07-03-2022, 02:57 PM
(07-02-2022, 02:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(06-30-2022, 06:47 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I see Kennedy and Clinton similar in personality and political skill. I also see their alley-cat sexuality which I treat as pulling them down toward mediocrity. If I tear Harding and Trump down for this. then I must do so with these two. B-. The sex scandals were huge risks not worth taking. Morality matters, and if I am knocking down Reagan I must knock these two down.
I see these a bit differently. JFK's affairs did little to affect his presidency at a time when private affairs were quite justly kept private. I see it as none of my nor anyone's business to judge his sexual behavior or personal choices in relationships. The one thing I wonder about regarding JFK, is whether he had lost a good deal of Jackie's love through his infidelity, and this made Jackie too hesitant in the 5 seconds that counted to pull JFK and herself down in the car before the head shot and thus save his life instead of just stupidly looking into his throat and seeing if there was something wrong. He was being shot; when shots ring out you duck and cover. Governor and Mrs. Connally did. But Jackie didn't, and maybe if JFK had earned her love she would have reacted with more readiness to meet the situation.
As for Bill Clinton, I see his affairs as the failure of hypocritical Republicans and Mr. Starr and the media for making his scandal, when again it was none of our business, and except for this big distraction that the Republicans made over it, had no effect on his governance and policies, and he and his admin were not corrupt, but honest; quite unlike Reagan, Nixon and Trump.
On the other hand, Trump not only had many affairs but paid for one of them and paid to cover them up. And quite unlike JFK they were often unwanted advances. So that's a bit more corrupt than Clinton was about sex, who only said about his consensual (but risky) affair with Lewinsky to a grand jury that "it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is", so yes Bill lied about sex as Trump did, but unlike Trump he came clean later, and didn't pay hush money; and it is the rest of Trump's infinite level of corruption and incompetence that makes his administration a failure, and twice impeached, and in fact I rate him the worst USA president ever; although Bush Jr. is right behind him for his unnecessary killings of 400,000 people based on lies and his otherwise useless, corrupt, undemocratic and defective policies.
Much as I disagree with Mike Pence on many things, I must consider adultery a destructive habit with little to gain from. If you want a healthy marital relationship and seek to avoid eliciting cynicism in your kids, you do not do adultery. Kennedy apparently diddled with someone with Mob connections, which could have become extremely compromising. Clinton was small stuff -- but I still say that Hillary Clinton deserved better. Harding slept with anyone willing.
Trump of course is an extreme sexual predator, as shown in his behavior in beauty contests and having paid big money to silence a porn star. A porn star!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.