Thanks for the kind words, all.
(Well...
almost all; but Agent 488 does have a point.)
My target here wasn't really Michele Bachmann, or even The Family Leader and its pledge. My target is the trumped-up outrage that a great many people express any time a politician fails to keep it in his/her pants. (Usually "his," I think it's fair to say)
For some reason, a lot of people appear to expect a 'higher standard of conduct' out of elected officials than they do from the average Joe -- or like to pretend that they do, anyway. I understand how people arrive at that expectation, or that
hope at least, but I just can't share in it.
I'm admittedly very cynical, but there are a couple of old lines that play on infinite repeat in my mind with respect to elected officials:
The first is:
Quote:
Q: How do you know when a politician is lying?
A: His lips are moving
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The second, which I'm probably getting wrong since I'm working from memory, is a line from the novel
Shibumi by Trevanian:
Quote:
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It is a truism of American politics that no man capable of being elected to public office deserves to be.
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Sounds about right to me.