The Mitterand Theory

In The Guardian, Lionel Shriver argues presidents should be chosen on the basis of competence, not priapism:

Last weekend in New York, my husband coyly announced that a big story had just broken that would destroy former presidential hopeful John Edwards's career. He wouldn't say what had happened (getting scoops before I do always makes him feel superior), but I guessed the bare bones. What would be more ruinous for a politician whose hugely popular wife has terminal cancer than an affair?

So, in defiance of a long-standing ban on eating dinner in front of the TV, we curled up on the couch with our calamari. At 11.30pm, John Edwards gave a one-off interview on ABC's Nightline about his 'very serious mistake' with campaign aide Rielle Hunter in 2006. However sentimental, maudlin, bathetic and fake, it was great entertainment, although my recurring nausea didn't do justice to the squid.

John Edwards's televised self-flagellation followed established form for sexually outed public servants. Humiliating confessional drivel about his having suffered from 'a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism' confuses politics with psychotherapy. In fact, the 2008 campaign coverage is awash in the language of psychiatry (after Hillary's defeat, her supporters needed to 'heal' and 'find closure' and her name should be submitted in nomination at the convention for the sake of 'catharsis'), as if politicians don't run a country but a support group.

The US has a history of priapic politicians whose shenanigans provide the public with voyeuristic evenings like last weekend's. Front-runner Gary Hart bowed out of the 1988 presidential race after being photographed with an extramarital young woman on his knee. Bill Clinton managed to stage the forgive-me-but-I-have-sinned number not once but twice, first with Gennifer Flowers, then with Monica Lewinsky. New York governor Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace after being caught using an escort agency.

Despite the ostensibly greater sophistication of Europeans about boys being boys, Britain has been showing an indiscreet curiosity about its politicians' private lives as well, sometimes with the co-operation of the politicians themselves. We know all about the cavortings of Boris Johnson, John Prescott and David Blunkett. Less contentiously, we've been treated to Nick Clegg's admission of a lifetime total of 30 lovers and David Cameron snogging - yawn! - his own wife on a beach.

Does it matter how politicians conduct themselves with their trousers down?

'Character' is a big buzzword in American politics, the assumption being that honesty, integrity, loyalty and decency in private will translate to public life. But politics is practical. I want a President who can rein in the deficit, design a national healthcare system and get the troops out of Iraq. None of these capacities is affected one way or another if either Obama or McCain cats around on his wife.

Most jobs do not require a background check on marital fidelity and for good reason. The business world values competence over 'character', competence being a far rarer quality than virtue, and a country is, in its way, a business. Thus I do not want a 'good person' as President. I would vote for a perfect arsehole who got inflation back under 5 per cent.

The one respect in which John Edwards's slip-up matters is this: the guy knew full well that his wife Elizabeth garners enormous public sympathy and, if he were discovered to have betrayed her, both the media and the voters would be merciless. (In his interview, Edwards was quick to point out that he cheated during her cancer's remission, adding disingenuously that, of course, that's 'no excuse in any possible way for what happened'.) He was running for President. So messing around with Rielle Hunter was stupid. Ditto Bill Clinton's diddling about with Monica, which was disturbing not for being immoral but for being stupid. In politics, nice counts for beans. Stupid matters.

Nevertheless, poor judgment in matters of the heart - and especially in matters lower down - is pretty standard and does not necessarily imply poor judgment about tax policy. (To the British public's credit, Gordon would probably have done better in those byelections had he cheated on Sarah rather than eliminated the 10p tax band.)

Then there's the issue of lying, of which Edwards did plenty when trying to keep his 'private life' worthy of the term. Certainly, Clinton suffered more for his arrogant denials than for the initial transgressions with a cigar. But you could make a case that being a skilful liar is a critical qualification for public office. (The prospect of one's leader swanning about the world telling the unvarnished truth is terrifying.) Recall, too, that Clinton backers carved out a special exemption for mendacity below the waist: 'All men lie about sex.'

The aphorism being so encompassing, presumably they also lie about sex when their wives have cancer. Yet 'all men' in politics might not lie about sex if they were cut a little more slack and the consequences for honesty were not so dire.

Fortunately, John Edwards's breast-beating and hair-tearing on ABC now has no consequences beyond his own embarrassment and whatever anguish he may have caused. Yet this latest spectacle raises the question of whether we want politicians to be paragons, role models, exemplary, stainless icons of respectability whom we can look up to or whether we would settle for well-informed, pragmatic, sensible people who have a sound ideas about how to resolve the mortgage crisis and who may or may not have racy personal lives that are none of our business. Do we want to use politicians for vicarious thrills, for soap opera and titillation or might we settle for getting our jollies from the bed-hopping in Hollywood?

Because we pay a price for both the moralism and seedy curiosity. Were some semblance of a Chinese Wall restored between politicians' public and private lives, government might start attracting a better grade of candidate, with the kind of character that counts, distinguished by far-sightedness, pragmatism, fairness and - that rarest of qualities - frugality with other people's money.

Until then, smart, capable people are going to think twice about applying for a job that may involve the kind of sorry displays of self-prostration that Edwards provided. Far better to have told the press that whether his carrying on with a campaign aide fathered a 'love child' is his business, full stop. If punters' comments on ABC's web page are anything to go by ('How do you spell worm? JOHN!'), his begging for the nation's forgiveness backfired, and he'd have been better off keeping his dignity.

Is this purely a male issue? For the time being. Because if Hillary had been caught having an affair during the primaries, she might have won the nomination by a mile.