Forums

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Serious Question:

What's the expiration date, or statute of limitations, for attacking a politician for an ancient sin?

Warren's 1986 bar card is now an issue? Is this what we're going to use to evaluate her today? Even if she was lying intentionally, does this eclipse all of her policies? Her ideas are now invalid because she lied about ancestry 33 years ago?

Northam's photos are appalling, and it's impossible to defend him based on lack of judgment alone (assuming he's not racist or has evolved considerably from what he was when he posed for those photos). But let's say he was a guy like Robert Byrd, who was in the KKK, and admitted it, but disavowed it later in life and pushed anti-racist policies while a legislator. If we could go back in time, should he (and Byrd) have been denied the ability to attain office for life?

Then you have this Fairfax incident. This is an old allegation, and so far as I see, the guy has no others lodged against him, and the timing suggests Northam is using it against him. Maybe it's not the best idea to elevate what appears to be a political hit-job to the level of probably-true-accusation?

I don't think a racist or sex predator deserves much of a second chance, as I don't believe people with those issues really "evolve" very much. But that's my bias. There are probably a number of people who do evolve beyond awful things they thought and did decades ago. And certainly, that one considered herself a native American, or used it for political gain, 30 years ago, seems to be an indictment long past its sell-by date.

Maybe we should put a statute of limitation on relevance of past acts? Maybe 15 years for non-violent bad behaviors? Because these gotcha attacks are just getting stupid, and they're potentially costing us decent candidates with policies worthy of debate, like Warren, while people like Trump and Richard Blumenthal are inexplicably given passes.

Sometimes, the way things were done in the past are preferable. In the past, a politician's bad acts or dumb statements could in most instances be forgotten or swept under the rug. This allowed us to have serial philanderers like JFK in office, or libertines like Charlie Wilson in Congress. Our modern day peanut gallery of internet sleuths ripping down people like Warren simply for the sheer glee of destroying her is doing no one any favors.

We need a right to be forgotten, at least for politicians, or we're even more fucked than we think.