If you assume, as a growing number of people do, that nearly all politicians are either lying opportunists or opportunistic liars, it’s harder to get outraged when one or more of them get caught.
I mean, when you heard about Mark Souder, the sexual-abstinence advocate/congressman from Indiana — the one who was sleeping with a staffer who had actually appeared with Souder on a teaching-abstinence video — what did you think?
Hypocrite, sure. Liar, of course. But what I really thought was, I bet Jon Stewart wishes he wasn’t on vacation. It’s too perfect. It couldn’t be any more perfect if it were film of Souder with Mark Sanford on the Appalachian Trail or with John Edwards in a hotel closet.
You’d think that if you were Souder, you’d know the rules: If you’re going to have sex with a staffer, never make a sex video with her and never, for that matter, make a sex-free video with her. I just hope Letterman’s writers send him a thank-you note.
But I have a confession of my own to make. I have, on occasion, defended politicians. I’ve tried to make the case that while it’s tempting to say we should throw all the bums out, it’s too easy. It’s too cynical. It lets us, the voters, off the hook.
And then I pick up the paper and have another one of those head-slapping moments.
What else can you do when you read about Joyce Foster, the Colorado state senator who somehow failed to mention that her brother-in- law was an alumnus of a sex-offender program she had disparaged on the Senate floor?
She had offered an amendment to a bill extending a sex-offender management board. The amendment allowed sex offenders some choice about which treatment facility they’d attend. It seemed like a fairly bold thing to do. There isn’t a large pro- sex-offender lobby, after all.
When she explained that she had heard many complaints about a particular facility, I’ll admit I wondered. Why would these people call Foster? Was she on a disgruntled-sex-offender hotline? But I didn’t think much of it. Fudging the truth, after all, is a time-honored political strategy.
For example, when Scott McInnis said he didn’t recall having been on a Republicans-for-choice advisory board, we didn’t necessarily believe him. We also didn’t necessarily expect that he expected us to believe him. But when a Post reporter asked Foster if she had a relative who had, in fact, gone through the Teaching Humane Existence sex-offender program, she flatly said no.
This, of course, leads to the question of how stupid she thinks we are. There’s this thing called the Internet, which pretty much offers a path to unlimited information, including the fact that Foster had a pro-sex-offender lobby in the family, a brother-in- law who’d been convicted of fourth- degree sexual assault in Wisconsin.
I wanted to be outraged. I was mostly offended that she’d thought I was that dumb.
But fortunately, the latest list of lying liars doesn’t end there. If you’re not outraged by Richard Blumenthal, you need to check your pulse.
Blumenthal is the Connecticut attorney general running for the Senate seat held by Chris Dodd. Blumenthal was the heavy favorite — at least until The New York Times called him out on his Vietnam-era service.
The Vietnam War is the one that never ends. The last battles of the war are being fought over what people did at the time — who went and who, like me, didn’t go and why. That was the war as fought during the Bush-Kerry presidential race, which the Swift Boaters won.
Blumenthal was in the Marine Corps Reserve during Vietnam. He spent most of the war in Washington, D.C. Among his duties, according to The Times, was working on the Toys for Tots campaign. He joined the Reserve after receiving five deferments, putting him in Dick Cheney territory. He joined the Reserve at a time when that meant you wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam, putting him in George W. Bush territory.
Over the years, Blumenthal would usually tell Connecticut audiences that he served “during” the Vietnam era, except for a few times when he’d slip and say he was “in” Vietnam.
He slipped often enough that Connecticut newspapers routinely described him as a Vietnam vet — a mistake he apparently didn’t correct.
Blumenthal became a strong advocate for veterans, often mentioning how badly Vietnam vets had been treated and how today’s vets must be honored. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to wonder if there’s more than politics going on here.
What I do know is that the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan, another war that can’t seem to end, just hit 1,000.
Those who fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq volunteered to go. Many who fought and died in Vietnam did not. In some ways, in the most important ways, that difference doesn’t matter so much. The sacrifices made were just as great.
But it was their sacrifice, not his. If you’re looking for truth, that’s truth you can’t mistake.
Mike Littwin writes Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at mlittwin@denverpost.com or 303-954-5428.
