2000-11-03
Dubya DUI, posted at 21:21:17
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Even though I don't necessarily think that something someone did 24 years ago should have a bearing on a presidential election, it's tough for me not to salivate when I hear about Dubya's problems with his DUI conviction being brought up.My feelings on issues such as this are many-tiered. In "The Contender," the lead female character (spoiler ahead... careful) was involved in a sex scandal when she was in college, and now it's affecting her approval as the Vice President, 25 years after the fact. The always-excellent Joan Allen, who plays the character, does not answer any of the questions regarding the collegiate incident, saying they have no bearing on her approval as VP. Of course, the whole time she refuses to answer the questions, we think she did actually do it and is embarassed of it.
In a laughable bit of plotting that nearly (okay, pretty much) ruined the movie for me, Allen, at the end, admits that it wasn't her at all at the sex party. She just didn't want to answer the questions because of the *principle* of it. Like a politician would ever do that. It was inane, both for the film and for the character. The movie was basically a statement on the whole Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, as the filmmakers were obviously saying that the questions about the affair should never have been asked in the first place.
After the film, I got in a little bit of an argument with my friends after I ridiculed the ending (which, by the way, ruined a pretty darn good movie). Of course the personal lives of politicians don't matter, they argued. John F. Kennedy never had to answer any questions about his personal lives. etc, etc. (Me, I say you can't really compare eras that easily - there's a lot more going on now). To me, it doesn't really matter if Clinton was getting a blowjob while in office. If it would have happened first term, for example, I certainly wouldn't have voted for Bob Dole to restore morality to the White House.
What's my point? I have no idea. All I know is that if it were Gore who we just found out was arrested for DUI 24 years ago, it wouldn't make me not vote for him. I don't really care. But I do think people should have the choice whether to care or not. Those questions do deserve to be answered. And despite my feelings that a decades-old mistake should have no bearing on the election, I still hope that it kills the momentum that Dubya seems to have right now.
By the way, what in the hell are the American people thinking to have Dubya ahead three points in the polls? There is absolutely no excuse for any woman or minority to ever vote Republican, yet he leads on these fronts. What are these people thinking?