The Wages of Pandering

Why do so many American politicians -- from Bill Clinton to Mark Sanford -- use religious language when they make public confessions of marital infidelity? Are they truly penitent or just pandering? How can we tell the difference?

Like a good number of people, I had become fascinated by the "disappearance" of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. With all the conflicting reports and information, I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery. Was it a simple need to get away from the tensions of executive office? Was it dissociative fugue--some sort of psychological lost weekend? Of course, it turned out to be nothing mysterious at all.

The tortured beginnings of Governor's Sanford's news conference did play on mystery. First, there was an admission that information provided about his disappearance had been incomplete. Next there was an admission of sin. But the sin itself was not immediately identified. Instead, the Governor recited a litany of apologies. Half-way through the apologies, I realized that the press conference had developed into ritual: the public confession of adultery by an elected official. As the governor finally admitted his sin, I wondered what penance he would choose to perform.

It is no surprise that elected officials choose religious language to confess their transgressions. America has a civil religion with strong evangelical sensibilities and themes. Christian understandings of sin and redemption run deep in American discourse; they even shape popular culture and entertainment. In its most authentic form, public confession is meant to underscore the public nature of any sin: reconciliation not only moves vertically to God, but horizontally to the church or community. That elected officials use this conventional framework to confess and ask forgiveness is not necessarily a sign of pandering. Instead, it is using commonly understood, and often ready-made, symbols and structures to organize thoughts and feelings that otherwise are difficult to express.

Of course, the issue of pandering inevitably attaches itself to any public confession. Recent ritual admissions of guilt by political figures have only intensified the issue. Bill Clinton's claim that even "presidents have private lives" seemed a little too easy given the prevarications he used to veil his infidelity. Continuing revelations about aspects of John Edwards' involvement with Rielle Hunter also raise questions not only about the content of his confession but also about his remorse over committing adultery in the first place. Whether or not these are appropriate questions, there is no doubt that both Clinton and Edwards gave us little to reflect upon; even if sincere, their apologies were built on a lattice of well-crafted sound bites.

While marital infidelity can claim a number of victims, the public's concern with a politician's adultery should be limited to its impact upon the responsibilities that the politician is elected to uphold and carry out. We do not need to know the details or the emotional conflicts that underlie the particular transgression. It is only the issue of public trust that supersedes the legitimate right to privacy for healing.

Against this background, Mark Sanford's apology was distinctive. He blurred the boundary between public and private in the content of his press conference confession. While he did ask for privacy for his family, he did not claim it for himself. Indeed, he not only has subsequently "corrected" his account of the number of liaisons with his mistress, he has also confessed that she is his "soul mate," although he still remains committed to his marriage. Most significantly, Governor Sanford has begun to identify himself with King David who famously slept with Bathsheba. In this sense, Sanford's public experience of shame becomes the basis not only for redeeming himself, but also for redeeming his ability to serve as the chief-executive of South Carolina.

The Governor's continuing admissions inevitably raise questions concerning whether his public penance is a form of pandering to his constituents so that he can remain in office. I would suggest that if the Governor is indeed pandering, it is not his constituents who are being pandered to.

In his press conference, Governor Sanford made two claims that, taken separately, would seem undeniable to most religiously informed observers. The most widely publicized assertion was that "there are moral absolutes." But this was preceded by another assertion: that God's law protects us from ourselves.

The problem in making these assertions together is that it allows the "self" of the sinner to take precedence in an inappropriate way. Of course moral rules protect us from ourselves, but they also protect other people from us. Adultery can be linked to all the "seven deadly sins," but for public officials the driving force is often not "lust" or "gluttony," but "pride"

All of us have committed transgressions, both major and minor. To ourselves, we can often justify such behavior by claiming that special circumstances exempt us from ordinary moral responsibilities and professional duties. For those who have public roles that confer power and affirmation, this sense of uniqueness can be quite intoxicating indeed. It is for this reason that public apologies are more like negotiations: ways balancing past damage with potential recovery and of finding out what must be given up and what can be gotten away with.

The rough and ready standard for the sincerity of any apology is whether it is accompanied by a change in behavior. But I know that changes in my behavior have usually come as a last resort when I was threatened with losing something more valuable than what the behavior allowed me to experience. But the moral calculus of apology, whether public or private, should be based upon discerning what is best for those whom one has harmed.

When a politician's personal transgressions impact the sphere of public responsibility, a chain reaction ensues that often further wounds those who have already been harmed. In surreptitiously slipping out of the country to visit his mistress, Governor Sanford not only neglected a fundamental obligation of a chief-executive, he made his own staff unwitting accomplices in deception. As he seeks to untangle this web, more revelations will surely surface that might titillate the public and surely add insult to his already injured family. In this context, debate about legislation will be displaced by political gamesmanship surrounding the Governor's status. Such are the wages of pandering to one's own sense of uniqueness and indispensability in the public realm.

Because of the complex nature their responsibilities, public officials often have to face more quickly a fact that all of us encounter sooner or later: sometimes the problems we create are so complicated that we cannot fix them from the inside. In such cases, half-measures and compromise do not suffice. Letting go absolutely is the only moral option. Of course, a politician's success often derives from the strength to hold on tenaciously. When such a person apologizes for going astray, the difference between penitence and pandering is reflected in the acknowledgment that letting go is not the same as running away.

By Mathew N. Schmalz  |  July 1, 2009; 12:34 PM ET Save & Share:                 
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