Desperate Politicians
By Dennis Peacocke

Let’s hear it for the politicians. Proving that they are not to be outdone by either church scandals or the thinly veiled antics of TV’s “Desperate Housewives,” New York politicians have surged ahead recently as contenders in American’s sex scandals sweepstakes. No sooner was the current governor removed from office for trysts with prostitutes, than the newly sworn-in governor admitted that he too was guilty of adulterous escapades. This admission opens up new possibilities of averting media exposes by using a strategy of pre-emptive sexual disclosures.

I am not so foolish as to believe that our nation’s obvious moral breakdown is historically new or a temporary spike in misplaced libidinal energies. We’re still a ways off from the ancient civilizations of the world that practiced temple prostitution of both males and females as “acts of worship.” Both Greece and Ancient Rome also make us look sluggardly as well in terms of moral laxity and “open marriage” insanity. While Bangkok and Buenos Aires may rival some of these ancient civilizations, by God’s grace we’re still lagging in history’s corruption derby. So much for comedic sarcasm.

Behind the recent New York politicians’ admissions are disgraced leaders, humiliated, innocent wives, and children literally “blown away” by their father’s soul-killing admissions. I am sure that I cannot truly fathom what a father’s betrayal, publicly shared with millions, does to children who believed in him and counted on their Dad’s guiding integrity. Where do they go for meaningful solace? How do they face their friends? The pain of the public parade of the sordid details must be unimaginable.

The “gloves are off” in terms of the press’ quest for hypocrisy and moral failure. Scandal sells, and what really smells, really sells. Even public figures that have nothing to hide are running for cover. Worse yet, good men and women in the private sector refuse to go into public service because they are simply not willing to subject themselves and their families to the savage scrutiny of the scandal seekers. Hence, the level of public leadership declines, the not-so-hard-to-find scandals continue to demoralize and de-sensitize the public, and our culture continues to embrace the lowest common denominators. America the beautiful is less and less believable.

So what to do, what to do? The answer is simple: make our own lives believable, aligned with our public confessions, and lived out in the fear of God. The nation’s moral corrosion must be reversed one life at a time, and that really is...