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Tue 6 Jul, 2004 06:36 am
Is this carrying investigative reporting too far? Does the public have a need to know.
Media should butt out
of pols' sex lives
Some Republicans are demanding that John Kerry open up the sealed records of his divorce from his first wife, Julia Thorne. This is a terrible idea. It's embarrassing that Kerry even felt he had to discuss this nonissue.
The Republican demand is in retaliation for a strange misadventure by the Chicago Tribune. The Trib went to court to unseal the divorce papers of Jack Ryan, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Illinois. A Los Angeles judge unsealed the records, and they showed that Ryan had taken his then-wife, actress Jeri Ryan, to sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans and urged her to have sex with him while other people watched. (She refused.) As a result of this revelation, Ryan's political support collapsed and he quit his candidacy.
Ryan is not a very sympathetic figure. But the Trib's behavior was awful - mounting a big legal effort that knocked him out of contention over a rejected sex fantasy and breaking the story under the front-page headline, "Ryan File a Bombshell."
The clincher is that both Ryan and his ex-wife wanted to keep the divorce records private, a request the Tribune should have respected.
The gap between what it did and what supermarket tabloids do all the time is not large.
When should the news media pursue and reveal sexual details about politicians? How about almost never? It's probably best to stick mainly to cases involving serious claims of victimization (i.e., Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Clinton).
Unfortunately, reporters find it hard to let go of the hypocrisy excuse for invading privacy - if a pol has ever come out in favor of marital fidelity, he is fair game for sexual reporting. But this can't be a good idea. It puts anything-goes philanderers off-limits and targets only the backers of traditional moral values.
It also has the effect of keeping more and more first-rate people out of politics.
In the Ryan case, the court decided that the unsealing of the candidate's divorce records was important because of the "higher lever of [public] interest" in Ryan triggered by his decision to run for the Senate.
In plain English, this amounts to a warning: If you want to avoid an especially high level of sexual scrutiny, stay out of politics. Does anyone really think this kind of norm will improve our political culture?
Originally published on July 6, 2004
I don't see where a persons sex life has anything to do with their being an effective leader. GW Bush killed tens of thousands of innocent people. Clinton stained a dress. We tried to impeach Clinton whereas some regard Bush as a hero. Something is totally amiss.
NickFun wrote:I don't see where a persons sex life has anything to do with their being an effective leader. GW Bush killed tens of thousands of innocent people. Clinton stained a dress. We tried to impeach Clinton whereas some regard Bush as a hero. Something is totally amiss.
Goerge Bush hasnt killed anyone.You need to either restate that or retract it.
I do agree that the press is to worried about someones sex life.It seems to me that they are more into scandal mongering instead of reporting.
mysteryman wrote:Goerge Bush hasnt killed anyone.You need to either restate that or retract it.
You need to either restate that or retract it.
gustavratzenhofer wrote:mysteryman wrote:Goerge Bush hasnt killed anyone.You need to either restate that or retract it.
You need to either restate that or retract it.
Ok,I'll bite.
Who has President Bush killed?
The charge was that HE killed people.Dont say the military or anyone in Iraq,that is not what was said.
The charge was that George Bush " GW Bush killed tens of thousands of innocent people"
So,I ask again,exactly who has George Bush killed?
Well, he killed George Berdowski, an occupational therapist from Dry Gulch, Colorado.
If you're looking for specific names, mysteryman, that's the only one I can come up with at the present time.
Let me do a little more digging.
George Berdowski, an occupational therapist from Dry Gulch, Colorado. the official investigation shows that George died from a gunshot to the back of the head after being hung by the neck and repeatedly stabbed, declared a suicide.
I would imagine that Kerry is prepared for the other side to dig into his sex life via the media. As for if it is fair or not, it is not fair but not much is that goes on in politics.
Why has no one thought to dig through Bush's life before he was born again? If he done drugs and alcohol; surely there is some kind embarrassing sexual incident to throw out to the media?
I say, why fight it? Just give as good as you get and maybe at some point sexual incidents and sex lives will be so old news that it won't be worth the effort of reporting it.
gustavratzenhofer wrote:Well, he killed George Berdowski, an occupational therapist from Dry Gulch, Colorado.
If you're looking for specific names, mysteryman, that's the only one I can come up with at the present time.
Let me do a little more digging.
OK,Where did you find that?
I would like to see it for myself.
Are you saying that Bush personally killed him? If thats so,then he should have been prosecuted,right.
So,what is your source?
revel wrote:Why has no one thought to dig through Bush's life before he was born again? If he done drugs and alcohol; surely there is some kind embarrassing sexual incident to throw out to the media?
lol You can come out from your cave now!
Pardon my egregious error! Allow me to restate! Bush has ordered the execution of tens of thousands of innocent people! There! I feel better too!
NickFun wrote:Pardon my egregious error! Allow me to restate! Bush has ordered the execution of tens of thousands of innocent people! There! I feel better too!
Again,What "tens of thousands of innocent people"
are you talking about?
And how were they "executed"?
fishin' wrote:revel wrote:Why has no one thought to dig through Bush's life before he was born again? If he done drugs and alcohol; surely there is some kind embarrassing sexual incident to throw out to the media?
lol You can come out from your cave now!
I guess I am ignorant, but I don't get your point?
revel wrote:fishin' wrote:revel wrote:Why has no one thought to dig through Bush's life before he was born again? If he done drugs and alcohol; surely there is some kind embarrassing sexual incident to throw out to the media?
lol You can come out from your cave now!
I guess I am ignorant, but I don't get your point?
The point was that the Democrats have been digging into every single thing is Bush's life for the last 4 years now trying to find every scrap of dirt they can.
Hey Mysteryman! The war in Iraq is a war that didn't need to happen. Iraq never fired a shot at the US. They had nothing to do with 9/11. Nonetheless, Bush sent our troops over there and killed tens of thousands. Not to mention Afghanistan. Get it?
NickFun
Let's not confuse Iraq with Afghanistan. We were justified to attack Afghanistan they were harboring the our attackers.
mysteryman if you go out today and kill someone and I know about it, empower you to possess the murder weapon and provide you with a getaway car, then under the law I am an accessory to murder, as responsible legally as morally and subject to prosecution. bush has empowered the US military to committ acts, regardless of moral purpose , which have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, and he has not only done it, but packaged it, sold it, defended it and glorified it.
You have been maimed by this for life if I am to understand what I've read and that's one casualty too many as far as I'm concerned. I do not question your motives or the honorableness of your convictions or beliefs btw.
fishin' wrote:[The point was that the Democrats have been digging into every single thing is Bush's life for the last 4 years now trying to find every scrap of dirt they can.
they forgot every drop of semen. guess the repubs are more thorough. :wink:
You are correct Au. I feel sorry for the Afghani people as they were following orders. I still recall a CBS newsperson interviewing Afghan citizens and asked them their opinion on the US. Some of them didn't even know where the US was. And when shown a map it had to be explained to them that the world is round! But the fact remains that Iraq never threatened us.
Re the media digging up the sex lives of pols: If the public didn't care, the media would stop doing it. It's like the ratings for sleazy reality TV shows. If people didn't watch, they wouldn't be on the tube...
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