We’re The Hypocrites, Not Herschel Walker
Do you have any regrets or mistakes you’ve made in your personal life? How about as a parent? Hopefully, everyone answered yes to both of those questions. It means you are human and aware of your actions.
Many within the left-leaning media across the country and in Georgia have demonstrated they aren’t and are in fact model beings. After weeks attacking his past struggles with mental health, several media outlets reported on some “earth-shattering” Herschel Walker news in the days leading up to Father’s Day. His children from previous relationships had not been publicly disclosed. With the media vultures and Twitter mobs of the left, who can blame him? The left would have you believe that his offense of non-disclosure was nearly criminal. It’s not. It was human. His relationships with his children and their mothers are between them. If anyone disagrees, then I hope we also see a discussion regarding George Floyd’s decades long criminal history while a fleet of cranes are lowering statues of him into place around the country or while the paint is drying on the latest mural.
In order to mitigate the mobs’ ire on Twitter for that last sentence, let me share a few words from lefty lore as an olive branch. Even though it’s from the post-Sorkin era of The West Wing, a memorable scene from the season six finale is well suited to the present moment. During his convention speech, Democratic candidate Matt Santos unexpectedly defends one of his rivals for failing to disclose his wife’s mental illness.
“Now there has been a great deal made about Governor Baker’s decision not to disclose his wife’s minor medical condition. Many people believe that he should have. But I don’t believe Governor Baker failed to disclose it because he was ashamed or embarrassed. I think he didn’t disclose it because we’re the hypocrites, not the Bakers; because we’re all broken, every single one of us, and yet we pretend that we’re not. We all live lives of imperfection and yet we cling to this fantasy that there’s this perfect life and that our leaders should embody it. But if we expect our leaders to live on some higher moral plane than the rest of us, well we’re just asking to be deceived.”
The last sentence could not be more accurate.
Herschel Walker shouldn’t be ashamed or embarrassed of his past struggles with mental health or the fact that he kept his private life private. Those who believe that leaders must embody a perfect life set themselves up for deception. Politicians will tell you what you want to hear, and it’ll be the easiest lie they ever tell, and you’ll never find them admitting mistakes.
I hope Walker continues talking about his past struggles and the mistakes he’s made in life. We all struggle. It’s refreshing to have a candidate that knows what it’s like. Especially since a generation of Georgians are struggling with mental health issues and trying to navigate life with challenges unlike any faced in the past.
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elliotpierce
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If he is going to publicly criticize of absentee fathers, then he needs to emulate to the public how he does it better so we can learn from his example. He clearly has a blended family with four child different women. He has the perfect opportunity to show fathers with multiple households the way.
Yeah – it’s his utter hypocrisy for me. That and violent past. Comparisons to George Floyd. Lol. He wasn’t running for office.
You Republicans are contorting yourself into pretzels on the daily to defend the indefensible. Look at not just this but all the problems with person and candidate Herschel Walker.
Y’all are sad, pitiful, and spineless.
I honestly couldn’t care less about Herschel Walker’s sex life, past or present.
I also couldn’t care less that he was a collegiate football god more than forty years ago.
And I certainly couldn’t care less that Mr. Pierce thinks it is “refreshing” that Republicans have such an obviously flawed candidate and reject unequivocally that this somehow implicates me as a hypocrite.
I do care that he has been caught out in more lies than a career politician even though he has no previous political experience.
I do care that he and his handlers know he isn’t capable of holding up his end of a political debate, even with fellow Republicans.
I do care that seemingly can’t piece together a cogent thought without veering into the absurd or nonsensical.
I do care that to this point he has exhibited no qualities deserving of my vote to the US Senate.
It is refreshing to see someone I usually disagree with posting a cogent objection to Walkers campaign. I have admired and been proud of him for years, but to be my senator? I don’t think so.
Sad, isn’t it?
I appreciate the advocacy against the stigma of mental health concerns. My guess is that most everybody here in some way empathizes/understands this to the point that it is irrelevant in terms of their ability to perform the job.
Except of course- we do need to be real about ability to do the job, regardless.
While I skipped over the coverage of this family disclosure issue, I’d also remind the author that virtually all media seemingly aspires to sensationalized and hyper-dramatized content, (along with some potentially misleading headlines), and no need to continue that trendline when we can just be real.
To me, that translates into ignoring much of the “passion” of people’s opinions, including those in the media, and just focusing on the facts and circumstances. E.g., maybe we can safely ignore angry and non-representative/extreme Twitter users, and discuss whether it matters plainly.
Oh, and we can do that without any weird/inapplicable/potentially race-baiting analogies, thank you.
But of course I appreciate the West Wing sample.
A troubled past doesn’t give law enforcement the right to be anyone’s judge, jury, and executioner on the streets of America. But when a U.S. senate candidate’s troubled past coexists with obvious deficiencies in his mental aptitude and fitness, both of which are indicative of CTE, it is not unreasonable at all–and in a ‘normal’ era it would actually be expected–to consider such a person as spectacularly disqualified for higher political office.