I’m writing once again from the great State of Maine, where I was delighted to find that the place my sister is renting has wireless internet, so I won’t have to be visiting the good Sister Mary Catherine after all. Before I left this morning, I had a chance to briefly scan the Courant, and there I found the news that Chris Healy has been arrested and pleaded guilty to drunk driving in South Carolina, where he was watching the Republican presidential candidates debate.
I actually have some sympathy for the man. If I had to watch that sorry lot debate, I would want to be drunk too. I like to think that I wouldn’t have driven afterwards, but I must admit that the degree of intoxication required to undergo such an experience might prevent me from exercising any judgment so far as driving is concerned. So, as I say, I can understand his motivation.
These incidents seem to be piling up fairly quickly for Republicans these days. No sooner did I power up my computer this evening when I discover on the Courant’s site that Lou Deluca resigned as Minority Leader.
What I find endlessly fascinating about these incidents, not only here in Connecticut but across the country, is the celerity with which their fellow Republicans, so quick to judge everyone else, rally round to offer sympathy for their fellows. The pattern certainly held here in Connecticut, with Deluca’s lies being met with sympathy, and now Healy’s criminal behavior:
One of the committee members at the meeting, Scott Guilmartin of Suffield, said the panel was supportive of Healy, who was named chairman in January and is up for re-election on June 26.
“I think the people who were there recognize that Chris is fighting a disease, and it’s a disease that afflicts many people and many families in Connecticut and in the country,” Guilmartin said. “We strongly encourage Chris to continue to take those steps that he needs to deal with it.”
I don’t disagree with Guilmartin, but I question why it is that only Republican officeholders are entitled to this sort of understanding and sympathy. It’s not extended to anyone else in the criminal system. But of course it goes beyond criminal behavior. Republicans nationally have cast themselves as the guardians of our morals and our values. Woe to anyone who exhibits human weakness who also happens to be someone with whom they have political differences, or who they can use as a political punching bag (e.g., welfare recipients, gays, immigrants, and yes, alcholics). As one small example, while Mr. Guilmartin apparently recognizes that alcoholism is a disease in Chris Healy’s case, his own party apparently felt differently about other alcoholics. It was a Republican Congress that decreed that under no circumstances could a taxpaying American get Social Security Disability if alcoholism was a material factor in his or her disability. That change in the law was motivated purely by the sort of moral judgment that Guilmartin rightfully refuses to make about Healy, but that his party made about thousands of our fellow citizens. Guilmartin suggests that we should have sympathy for Healy and his family, but his party had none for others who suffered from the disease, or for their families.
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