I was talking with one of my friends, an American living in Israel, and we started talking about who will win the presidential election. I said it’ll either Obama or Clinton, and that McCain doesn’t have a snowballs chance on the surface of the sun.
Well, once I said Clinton, it immediately brought up the Lewinsky scandal, and that any woman who stays with a man who cheated on her isn’t fit to lead a country.
So, I was like, what?
It is seriously beyond all my comprehension why the hell something like that would determine if someone is fit for public office. The scandal aside, what Clinton did was wrong, he broke the law by lying under oath.
Now here’s where I stop understanding things: In Canada it would have been a non issue, a media circus yes, but the whole problem would have never have made it to court (and has such, no chance of lying under oath), and last I checked, adultery isn’t illegal in the United States, grounds for divorce, yes, but not illegal.
Canada has had its fair share of Prime Ministers who have had problems. Our first Prime Minister, the Right Honorable Sir John A. MacDonald, was a chronic Alcoholic, and was known to be drunk while in office. Even the best Prime Minister we ever had, Pierre Trudeau had issues, he was a womanizer and it was public knowledge that he beat his wife. Did this affect how they did their jobs? No, in fact, both men were reelected.
So I ask this: What is the big deal with knowing our leaders personal lives, then basing their eligibility to carry out public office on it?