The Ryan Controversy

I have waited to post on this topic, wanting to see if perhaps some new information will come out detailing some illegal activity or some shady business on the part of disgraced former candidate Jack Ryan. If there were any more allegations, they certainly would have surfaced by now, therefore I'm left to believe that he is not guilty of any deep criminal activity or anything of the sort.



Therefore, this story infuriates me. A mans political career has been ruined and his private name smeared for the sake of partisan politics. Ryan's own words say it best:

While the press, in its request to unseal the Ryans' court records, asserted that the public had a right to know about the candidate's personal life, Ryan said releasing the information serves no good public purpose. "What benefit has the public now derived from knowing this information? There is no allegation, as you know, of breaking any laws, no allegation of infidelity, no allegation of breaking any marriage vows," he said.

Don't misunderstand my feelings, Ryan showed a lack of discretion to have taken his wife to a sex club and wanted her to have sex there. I don't endorse sex clubs or anything of the sort. But he didn't cheat on his wife, he didn't force her to have sex with him there, and even his wife didn't want these files opened.



The press has simply crossed the line. In the quest to be the gods of all information, they've gotten drunk on the power. Some will argue that this is "just part of the election" and "you can't have a personal life and be in office." Well, if that's the case then we will never get the kind of candidates that this country needs because people will not want to expose tiny mistakes they might have made for the fear of the press overblowing the story. If we have reached a point where our politicians cannot have a private life, then we have started on our way down the gutter. Jack Ryan showed a lack of judgment but not one that in any way affects his ability to govern. I don't even know that I agree with all his politics, it could be that I would have opposed him had I been a voter in Illinois. But either way, this story has nothing to do with his ability to govern and



Here's an idea from Andrew Sullivan:

I really think the only solution to this is to threaten investigations into the private lives of the editors of the papers who peddle such stuff. Every editor who breaks a story like this should be asked in public exactly the kind of intimate questions Ryan was faced with. What do you like to do in bed? What's the wildest sexual fantasy you have? When did you last have sex with your spouse? Let's see if they like it when the witch-hunt is turned on them.

I couldn't agree more. If our "public servants" are to be scrutinized in such a way, then let's start with those "servants" in the press.