The Politics of Perfection
By Walt Bodine
The Squire — April 16, 1992

Help wanted: Good people to run for public office. No second-raters (We have an oversupply now). No special requirements other than being perfect. How about it? Want to be a member of the House or Senate? While they last, there are still lots of perks and a six-figure salary, not to mention an office and large staff to do your bidding. What more could you want? You may need a reference from your banker that you have not bounced a check, but what they hay?

How about you as our next mayor? Principal requirement? You hate to [travel?] and you must be in habit of paying your own way, and of telling a straight [story?] without blaming other people if you get out of line.

Or how about you as governor of this or any other state? You usually get the [????] of a nice mansion as part of the deal, and all you have to do is please everybody, bend the knee to the federal government and its requirements on just about everything and answer constantly to your critics in the legislature and the news media. Simple enough, right?

Anyway, the minute you take elected office, the custom is that you are supposed to be addressed as “the honorable Mr. or Mrs. So-and so.”

You might be ready for all of the above but there is one more thing to think over- your personal perfection from day one to the present moment. You must never have had a single moment you are ashamed of; no damning words spoken, no documents that show you in a less then exemplary light. In short, you must have lead a life without fault or sin from day one to the present.

The press, radio, TV and the pollsters, who will be all over your case if they find any imperfections, can be counted on to be relentless. They have abandoned some of their forgiving attitudes of the past in favor of diligently seeking your every fault.

The grocery store tabloid, once beneath contempt for the principled journalist, is now a source.

Reporters swarm over your hometown, as they are doing now in Little Rock, to see if there is any more dirt. Even if you are president, they begin to total up what you spend of taxpayer money for your getaway trips, whether it’s for vacation or campaigning.

If some nosy old ex-cop decides he saw marijuana being used in your house even if you are not there, or dredges up a fourteen year-old “memory” of seeing some white dust in the trash that looked like cocaine, never mind, dear. A gumshoe seeking a little notoriety will find a whole news network ready to lead with the story.

Meanwhile, back at the nation. The country slips into ever more perilous economic condition. And the national debt soars higher and higher as the President and Congress, those joint culprits, write IOU’s to be paid by our children and grandchildren in the future.

Gigantic issues go unresolved: health care, an expensive educational system, shot through with failures and crime enough to make any citizen walking down the street look warily at any person approaching. And that’s by day. At night you don’t walk al all through many areas.

All these things are more we live with. And we watch each of them continue to worsen by the day while politicians are more concerned about their own re-election.

One other thing. The ordinary citizen is not too perfect either. People have been dozing away, reassured first by Ronald Reagan who left the impression that life is like a beer commercial, easy and smooth! Mr. Bush made and paid for the politically immoral promise of no new taxes. Too many people who know all about sports or the latest show on TV know nothing about government. They excuse themselves from voting by declaring that all politicians are alike and voting does no good.