NeighborScapes

8.  Too many good national advocates on poverty commit adultery.  All of them are men:  John Edwards; Jesse Jackson, Sr.; Henry Cisneros; Bill Clinton.  Notwithstanding Clinton’s much-resented reforms of welfare in 1996, each of these men has had in the past two decades a moment of promise during which he was bringing poverty to a greater level of public awareness or was poised to elevate himself to greater stature on the national stage.  Each of them (except Edwards, whose lies have compounded in a nature beyond the pale) is still a strong voice nationally and even in a couple cases internationally, but the fact is that the public admissions of adultery took the wind out of t heir sales at just the wrong moment, deflating simultaneously any momentum that we might have been gaining on why we have so much poverty in the world’s richest nation.  This is a good point to raise over the Halloween weekend, since the outcome itself is such a ghastly disappointment to fans of these leaders, and since the post-admission leader is always a ghost of who he was before.  Thank God for the Shrivers (Eunice Kennedy and Sargent) the Edelmans (Marian Wright and Peter), and Hillary Clinton.  At least some of our good advocates can remain monogamous.

                Recently, adultery has been a problem that has plagued all kinds of public-sector leaders.  Clearly there is an individual moral failure in each of these instances.  But one is tempted to wonder whether the magnanimous leader who takes on poverty in a public fashion is the type of personality that so loves people, and the world, that he has trouble setting appropriate boundaries with his affections.  The root meaning of philanthropist is ‘one who loves humanity,’ and with too many politicians – and these champions of the poor in particular – we all are disappointed when this encompassing instinct fails to square with monogamy.  We should all pray for Barack and Michelle’s marriage, because while the political process will likely constrain too much pure advocacy for the poor during the Obama presidency, as an ex-president and former first lady, the sky will be the limit as far as the opportunity to advocate for social change in a Carter-Clinton mold.