I like to think that the demise began when President Clinton abused Monica Lewinsky in the White House and his actions were openly talked about in the news media. How horrific it was to see the president of our nation telling a lie in front of millions when he said he did not have sex with her. The extent of his involvement with her was astounding. It led to a vote to impeach him. Despite this scandal he is now asking the people to let him go back into the White House.
But it didn’t really begin with him. He was not the first to dishonor the office of the president by engaging in extra-marital sexual activity. As far as I know that belongs to President Kennedy who was at least able to keep his exploits out of public notice. It is said there was a tacit understanding that reporting his actions was not to be done; I suppose that was follow-on to the agreement not to report President Franklin Roosevelt’s paralysis.
After the sordid Clinton the White House as far as I can tell returned to a place where presidents avoided tainting it under Bush and Obama. For that at least we can be thankful. But the tone set by Kennedy and Clinton has lingered on where we see the horrible specter that is occurring today where vile comments are being bandied about by vile candidates.
The puerile senator from Florida, Rubio, with his comment: “you know what they say about men with small hands.” Look at the video when he makes the statement. His audience is a bunch of young high school kids. Watch the reaction of the kids in the background when they understand from other kids the import of his statement.
One reporter noted: “Not even the best political forecasters could have guessed that Donald Trump’s hand and genitalia size would become 2016 presidential campaign topics”
Then Mr. Really Crude, another aspirant for the presidency, had the ill-informed judgment to bring this up during a national debate. Holding up his hands he said: “Look at those hands, are they small hands? And, he referred to my hands — ‘if they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”
Do you really want someone like that pig to represent our country after all we’ve been through? What does this tell you about his judgment? Remember Trump is the one who said of the billionaire sexual pervert Jeffrey Epstein: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
The cancer of cruddy crudeness spread wildly. Congressman Stephen Lynch living in his narcissist Congressional bubble pushed the vileness by talking publicly about Mayor Walsh’s small hands. Do you feel the crud creeping, crusting, and covering our country?
I recall the statement of attorney Joseph Welch who was defending the reputation of a young colleague at his law firm which was in Boston, Hale and Dorr, from the attacks of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He said: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?.
Yes, decency. A now forgotten tradition of how we did things in America. It is defined in my unabridged Webster’s Third New International Dictionary as: “the quality or state of being decent.” Decent is defined as: “3 a: free of anything improper or of suggestions of the immodest, lustful, or obscene: indicative or suggestive of virtue or propriety.:
The tearing down of our standard has brought us to the point where we Americans seem to openly accept the crude and vile politicians who despoil our youth and soil our children with their vulgarities and their lack of judgment.
Here is the question for the people of the United States: “Let us not assassinate this country further. You’ve done it enough. Have you no sense of decency? At long last have you no sense of decency?”
Matt
did not get your
email regarding Fitzpatrick email address
please resend
thanks
Matt, A learned, highly respected mid-west Pastor named Don Boys, Ph.D., recently wrote an article about Donald Trump, which concluded with the assessment that Trump was a “rude, crude, lewd dude.”
Bill:
I don’t know why he went so easy on him. In my mind those are compliments when it comes to Trump.
Good post, Matt. I’m always astonished by the politicians who end their talks with “God bless America”. In light of what you just wrote — and so much more — I always wonder ‘why should He bless us?’ Instead, they should be saying ‘God have mercy on America’, for we have squandered everything our Founding Fathers poured out their blood to establish for us.
Janet:
You are a fine historian. You must know poor God has been part of so many deprivations in America that He fled from this land decades ago. It might have been around the time when we were told that the rich industrialists had all their money because God willed it; all those people in the mines, in crowded tenements, working as share croppers had to be evil because God did not favor them. Ah, keep in mind the White Man’s Burden to go into the Philippines to spread Christianity among the ignorant. After killing between 250,000 to 1 million of them we began the process of teaching them our way. We lost God a century or more ago; we are now losing decency: what will we have left?
Hollywood, the media and the music industry all promote gross and vulgar behavior. How many in the press condemned Trump for his crude comments or his superficial denunciations of his opponents appearance? The public is incapable of recognizing how Trump was sold to it. Few understand the game the media was playing. If the liberal media, CBS,ABC,NBC and CNN could orchestrate the GOP primary contests to produce the most disliked person as be the nominee the Democrat would sail to victory. The motives of the press were not questioned when it was obvious they were trying to help one party. 2. You were right to point out that most of the so called victims of Whitey were not victims. Other than two or three innocent bystanders are the rest victims? Are Halloran, Callahan, King, O’Toole and Connors victims. They were all in the rackets and they were all in the violent portion of the gangs. Hardly victims.
NC:
1. Your point on the media accepting the loutishness of Trump is so true. No one in the mainstream seemed bothered by the lowering of the discourse. The Washington Post treated it as something to laugh about. Of course the media is cheer leading Clinton who is so hated that a guy who honeymooned in the Soviet Union and was a supporter of S.D.S. is beating her in many states. People criticized Obama for having met Bill Ayers – no one wants to talk about Bernie being one of his buddies. The one thing you can say for Hillary is the Commies are not supporting her. Your are right the only one Hilalry could beat is Trojan Horse Trump.
2. The victim stuff is nonsense. Even people Whitey was found not to have been involved with by the jury are his victims. But keep in mind the federal court found that Henry Tameleo the right hand man of Raymond Patriarca was a victim and gave him 25 million.
Thanks, Matt. Decency is a subject I have considered writing about for a long time. You’ve pulled it off nicely with this post. I pity those who would think it outdated or prudish to broach the topic, even in the age of hip-hop and the (shudder) Kardashians.
GOK:
Too many people are fearful – when people remain silent in the face of the lowering of standards then the brute like Jeffrey Epstein win. Imagine how many “good people” sold their souls to get him the deal he got for destroying the many young women that he did. Where was the national outrage?