I imagine the reason that Obama didn't take any heat for his admitted drug use (or Bush, for that matter) is that he admitted it up front. It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. . .

These kinds of things also tend to matter much less at the local level. If you're running for a city council seat or school board or such in most towns, half the voters will know what you smoked or popped because they did it with you.

It's only on the state or national level that campaigns become anonymous enough -- and "news" outlets think controversy will bring in enough addition advertising revenue -- that such gotchas even begin to make sense.

The solution is not to complain about press coverage.

The solution is to recruit candidates - especially Democratic candidates - who have the stones to respond to crap like that with a firm, unequivocal "Fuck You."

And to face the voters proudly and say "This is who I am, this is what I believe. Vote for me or against me on that basis."

Anything else is bullshit for cowards.

Barnicle diminished journalism throughout his life.

Also, and too, it's getting harder for even the holier-than-thou Republicans to chastise people for "sins"--look at the fact that, while she was mocked, nobody really blamed Palin as a candidate for the fact that she's now the grandmother of a bastard.

My impression is that voters simply no longer care, and as a result, there's little incentive for media outlets to pursue these "controversies."

I'm not sure that's right. I think that voters don't care when political campaigns handle it "correctly". And that usually means being transparent about what happened in the past. Obama handled it right - he made it a boring story because any reporter who tried to pounce on it had to explain why, if this was such a damning horrible thing, Obama had put it in his own autobiography. It's tough to make news out of something that was openly admitted to years ago.

OTOH, if the campaigns try to keep secrets and those secrets come out, it's embarrassing and possibly fatal to the politician.

What that means is - if you're the type of person who smoked pot in college and don't want your kids to know about it (or something else relatively trivial but "embarrassing" to you), you're STILL not going to want to go out and put yourself out there as a candidate because you know it will come out.

So yeah, I think it still will shy people away from going for high office even if it doesn't actually IMPACT the ability to win high office in the real world.

For that matter, as The Monthly has documented, the Republican party is now nominating acknowledged adulterers for President (McCain) and giving serious consideration to others (Giuliani). Moreover, it seems that despite patronizing prostitutes, Vitter is likely to win re-election in Louisiana.

Is this just a case of IOKIYAR? After all, Clinton was impeached over Lewinsky, John Edwards is taking heat for an affair, and Spitzer resigned over one (but did he have to? If he had stayed on, like Vitter, would the NY electorate have eventually forgiven him? We'll never know). I don't think so. Republicans have no shame about being hypocrites, and so won't hesitate to fuss about the mote in a Democrat's eye while ignoring the beam in their own, but I think the public at large is starting to realize that if someone is a good public servant and gets things done for their constituents, that's more important than whether they're slept with someone they shouldn't have, or whether they smoked pot 20 years ago.

Don't forget other presidents. Clinton admitted to smoking marijuana in college, and nobody bought the "but I didn't inhale" line. Reagan was part of the Hollywood scene for many years, and I seriously doubt that he abstained, considering the rampant drug use among many celebrities there.

So Edwards' affair, which broke no laws, would have had no impact on votes? It's only been a few months, but I don't recall it getting a collective yawn from the media.

Bush and Obama show that people will vote for an ex-druggie, but they still won't vote for an atheist. Or someone who smokes a joint now and then, either, at least if they know about it.

Recent revelations about JFK make him and his crew sound fairly fond of illicit substances. I recently read a book of articles from High Times. One was from someone who claimed to have been a college roommate of Bobbby Kennedy and said he supplied lots of substances to various of them. Interesting if true.

Barnicle is generally a jerk, but he raises a valid point here. And I think perhaps Steve is missing part of that point. It's not just what a candidate did in college. It's also the entire "gotcha" brand of journalism. I once interned with columnist Jack Anderson, and of course that was all about investigative work -- a lot of gotcha stuff. But I always believed and assumed that we weren't interested in trivia (and when we reported trivia, it was understood as such). We were looking for genuine misbehavior that affected the public welfare. Truth be told, if one was willing to do the legwork, there was plenty of such stuff to be investigated.

What I, at least, was NOT interested in was manufacturing scandals, such as the recent efforts to paint President-elect Obama was somehow tainted by the Illinois governor's scandal. Among other things, that was a classic case of lazy reporting. "The governor is corrupt, the president-elect knew him, HE must therefore be corrupt, and we'll keep asking about it even when there isn't a single sliver of evidence pointing in that direction." Stupid, but easy.

Maybe Barnicle wasn't thinking about this as an example of the sort of thing that would cause young people to stay out of politics, but it's a perfect exemplar nonetheless. And in cases like this, I'm not sure the public always is bright enough to roll their eyes and say "move on, move on." They did on this occasion -- Obama's popularity went up during all that stuff -- but still it has a corrosive effect. Remember that Bill Clinton was often quite popular during even some of the most insane rightwing stuff during the '90s, but that didn't mean they weren't hurting him or his ability to govern.

Set aside the question of drug use or other so-called "indiscretions" and I think it is pretty much a given that the very nature of our political and media establishments has a chilling effect on those whom might be best-suited for entering the political arena. I think we, as a nation, have missed out on an awful lot of talent over the years as people who could make a difference through public service opt instead to protect themselves and their families from the harsh and invasive limelight. Barack Obama, while representing the obvious counter to my argument, is a once-a-generation politician and as such does not represent a sustainable model for our democracy. Our democracy will only improve when more citizens are engaged and involved.

Barnicle's journalistic career notwithstanding, the issue of youthful indiscretions is now a bit moot since most of us have had a teenager or two who have personally touched us with their indiscretions, and as always, as parents we've reprimanded them, but have still loved them through such circumstances.

With two generations now undergoing such real family dynamics as drug (ab)use, poor decision making and all sorts of ill-conceived social experiments, not too many people are going to pay too much attention to youthful before-times.

Voters today understand what makes the candidates who stand before them, and if said candidates have left their youthful indiscretions back in their youth, I don't see much story in that - and I think many other American readers are on the same page! -Kevo

Clinton admitted to smoking marijuana in college, and nobody bought the "but I didn't inhale" line

But that's just it - I went to Georgetown a few years after Clinton (we're frat brothers) - and there were plenty of Clinton types there who had already decided upon a career in politics. They'd show up at parties (usually in a suit on a Sat night after an evening of networking) and when the joint would come around they'd put it to their lips so as to seem cool without inhaling and then pass it on (the rest of us always thought it was hilarious, but understood perfectly) so as to preserve their "deniability".
Unfortunately for Clinton, most people just didn't believe him - although I'm sure his story was perfectly true.

All the wasted effort for nothing. LOL

What about people doing bong hits last weekend during a football game? Bar them from public office?

It's just stoopid journamalism.

Barnicle's theme is complete bullshit. Increased scrutiny of polititians should keep corrupt people from seeking political office, but even that theme is suspect. Increased scrutiny does not discourage people from wanting to become movie stars and it does not prevent people who need public approval from entering politics. It may keep people with some crime to hide from entering politics.

After all, Clinton was impeached over Lewinsky, John Edwards is taking heat for an affair, and Spitzer resigned over one (but did he have to? If he had stayed on, like Vitter, would the NY electorate have eventually forgiven him? We'll never know)

Note that in your three examples:

* Clinton's affair with Lewinsky didn't impact his popularity or job approval. He "won" the impeachment battle and, frankly, it probably made him a more popular president than he deserved to be on his own merits in the end. That's one that fits your thesis that you should just stand up and say "none of your damn business" (which if Clinton had done instead of weaseling around with lies about the meaning of the verb "to be", he probably wouldn't have even gotten through the House vote on impeachment).

* Edwards hasn't run for office since his affair became known. We have no clue if it will impact him at all if he tries to do something else in national politics in the near future.

* Spitzer wasn't having "an affair". Spitzer was hiring prostitutes. After being one of the more aggressive anti-prostitution AGs in the country. That's why he had to resign. If he'd just been seeing someone behind his wife's back it would have been a breathless non-story in the Post, an op-ed in the NYT, and the subject of an endless number of op-eds and editorials in the WSJ for the rest of his political career. As it was he was a man with lots of political enemies who got caught doing something illegal. I'm actually surprised that he's managed to avoid jail over it, all things considered. (And as far as comparisons to Vitter go - Vitter didn't have as many enemies willing to ruthlessly work to bring him down as Spitzer did. Spitzer had most of Wall Street after him when Wall Street actually had money, and Spitzer had a Republican Justice Department investigating him. Vitter is a backbench Republican Congressman from a state known for much worse corruption than hiring prostitutes. No contest.)

So while I think your premise has merit, the chosen examples aren't quite the ones I would use.

Nothing Barnicle writes is interesting.

Gary Hart rule: don't hide it or lie about it and, for God's sake, please, be the first to commit this particular moral offense.

Actually, saying "Hey, go f**k yourself," in so many words, is considered an indiscretion, too. But not an insurmountable one.

Heck, you can be functionally retarded and still run for vice president.

I think it was a watershed moment that Obama was so open about his drug use, which went on through his Junior Year at Occidental College (I believe) before he became 'monk like' and did a 180 and transferred to Columbia for his last two years of college.

He also admitted his father was an alcoholic, which had to be painful for him to do (and come to terms with).

I think Obama did a lot to help dispel the myth that we all have to be squeaky clean perfect to run for office. There clearly is no such thing.

He also helped dispel the myth that anyone who uses drugs is a "drug addict" for life, and should be labeled as such...It's my understanding he simply cleaned up on his own, without any fancy programs or life-time meetings, which often make the abuse of substances worse, not better.

We all have skeletons in our closet. And it's about time we stop throwing stones while living in glass houses.

The story gets it half right. it's not just the profit driven media in an already too competitive 24hr news cycle out for blood at all cost, it's the crazy people with way too much time on their hands digging through trash can for free in hopes of supporting their candidate for office. This isn’t just the bloggers, god, the bloggers are these people’s leaders. They root around like pigs searching for truffles in hope of finding not only a finger to point, but their own little taste of the 15 minutes. These people aren’t the Joe-the-Plumbers or Backwards-B-Mugger-Girls; these are the people that make the reporters lazy and keep cable news on at three in the morning. These are the people that keep most people I know out of public service, and that Duke thing.

Using cocaine in high school wasn't super-common in Obama's day and is rarer today. Does such use tell you anything about the user? On a statistical basis, surely yes. But people aren't interested in a careful estimation of Presidential character and/or abilities. If we were, candidates would also have to release test scores and grades - which, in fact, also tell you something moderately useful.

your wading through mike barnicle columns? Sure it wasn't pulled from some small town columnist in Minnesota or Illinois? This blog needs and enema if it's postin about Mike Barnicle Columns.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/archive/features/98/08/13/MIKE_BARNICLE.html

"People out there with reasonable IQs with a great interest in public service should rest easy -- no one cares what they did in college."

Then perhaps you didn't pay attention to the Obama birth certificate controversy. To normal rational people, youthful indiscretions aren't much of a big deal.

For politically warped haters, it's just ammo in the clip.

My impression is that voters simply no longer care, and as a result, there's little incentive for media outlets to pursue these "controversies." Indeed, if and when reporters pursue this, the public tends to collectively roll their eyes.

I think Steve is utterly missing the key point - and agree with Roger Keeling above: "Remember that Bill Clinton was often quite popular during even some of the most insane rightwing stuff during the '90s, but that didn't mean they weren't hurting him or his ability to govern."

The most recent example of course being the media frenzy, still ongoing on venues like CNN, linking Obama with Blago and scandal/corruption. Digby writes about this issue all the time - it's not that there is any there there, it is that a doubt is created by repetition: Obama, Blago, corruption, scandal, rinse & repeat.

The public may well be rolling their collective eyes at the media's performance, but the connection has been made all the same. Just like the Bush administration created the link between 9/11, Iraq, Sadaam, Al Qaeda by repeating those words together again and again.

A number of us have been trying to engage the Swampland bloggers on the issue of media malfeasance on stories like this, and the need for creating a system where "journalists" pay a price for flogging false stories. No answers yet, but it is an important issue. For eight years, the liberal msm refused to report substantively on real scandals in the Bush administration, often actively denied that they existed (like the attorney firings), and the chattering classes that decide what stories matter refused to connect scandals with Bush.

And now the chattering class has spent weeks flogging a false story about Obama. Because he is a Dem, and because it is fun to do this to Dems.

It is a problem.

I don't think I have ever seen my "kid", who is now 16, read one of these so-called newspapers. If it isn't on Facebook, she has no idea.

My brain went haywire in that last comment. Too many spelling mistakes. a short history of Mike Barnicle;

Twenty-five years of trouble
Patricia Smith was forced to resign for consistently fictionalizing over a concentrated period of time -- on four occasions in a little over a month this spring, and perhaps as many as 48 other times going back to 1995.

Mike Barnicle's situation is different. Since joining the Globe in 1973, he has found himself in one professional misadventure after another. During that time, he's played by his own set of rules, and he's gotten away with it. Some highlights:

1973. Quotes a Roxbury gas-station owner as calling his black neighbors "niggers." A judge rules that Barnicle made it up, and the Globe pays a $40,000 award.

1979. Takes a leave of absence to report on Cambodia. Writes a piece for Hearst's Los Angeles Herald Examiner that is syndicated on the front page of the Globe's competition: Hearst's Boston Herald American. 1984. Goes to editor Tom Winship, says he wants to leave Channel 5's Chronicle to put more time into his column, and asks for big raise. Gets it, then refuses to leave Chronicle.

1984. In Christmas Eve column, borrows what the Phoenix refers to as "concept, tone, and several phrases" from a 1954 Jimmy Cannon classic.

1985. Writes column that gets national attention about a woman who's shot and injured, and whose mother catches the suspect. Globe retracts Barnicle's claim that the suspect had bullets in his pocket, and defense lawyers continue to insist that Barnicle's so-called interview with the suspect's mother was fictitious.

1990. After Charles Stuart jumps to his death, Barnicle writes columns exonerating the police for their false arrest of the original suspect, William Bennett. He later writes that Stuart had taken out a big insurance policy on his soon-to-be-murdered wife, but can't back it up. Years later, the Globe admits that it should have retracted the claim.

1990. Quotes Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz as saying he loves Asian women because "they're so submissive." Dershowitz blows a gasket, and Globe ombudsman questions Barnicle's credibility. The Globe pays a $75,000 out-of-court settlement.

1990. Writes column quoting a tenant's allegations that her Lynn landlord exposed himself to her and beats his wife. The outraged landlord, whom Barnicle said he couldn't contact, complains, and then-ombudsman Robert Kierstead writes that Barnicle should have held the column until he was able to reach the landlord. Eight years later, Globe vice president Al Larkin tells his own paper that the Globe may have reached an out-of-court settlement with the landlord, possibly in the form of an apology.

1991. Boston magazine publishes a series of articles charging that Barnicle made up characters and quotes. Barnicle says Boston's wrong, but declines the opportunity to prove it.

1992. Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko complains that Barnicle's been ripping off his columns and rewriting them slightly. Noting that the Globe subscribes to his column but rarely uses it, Royko sarcastically refers to his work as a "tip sheet" for Barnicle.

1992. Globe offers buyouts to employees in bid to reduce payroll. Barnicle says yes, and takes most of the summer off. Returns with a reputed $200,000 salary and a new title: associate editor.

1992. Writes of his colleagues, "Missing a story seldom bothers more than a handful around here." Four days later, the column appears as a full-page ad in the Herald.

"You posted the following anti-religious screed to USENET when you were in college. Would you care to comment?"

"Three years ago you made the following posts, probably while drunk, on the following blogs. Do you make a habit of this?"

Is this the same plagerising fabulist Mike Barnicle who was forced to resign from the Boston Globe?

Yes Klyde, that would be the everyman Mike Barnicle who would daily opine on his radio show about his working class roots and folksy everday, ordinary working guy problems and then drive one of his 5 SUVs back to his 4 million dollar home in the richest town in Massachusetts. The same Mike Barnicle who would make excuses for the most viscious and brutal serial killer in Massachusetts history one James "Whitey" Bulger (Mike liked to call him Jimmy). Mike Barnicle was, is, and will always be a complete and total fraud. Washington Monthly would be wise not to be quoting from his "writings" if they really are his.

Shorter commenters:

"Mike Barnicle argues that our nation's public life is degraded by the constant inventorying of the past indiscretions of public figures. But of course that must be nonsense, which I will demonstrate by inventorying the past indiscretions of Mike Barnicle."

Jeebus. I hold no brief for Mike Barnicle, but he either has a point here or he doesn't, and that has nothing to do with whether he accurately quoted a gas station owner in 1973.

So an old man complained that things aren't as good as they used to be. This post needs a string of flashing sirens at its head.

I think Barnicle still has a point - just look at the questionaire one has to complete to apply for a job in the Obama administration.

In that context, Steve, you're telling people to tell Obama, "f- you, it's none of your business." Probably not good for your hiring prospects.

One angle I haven't seen anyone comment on is how much more information is available about almost anyone on the Internet. Email, Facebook, blogs, chat rooms, IM -- it's all being logged somewhere, and it's going to be around forever. Add in the (reported) growing unconcern about sharing private information on the net among young people, and we're looking at a virtual panopticon in future years. Good luck finding spotless candidates...

alkali - smoking dope in college is irrelevant to one's qualifications to serve in government. making up quotes (many times over the years) is entirely relevant to one's job as a journalist.

And yes, I do worry that sooner or later someone will toss one of my remarks in my face years later, which is why I try to have a little evidence to support my undiplomatic remarks.

The media does a far greater disservice to our country when they chose to ignore good candidates because they are seen as longshots because they have no money.

Nevermind that they may have great ideas. Who cares if the reason the aren't financially competitive is that they have exceptional integrity and their opponent would sell their mom into a porn ring...

There are news stories behind people like these and there might be far more to choose from if noble men and women had their deeds published to inspire others. Shoot, with proper press coverage, perhaps enough of the electorate would hear the good ideas and vote the good candidates in or send campaign contributions to allow them to spread their message.

Perhaps these papers are hoping for purchased advertising and see proper election coverage as giving free advertising away? I can't say. I do know that current media coverage of elections is only slightly better than foreign news coverage which is absolute manure.

This is one of the factors in my decision in the mid-1990s to get out of politics and go to grad school -- additionally, for a young candidate it's a punishing experience; the rumors and backbiting everywhere, everyone thinks you should wait, few believe that decisions should be based on verifiable research, playing politics is a 24-7 job unless you have savings or indulgent parents you can't afford to ante up -- this leads to my conculsion that politicians are either retirees, so passionate that poverty does mnot matter, or got in by appointment.

All of this leads to the conclusion that our citizens do not seem to want intelligent, well educated, people in office (no this is not a whine about my failure it's an observation based on 20 odd years of studying the subject).

And people wonder why their economy, local schools, etc are so messed up. Well look at the qualifications of your local officials. A quote from Shakespeare about "faults" and "stars" should be inserted here.

Sorry Steve. Mike is correct and you are wrong.

Well, I think conservatives will still rag on Obama for the cocaine use (he did admit that?) because it has a bigger bad mystique than mere marijuana, which also many conservatives have admitted to (Newt, Justice Thomas, etc.)

Hey, I just remembered a joke I made up when the Thomas controversy came up, combining the MJ revelation with a famous porn star: I called Clarence "Long Bong Silver" - but I called it in to a radio station and some wag had beaten me to the punch, sigh. Others have thought of it since, find a handful of Goo hits.

If they fear a candidate or elected official like Bill Clinton or John Edwards then they'll trash you for fun and profit. Truth doesn't matter to yellow journalists.