At The Hills Kimberley Wiehle notes in an op-ed that at least Hollywood and the media have purged some of its sexual predators, a far better record than politics:
Lately, a slew of sexual-misconduct accusations have been leveled against powerful men in Hollywood and the media, as well as in politics and the law. It’s the #MeToo moment.
While the alleged sexual predators in the first two categories have been paying the ultimate professional price — getting canned and banned — the situation is different when it comes to politicians and judges. Those guys have been getting away with it.
Perhaps that’s because in the final analysis entertainment and infotainment are about making money while politics is about wielding power and, as Charles Dudley Warner observed well over a century ago, it makes strange bedfellows. Having your CEO revealed as a sexual predator can hurt the bottom line for a business. Not so in politics.
There’s the practical issue as well – it’s easy to fire someone working for or contracted to a company. It’s not easy to “fire” a politician and that insulates them from the consequences, at least for a time.
I would amend that to say that it seems to selectively hurt some politicians and not others. Spitzer and Weiner resigned. Vitter, Craig, Franken, Conyers, Trump don’t. Not really sure what the criteria is.
Steev