(02-15-2018 11:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-15-2018 09:08 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-15-2018 07:35 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(02-15-2018 04:59 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(02-15-2018 04:51 PM)mrbig Wrote:  My opinion on politicians who cheat on their spouses has changed drastically over the years, perhaps than my opinion on any other issue. When I was in high school and college, I believed that a personal failing like that didn't affect the ability of the politician to do a good job.
But now that I'm married (and older), I believe the promises made to a spouse are amongst the strongest promises/vows one can make. My opinion is now that if a politician can't be trusted to keep the most important promise he/she might ever make, how can he/she possibly be trusted to keep their other promises and act in an ethical manner? I'm largely to the point that it should disqualify someone from public office (not that a law should be passed to that effect, just that I'm not sure I would vote for such a person). You can tweak fact patterns to make me feel slightly better about it (open marriages, individuals who are separated, when you think your husband is dead but really he was kidnapped and held by terrorists in Iraq for 7 years as they slowly try to convert him into becoming a terrorist, etc.).
If the spouse wants to forgive, that is fine with me. None of my business. But a breach of trust on something that important scares me. It isn't about the sex, it is about the breaking of promises and the lies. If you are willing to break that important of a promise to the person who should ostensibly be the most important person in your life, and then cover it up and lie about it....

Your comment is why I think it should color someone's opinion of the character of the person, but I still don't think that single act of cheating is disqualifying. But there can be other circumstances surrounding that act to cumulatively make someone unfit for office for a multitude of reasons - untrustworthiness being one of them.
But as Trump has shown, we may not actually care about a persons character anymore.

I think Ted "Blonde in the Pond" Kennedy and Bill Clinton proved it long before Trump.

About Clinton, are you kidding me? Many on the right certainly cared about his character and used that against him. Notice how I said "we"?

Whoever cared about either one, it was a minority. Did the "we" who cared about Clinton include you? It didn't really include me, because I thought he was actually a good president, and I sure as hell didn't want Al Gore in the White House.

Your point?

The minority you're now talking about has stopped caring about character as they now support Trump, who has certainly exhibited many moral flaws. So since the Dems have never really been the party that billed itself as the moral authority, and those on the right who used to tout their morality now don't, I fail to see how my statement needs any rebuttal. Why do you think there needs to be a rebuttal?

As to my opinion about Clinton, I'm not sure how 8 year old me felt about a POTUS committing adultery. I imagine I didn't have a very strong opinion about that, at the time.