Spitzer and Sex Education

In one of those telling front page-back page juxtapositions, the headline news about Eliot Spitzer overwhelms a government study showing that one out of every four American teenage girls is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

After seven years of a federal government promoting abstinence only, both stories are reminders that the gap between what Americans say in public and do in private has morphed into a chasm of hypocrisy.

As righteous Republicans enjoy the spectacle of a Democratic governor joining the ranks of Larry Craig, David Vitter et al, little attention is being paid to the alarming news about teenagers who don't know or don't care enough to protect themselves from infections that can lead to serious disease.

The MSM media and bloggers are all atwitter with how much Spitzer spent for how long for whose favors, but what is happening to a generation of our children is treated as dry, statistical stuff.

As officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that the findings underscore the need for more screening, vaccination and other prevention measures, 19 million new sexually transmitted infections occur each year. They emphasize that "we must continue developing ways to reach those most at risk.”

Maybe reading about the woes of a careless governor will be a start.

Stoning the Sinful Senator

The debate over whether or not David Vitter should go to jail reflects a sad tendency in our society across the political spectrum. When everybody is a social critic and it’s hard to be heard, humane voices are drowned out by scolds and prudes.

How about some muscular moderation? You don’t have to be an advocate for prostitution to feel that, among offenses to decency, the oldest profession is not at the top of the list (check cable TV and the yellow pages), and you don’t have to be an admirer of hypocrisy to observe that what people do is often at odds with what they profess.

That said, the outing of Vitter and those like him is a plus for honesty in politics and public discourse, but it reflects no credit on those who want to send him to prison or the guillotine for being a sad sack and a hypocrite.

Neither should the D.C. Madam be behind bars. In this society, she won’t be. More likely is that she will get a large advance for her memoirs.

When people are dying in a senseless war, there are better targets for moral indignation.