Word: hartness
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When a hot breeze of scandal blew away Gary Hart's candidacy, the other contenders felt a chill of apprehension. Would each be asked, as Hart was in his last press conference, whether he had committed adultery? Would evasion stamp a politician with Hester Prynne's scarlet letter...
...sides. Gephardt argued, "You answer the questions you are asked," & even intrusive ones. Lechery deserves discussion, he said, because "I don't think that's the way we want our leaders to act. I don't think that's a good role model for the country." Jackson insisted that Hart had been correct in ducking the adultery question. A candidate's morality, he said, should be judged by his stands on issues such as South African policy and the contras as well as bedroom behavior. Intimate inquiry is legitimate, Jackson contended, only when "some illicit relationship was having some bearing...
...Jackson, a Baptist minister with strong support in black churches, the issue is particularly touchy because for years he has been the subject of unsubstantiated rumors. Some of his backers worry about his vulnerability on "character" questions. As Hart's campaign was collapsing two weeks ago, several advisers met with Jackson in Chicago. According to one of his aides, they discussed possible tactics in the event similar questions were raised about Jackson, and he was warned against any appearance of impropriety...
...nation's moral equanimity, characters linked in the public mind not by any connection between their diverse dubious deeds but by the fact that each in his or her own way has somehow seemed to betray the public trust: Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, Michael Deaver, Ivan Boesky, Gary Hart, Clayton Lonetree, Jim and Tammy Bakker, maybe Edwin Meese, perhaps even the President. Their transgressions -- some grievous and some petty -- run the gamut of human failings, from weakness of will to moral laxity to hypocrisy to uncontrolled avarice. But taken collectively, the heedless lack of restraint in their behavior reveals something...
...Senator Hart, too, sought to deflect responsibility, first claiming that his only mistake was not realizing that his meetings with Donna Rice could be "misconstrued," then blaming the media for the mess he was in. Even Jim Bakker, who by profession alone should have an intimate acquaintance with the theological concept of sin, resisted simply confessing his dalliance with Jessica Hahn. Instead, Bakker insisted that his troubles were all part of a "diabolical plot" by rival preachers...