Redemption

I was hoping no one would bring up Chappaquiddick, but it was inevitable. A number of blogs and plenty of commenters attacked Ted Kennedy for what he did. Seems to me the last 24 hours were a good time to lay off this subject.

What interests me more, in a man bites dog sort of way, is some of his defenders brought it up. I guess the best defense is a good offense.

For instance, we have Joyce Carol Oates in The Guardian:

Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?

The poet John Berryman once wondered: "Is wickedness soluble in art?". One might rephrase, in a vocabulary more suitable for our politicized era: "Is wickedness soluble in good deeds?"

This paradox lies at the heart of so much of public life: individuals of dubious character and cruel deeds may redeem themselves in selfless actions. Fidelity to a personal code of morality would seem to fade in significance as the public sphere, like an enormous sun, blinds us to all else.

There are a lot of things you could say, but I'll try to keep it short.

In general, I agree that the personal morality of a politician (or a novelist, for that matter) doesn't really matter. Not to me, anyway. Politicians are hired hands, and while it might be better if they had sterling personal lives, what I care about, ultimately, is what they do in their professional capacity. I'm not voting them in to reward them for their virtue, and I see very little correlation between personal goodness and good politics.

But how far does this sentiment go? Would it be okay if I found out a politician was a serial rapist? And what if his badness is more closely related to his politics--say, he blackmails other politicians so they'll vote his way. I obviously don't approve of the means, but do the ends make me vote for him rather than his nicer opponent who votes the wrong way, or is ineffective? Does greatness excuse everything? Does size excuse smaller problems?

More troublesome, it's easy to take Oates in a more partisan manner. It's easy to read her as saying as long as you're a powerful politicians Oates approves of, you can do whatever you want. I guess just having the right politics in general will get you off for minor peccadilloes. Then there's the corollary--even if you're wonderful to your family and friends, if you vote for bad things, like wars Oates doesn't support, you're a bad person.

I have less to say about Melissa Lafsky in the Huffington Post:

Mary Jo [Kopechne] wasn't a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan. She was a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future [....] she got in a car driven by a 36-year-old senator with an alcohol problem and a cauldron full of demons, and wound up a controversial footnote in a dynasty.

We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. [....]

Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

Actually, I have nothing to say.