Michael Cohen plea

[Dill]

(08-22-2018, 10:19 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: We have no shame. After all, he is OUR President.

I am held to a high standard of conduct by society. There are a lot of things that contribute to that (age, marital status, occupation, being a parent, etc.). Some of those standards are societal norms. Some are regulated by the various levels of government and/or professional organizations. Be that as it may, if my conduct breaks those standards then I am held to account. There are consequences. Try as I may, most of those consequences are not avoidable. And some have no consideration for mitigating circumstances.

I am by no means unique in this. In fact, almost everyone I know is in the same circumstance. And most of us make do with our daily existence and try to meet those standards of conduct as best we can because we don't want the consequences (or also because some of us also recognize and respect the need for those standards of conduct).

I do not believe it is unreasonable to require a higher standard of conduct by our elected officials. When I was an officer in the Army, we had a pretty darn high standard of conduct. We were public employees. We were "your tax dollars at work". When we were TDY somewhere, we were not supposed to wear a t-shirt with any slogans or pictures on them so that we did not misrepresent the Army or the government. God forbid that you got caught having an affair or wrote a bad check as an active duty officer. There were severe consequences. These are just a few examples of the many regulations we had. So, if an Army officer is held to such standards, why wouldn't elected officials be held to the same or even higher standards? And of all elected officials, shouldn't the President, our leader and representative to the world, be held to the highest standards?

No, Clinton's low standards do not excuse Trump's even lower standards. This is not a contest to reach the bottom. And a society which claims to have high standards but refuses to follow through on consequences is the equivalent of a society that hands out "participation trophies".

With you 100% on this B. I don't think all should be held to the standards of an Army officer, but officers certainly should, and why not elected officials?  Especially overseas, officers who don't pay their bills, cheat on their wives, and publicly express opinions offensive to a host nation certainly do reflect badly on the military and the nation.

As for people in positions of authority outside the military, and in professions like medicine and law, they too should be held to a higher standard, not just by their clients but by their own professional organizations. In fact they generally are. That doesn't mean we are looking to them for moral leadership or expect them to be perfect.

A president is not a "moral authority" in the same sense that a priest is, but to be effective he/she has to have trust and respect both from voters and from people in his/her immediate environment.  Beyond competence, important to leadership is fostering the sense that the leader would not ask followers to do what the leader would not. Also important is the sense that the leader doesn't use public office for personal gain--or to enrich friends and settle personal scores. The latter is expected in tribal organizations and often found in developing countries--to the detriment of their development. In our culture, such behavior testifies to an insufficient or totally lacking comprehension of the responsibilities of public office.