For those that don’t know, I’ve followed the AJC’s political commentary for quite a while. Indeed, I’ve long looked up to the way Jim Wooten operated. Over the years, I began agreeing with him politically less and less, as I became more libertarian to his social conservatism, but I have long admired him and literally cried the day I heard he was retiring. Long before I really started getting involved in politics, Jim Wooten was there emailing me back and forth on occassion and encouraging me in my efforts at the time – even going so far as to mention me in his first blog of 2007.
That said, Mr. Wooten truly is, sadly, retiring, and a new guy has already started in his place: Kyle Wingfield.
In today’s column, Kyle comments on the recent youtube video of John Oxendine using his literally hours old baby for political gain. However, he also makes some really good comments about transparency and the private lives of politicians in general, which I’ve highlighted below the fold.
It is possible for pols to have some grace in revealing themselves. Sen. John McCain, who doesn’t need to show off his scarred body for us to know he speaks with authority about torture, comes to mind. So does Gov. Sonny Perdue, who hasn’t had to drag his Baptist pastor son onto campaign stages to let us know he’s a man of faith.
Yet this goes beyond ham-handedness. The kind of transparency that amounts to a renunciation of privacy strikes me as putting us one step closer to having a professional political class.
How many people, seeing the scrutiny of politicians’ personal lives, decide public office just isn’t worth it? When the standard is whether you’d film a campaign ad at something as intimate as your daughter’s wedding or your grandson’s confirmation, we’re mostly left with those candidates willing to structure their entire lives around getting into office.
Some of those candidates will have altruistic goals. John Oxendine may be one of them. But our politics suffers when we pull the political animals out of the herd.
The blur between public and private lives is even culling some of the political animals. By all accounts, Sarah Palin quit the Alaska governorship in part because of the toll that media intrusion was taking on her family.
The political life is enough of a fish bowl for politicians’ families — ask Bristol Palin, Jenny Sanford, Silda Spitzer, Chelsea Clinton, Elizabeth Edwards — without inviting millions of strangers into your hospital room.
Call me quaint, but I don’t see the family values in selling your own family.
In all honesty, this is the first column I’ve read from Wingfield. Good so far!
That said, welcome to Atlanta, Kyle Wingfield. May you prove to be the man of class and integrity your predecessor was.
(PS: You can see a couple of my own tweets on the Ox video here and here.)
“May you prove to be the man of class and integrity your predecessor was”
Classy. Hah. That’s a good one.
Wooten – May 11, 2007
“When my band of right-wingers take over, women who weigh more than Rosie O’Donnell will not be allowed to wear miniskirts outside the bedroom. Some things should not be seen in public.”
My Morning Wooten May 11, 2007
Once upon a time Jim was a classy guy but he left that behind when he felt the lure of lunacy and felt the glow of basking in the admiration of the shrill.
.-= griftdrift´s last blog ..My Morning Wooten =-.