It's All About Power

So, after a few days of increasingly frenzied media questions about where South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was and why he “escaped” from public view without letting even his staff know where he was going, he reappears in Atlanta and later admits he was cheating on his wife in Argentina.

Important questions about the state’s constitutional preparedness for a line of succession in the event of the governor’s absence during a crisis immediately gave way to endless chatter about the guy’s private life, his (probably not so) devastated family and, of course, his shattered presidential ambitions. And, once again, the media is scratching its head in wonder about how such a promising politician could make such a grievous moral mistake.

As far as I’m concerned, the mystery is not why it happened but, rather, why it doesn’t happen far more often than it supposedly does. Think about it: How many examples do we have in history of a person in power – whether in politics, business or family life – who does not, at one point or another, to some degree or another, abuse that power for personal, selfish and/or sexual purposes?

Our own relatively recent history is rife with examples of men in power engaging in sexual misbehaviors, in particular. “The names quickly come to mind,” according to a recent Associated Press report (“In old days, dalliances were private affairs,” http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2009/06/25/philandering_pol...): “Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., Sen. David Vitter, R-La., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., one-time Democratic presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Gary Hart, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, current New York Gov. David Paterson.” The article also points out former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and, lest we forget, former President Bill Clinton.

Go back farther in American history and, as contemporary researchers invariably highlight, these kinds of peccadilloes and marital infidelities are just as commonplace – Alexander Hamilton’s death-by-duel was the direct result of vicious public allegations he was having an extra-marital affair; Benjamin Franklin was assumed to be an incorrigible Lothario; Thomas Jefferson has recently been scientifically proved to be the father of a large number of children by his slave Sally Hemmings.

Of course, this phenomenon is not exclusive to America’s powerful men. One of the most glaring examples of the abuse of power for sexual pursuits was Henry VIII, who actually used one of his royal titles, “defender of the faith,” to rewrite canon law in order to justify his desire to legitimize his infidelity to Catherine of Aragon and, ultimately, to break away from submission to the Catholic Church to found his own separate denomination. Even the beloved legend of King Arthur began with his father’s rape of a kinsman’s wife in an effort to solidify his political power over the newly united British provinces.

The AP article tries to explain the sexual indiscretions of politicians by blaming the nature of the game itself: “These are men who love themselves deeply, need to be recognized and relish approval. These are men who adore getting praise and who often are surrounded by swarms of sycophants. These are men who, in some cases, need to exercise power and sometimes can become drunk from it. These are men who think the rules don’t apply to them and who think they’re untouchable.”

Obviously, this description doesn’t apply only to politicians but to anyone in a position of higher authority. How many advancement opportunities in the corporate world have been contingent on a woman’s willingness to sleep with the boss? How many Hollywood “starlets” surrendered to the proverbial “casting couch” in order to fulfill their silver-screen dreams? How many little girls have been molested and abused by fathers, step-fathers or other male relatives who insist their position of “authority” entitles them to this kind of selfish gratification?

As any professional criminologist or psychologist will tell you, rape is never about sex; it’s about power and the abuser’s need to feel powerful by compromising someone else’s dignity. Even if Gov. Sanford and most of history’s other philanderers were not committing the crime of rape, the fact remains that the possession of power seems to beget the need for more power. When this need cannot be fulfilled within the man’s official capacity, he appears to be driven to seek it in other, more immediately gratifying ways.

And, as the media become more adept at scrutinizing every detail of the lives of our public figures, it is virtually inevitable that these actions will be revealed, globally broadcast, hyper-analyzed, beaten to death and, usually (but not always, depending on the quality of PR employed after the fact), the offender’s life and dreams will be permanently dashed.

In the end, we are confronted with a fact that no one seems willing to consider, and that no one is prepared to credibly address: Human beings were not created to rule over each other, and our insistence on following leaders instead of upholding a universal ethic of personal and civic responsibility guarantees that we will continue to see scandals, glaring headlines, the destruction of families and the obliteration of our capacity to trust anyone.

I don’t advocate the overthrow of our government, you understand. But I do think we should hereafter require our prospective leaders to prove they can “keep it zipped” before we allow them to wield any power over the rest of us.

We're getting "screwed" enough as it is.