Political "Affairs"

After Nevada Senator John Ensign (R) admitted to having an affair with a staffer, Rasmussen Reports reported that 37% of Americans believe that most members of Congress have extramarital affairs.

Last week, after Governor Mark Sanford's (R-SC) admission of an extramarital affair, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that only 24% of Americans feel that most members of Congress DO NOT have affairs. Thirty-eight percent (38%) said that they were not sure.

When asked whether a politician who has an affair should resign or be forced out of office, the results were as follows:

• 47% of Republicans said yes
• 39% of Democrats said yes, and only
• 35% of unaffiliated's said yes.
  

To some degree this may illustrate how commonplace adultery has become in our society, or how little we expect of our elected officials.

For the Republicans, these recent stories have brought about yet another difficulty. The Republican party has for some time labeled itself as the party of traditional and family values. The Party has specifically made an issue of this as it has fought for traditional marriage and against same-sex marriage.

These revelations that significant Party players are, by traditional standards, immoral, place the Republican Party in a position to be mocked and accused of being hypocritical.

One recent example would be the political cartoon drawn by Daryl Cagle for MSNBC.com in which he depicts a casually dressed donkey wearing a t-shirt which reads "I'm with Holier-than-thou Hypocrite Christian Adulterer" on an arrow which points to an elephant in a business suite with his pants down.

It is not coincidental that the mocking of the Republican Party is accompanied in this case by mocking the Christian religion as well.

To read the Rasmussen Reports article, click here.
To see the Daryl Cagle political cartoon, click here, and proceed to cartoon #10.