Of Honor, Character and the Latest Scandal

The disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner finally resigned after calls to do so became almost as numerous among his fellow politicians as were the denunciations.  A conspicuous exception was his Upper Manhattan colleague, Rep. Charlie Rangel, who maintained that Weiner could still be effective in Congress “if the press gets off his back.”  Of course, Rangel knows something about lowering the ethics bar.  Last year, he was charged by the House Ethics Committee with 13 counts of misconduct that included misuse of his office, soliciting donations from those with business before the committee he chaired, and several tax violations.  Three months later, he won re-election with over 80 percent of the vote and then, a month later, became the first member of the House censured in 27 years.

Back in 1983, incidentally, two members were separately censured for having sexual relationships with a 17-year-old congressional page—a female page in the case of Rep. Dan Crane (R-IL) and a male page in the case of Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA).  Crane was defeated in his next re-election bid, and Studds was re-elected six more times before retiring in 1997 — a retirement Congress marked by naming a marine sanctuary after him.  Studds died two weeks after Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned in the wake of a similar scandal in 2006 — in that case, the sending of emails and instant messages to teenage former pages.

The disparity in how different cases of wrongdoing are resolved can be maddening —even before you think of the long political careers of Sen. Ted Kennedy or Rep. Barney Frank.  And of course, the cited cases are far from comprehensive.  There are at least seven Capitol Hill sex scandals after Foley’s that led to resignations or decisions not to seek re-election — plus two members who sought re-election, one successfully (Sen. David Vitter) and one unsuccessfully (Rep. Tim Mahoney, who succeeded Foley).  Some of them involved illegal behavior, and some involved lying to the public, but all involved one common component: dishonorable conduct.

“The Honorable” is automatically attached to a person’s name upon election to just about any public office, but we generally don’t assume that election is the mark of character or wisdom any more.  For that matter, we rarely hear the word “honor” used in modern dialogue.  Whether or not it turns out to have included illegal conduct, Congressman Weiner’s scandal involves dishonorable — not to mention reckless — conduct and lying to the public.  The apparent difficulty in getting him to resign his office may have come down to a question of the trait in which he proved to be so deficient: character.  Because it can be a Catch-22 to expect a certain level of shame from someone who has acted shamelessly, we rely on others to ensure that those who hold public office do in fact demonstrate requisite character — or face the consequences.

“Because power corrupts,” John Adams asserted, “society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”  There is no more essential ingredient in a public official than character.  If a politician’s words and actions cannot be trusted, he or she cannot be effective in office.  Is this straightforward?  In practice, I’m not sure how much it is.  When I worked on Capitol Hill, there were plenty of times I would find myself wondering whether what I heard people saying was simply an uninformed misstatement or a lie.  When I ran for Congress myself, it was clear that I was operating in a culture that did not put the highest premium on honesty.  A number of people expressed that it’s o.k., perhaps even expected, to lie on the “right” occasion.  “You’re too honest” is a remark I heard too often to count.

But those basic principles of character we are taught as children matter, and they have to be maintained amid the temptations that face those who rise in political office.  Those who have been given high office too often mistake it for an entitlement, and those who most loudly call for others to show them respect do not tend to be those who have earned it.  However often they have missed the mark in the past, in this case, most of our political leaders recognize the consequences of reckless and dishonorable behavior.  It may have taken some level of pressure from party leadership, but Rep. Weiner now recognizes it as well.

Frank Scaturro is a former Counsel for the Constitution on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York’s 4^th Congressional District.