“Stormy” Weather

For the past week or so, there has been a story circulating concerning a certain porn star and her past dalliance with the current occupant of the White House. This ten year old relationship ended as all such relationships end, in acrimony. A six figure settlement was reportedly paid to her by the President’s lawyer just months before the 2016 election in an unsuccessful attempt to silence her story. Despite this payment, the porn star is now all over the place with salacious details of her decade old romp with the future President.

There isn’t a single solitary detail of this story that surprises me. All of us knew what kind of man our President was when we elected him. He made no attempt to hide his sexual conquests, in fact, openly bragged about them. But, there are two things about this story that are interesting to me. First, that this story isn’t really a story. It’s nothing more than a TMZ segment on entertainment television. It doesn’t even qualify as a scandal in the new normal of 2018. What...the President was boinking a porn star while his wife was at home with his newborn son?? That’s a story?? Ppsshhtt!

The second interesting part of this episode for me has been the reaction of prominent evangelicals. News that a sitting President had paid hush money to a porn star with a stage name of Stormy Daniels, whose most famous film was something called Good Will Humping, has been met with a collective evangelical yawn. Tony Perkins, a big shot at the Family Research Council, declared that The President gets a mulligan in this case, partly because evangelicals understand the concepts of mercy and forgiveness.

Ok.

But, ask yourself a question. Suppose that this story was about Barack Obama. Suppose that it had been discovered that Obama had carried on with a porn star while Michelle was at home nursing Malia, and had then instructed his lawyer to fork over a six figure hush money payment to her a month before the 2008 election to keep the public from discovering the truth. Try to imagine the hue and cry that would have exploded out of the evangelical community over such behavior. Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr. would have been apoplectic with rage.William Bennett would have had a coronary at such deviance. There wouldn’t have been any of this, We aren’t electing a Pastor, business. There would have been no temporizing language about the distinction between private virtue and public policy. No, Obama would be the reincarnation of Caligula, and evangelicals would be called out to stand against this fresh outrage of decadence.

I didn’t vote for Obama. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged me to a polling place to vote for Hillary. But, the evangelical embrace of the  45th President of the United States has forever destroyed in my mind their credentials as a moral voice. When virtue gets trumped by pragmatism, then you become just another garden variety lobbying organization.

No thanks.