, but unfit for public service. One pays a stiff price for keeping a secret. For those in the public eye, only those who reject (self- and public-) deception can escape the glare of the media hunt and, thus, refuse the centrifugal force of the scandal.

Sanford opposed Obama’s federal spending program and governs one of the most regressive state governments in the nation. Like Ensign, he is a moral hypocrite, deserving of all the shame he is experiencing. While championing Christian-Republic values, he expresses a personality,
not unlike that of other politicians, of an oversized ego fueled by an unquenchable libido.

Nearly all politicians caught in compromising, and often hypocritical, scandals succumb to public shame and quickly retreat from the media spotlight. Politicians from both major parties regularly run from embarrassing scandals.

It will be interesting to see, in the new Obama era, if Sanford and Ensign remain in office and weather-out their adulterous storms. Their decisions will be a clear indication of the status of the ongoing culture wars. If they flee, like so many before them, the moral tyranny of the Christian right persists. If, however, they stay in office and face down the moral criticisms, something morally new might be developing.

Unlike Larry Craig’s persistence, which was more a testament to self-denial then to the fact (testified to by many) that he had gay sexual encounters, Sanford and Ensign could reject the moral shaming associated with out-of-wedlock sexual involvement and put one more nail in the casket of the culture wars.

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