David Letterman slept with one or more women who worked for him on his show. Threatened with extortion, he went on his show, told the audience what happened with directness, candor, and as much dignity as one can muster when (literally) caught with one's pants down.
David Letterman is an entertainer, a comedian. He's not accountable to the public for anything other than making us laugh. He could have survived this in any number of ways (see Polanski, Roman), he could have let it blow over, he could have blustered and denied, he could have paid the guy off. He didn't do any of these things - he just took responsibility and didn't justify a thing.
John Ensign (R-NV) had an affair with a staffer while employing her husband. He tried to use political influence to find a job for the husband while the affair was going on, he had his parents pay almost $100,000 to his paramour and her husband, and to this day insists on splitting legal hairs ("I did nothing that was legally wrong") in an attempt to evade responsibility for his actions.
John Ensign is a United States Senator. He is supposed to be in Washington to serve his constituents (of which I am one) and to participate in governing the country at the highest level of the Legislative Branch. He is also part of a clique of Senators and Representatives who belong to "The Family," a clandestine group that believes that their take on Christianity puts them above the Constitution and above accountability to anyone but each other, and a leading "family values" Conservative.
When did entertainers become more responsible and accountable than elected representatives?
Apparently some of our elected representatives have decided that their job is to advance their and their friends' views of what should be done rather than to represent their constituents' views. John Boehner (R-OH) says that no one has told him they want a public option in health care reform, and from that he concludes that "[the public option] is about as popular as a garlic milkshake." Even if we accept that that statement is true - no one has said those words to Rep. Boehner - poll after poll has shown that 70 to 80% of Americans support some form of public option, so Mr. Boehner's statement is disingenuous at best.
President Obama traveled to Copenhagen to carry the bid by Chicago and the United States for the 2016 Olympic Games. The IOC voted to send the games to Rio. Within minutes Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele, and others triumphantly declare this a defeat for the President. Limbaugh makes the egregiously false statement that the President has spent eight months traveling all over the world telling people how terrible America is, so "why would they want to send the games to someplace that sucks so bad?" In point of fact, President Obama has spent eight months trying to restore the reputation of America after it was all but destroyed by eight years of George Bush.
I guess not all entertainers are responsible and accountable.
I could go on with example after example of irresponsibility, lack of accountability, and mendacity on the part of our public officials and others such as Limbaugh, Beck, and Steele who have appointed themselves public voices, but you've heard it all. My question is when did we, as a nation, become numbed to this?
Where is the Joseph Welch who will stand up and say "Have you no shame, sir? Have you no decency?" Surely Tail-gunner Joe McCarthy was scarier than Ensign, Limbaugh, et al., so why has no one stood up to them?
Or let's make it more local - when that person down the street or down the hall gives you the benefit of their sincere view that Obama was born in Kenya or that health care reform will mean killing grandma, why do we not call them out for the idiot that they are?
Have we come to the point where we just accept this, or is it just that we are so committed to not making waves that we won't confront blatant lying and hypocrisy? In either case we are in grave danger. Remember the classic statement by Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran Pastor who who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1938 and interned in Dachau until 1945:
In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.
This is a no-kidding crucial situation. Unless someone will stand up and (metaphorically) shout "you lie!" to those who are lying, we may find one day that there is no one left to speak for us.
Follow Ed Gurowitz, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/egurowitz
We all need to stand up and be counted. It is time!
Thank you.
Great post and it is important because there is a need to also talk about the obvious and to visualize how responsibility and acountability is communicated.
It is easier to see/hear when others do this than when we ourselfes are the ‘entertainers’.
Kind regards,
Ingrid
The valid point of accusation is that conservative candidates do profit from a dumbing-down and stultification of the public and the electorate. For a while, they even managed to turn that itself into a virtue. And they did that openly. There's enough proof of that. They were extremely proud of it and it scared the heck out of democratic candidates for many decades.
Cheap excuses will not do. It's not even necessary to shout: 'you lie', all it takes is to ask 'why should I believe that crap?' - but not towards the simplistic, but towards the sophisticated.
When was the last time somebody asked George Will, David Brooks or Peggy Noonan how they feel about the fact that they profit from the stultification of the public they claim to represent or even 'lead'?
To ask for the same level of accountability and responsibility in elected representatives than in entertainers and comedians would be more than enough. I'm afraid it's more than you will get. But it's also more than what's really necessary.
What cannot work is denial from those who know better. It's easy to make a list of statements where leaders and public figures deny the existence and impact of the liars and benders-of-truth. Or claim to not form an alliance with them.
In principle, everybody indeed has a right to disassociate him/herself from those who poison the well. But it must be done credibly and if it's not credible the bluff must be called.
There's no doubt that the 'entertainment' provided by Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity O'Reilly is scare-tactics and fear-mongering with modern and elaborate means. It is very difficult for conservative pundits or party leaders to disassociate themselves credibly from the effects of these figures, given the explicit and by-now-well-known and documented strategies followed by presidential candidates from Nixon onwards.
Welcome to the Living page! I appreciate your perspective on standing up for the truth. Is it not the truth that sets us free?
Blessings to you,
Anne
Bravo! I love your first post! It's great seeing you here on the Living page.
Thank you for this powerful reminder that we each have a responsibility to stand for the truth and call out hypocrisy. Your voice is a welcome addition to this community.
Best to you,
Judith
Time to be upset with all the lies. I used to call them misinformation but that's way to kind. Hopefully folks in this country will prove that "you can fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time"
Keep it going.
Jose