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Real Answers™
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Copyright: © 2008 Gregory J. Rummo
620 words

TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS REQUIRED

By: Gregory J. Rummo

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once commented that “the presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it…It is preeminently a place of moral leadership.” The same could be said of any office served by an elected official. The people, by way of the voting booth, willingly give away their power as individuals to lawmakers. In so doing, it is hoped that they will live up to a high standard of trust and ethics. It is after all why presidents and other elected officials raise their right hand while placing the other on a Bible and promise to comport themselves well.

This week’s revelations of New York State’s governor Eliot Spitzer’s alleged involvement in a call-girl scandal followed by his resignation on Wednesday is the latest example of a public and very powerful politician caught in debauched, extra-marital behavior. Mr. Spitzer has, through his own arrogance, disgraced himself, his family, and the people who elected him to serve as their governor.

Powerful politicians falling from grace into immorality while serving the public trust is an old story. It certainly didn’t begin with Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office.  

Israel’s King David was characterized as a man “after the heart of God.” One evening, when he should have been leading his troops in battle as Israel’s acting Commander-in-Chief, he was instead idling away his time on a rooftop. He glanced across the way and there was a woman bathing. He decided he couldn’t resist. The result of his affair with Bathsheba led to her pregnancy and an attempted cover-up that included David arranging the murder of her husband followed by the modern-day equivalents of obstruction of justice and perjury. 

His son Solomon wrestled with similar moral problems. Although his wisdom was sought by rulers from all over the world—the Queen of Sheba remarked that only “the half had been told”—still, he was a man who could not be satisfied with one woman. According to the record in the First Book of Kings He had “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines…[which] turned his heart away.”

There hasn’t been much sympathy for Mr. Spitzer’s meteoric spiral downward. In fact, it’s been just the opposite. Before the smoke cleared from the crater, the word “schadenfreude”—joy over one’s shame—had been voiced over and over again. A cheer went up from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as he announced his resignation. Mr. Spitzer had led a crusade against a number of Wall Street firms that was characterized as heavy-handed and that resulted in the destruction of the reputations of a number of innocent people. It is no stretch to say that he was hated by not just a few.

But vengeance is something that we should respect as being the purview of God and not mere mortals like us. Let the legal system decide if it wants to charge Mr. Spitzer with any crimes.

In his resignation speech, Mr. Spitzer said, “From those to whom much is given, much is expected,” words first spoken by Jesus Christ in Luke’s Gospel (12:48.) Certainly Mr. Spitzer, a man to whom much has been given, has failed to live up to expectations.

But before the rest of us rush to judgment, let us ponder our own moral peril. Jesus also warned “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If this were the standard against which all of us were to be judged, there would be not one among us left standing.

Gregory J. Rummo is a businessman and writer. Contact him at GregRummo.com       

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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