Where private affairs have public consequences

(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, November 21.)

Certain aspects of the American character puzzle me.

Their ardent patriotism is one. It’s on display everywhere, from “God Bless America” bumper stickers to the Stars and Stripes that flutter from houses in virtually every street.

Another is their intense religiosity. No one from New Zealand – a country so irreligious that some Christians are almost embarrassed to admit they go to church – can fail to notice the fervent faith of many Americans.

It’s especially noticeable in the more conservative states, where on Sundays it’s common to see acres of cars parked outside large, imposing churches, even in sparsely populated rural areas.

That brings me to another curious aspect of the American character. Public morality is an infinitely more sensitive issue there than in New Zealand.

That was obvious from the political furore that blew up over the revelation that the military hero General David Petraeus, who commanded US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, had conducted an affair with a much younger woman who wrote his biography. The scandal ended his brief career as head of the CIA.

Paula Broadwell had spent much of last year “embedded” with American troops in Afghanistan as she gathered material for her book. In this context that term, which is usually applied to journalists reporting the war, took on a whole new meaning.

As often happens with political scandals, one disclosure led to another. The Petraeus scandal soon enveloped other people – notably socialite twin sisters from Florida who had a penchant for cultivating politicians and senior military figures.

One of the sisters, Jill Kelley, complained to an FBI agent that she was receiving threatening emails – supposedly from Broadwell, who appeared to suspect Kelley of making a play for Petraeus. Another four-star general, John Allen, was then exposed as having exchanged suggestive emails with Kelley.

Are you managing to keep up so far? If not, never mind. Because the interesting point is that in America, private affairs often have public consequences.

In Italy and France, it’s generally assumed that prominent men will have extra-marital liaisons. In fact it’s almost expected of them, as if you’re less of a man if you don’t have a mistress tucked away somewhere.

Though the Brits tend to be more discreet, the British public too has generally been tolerant of infidelity in high places. Mild-mannered former prime minister John Major’s reputation didn’t seem to be seriously harmed – in fact may even have been enhanced – by the revelation that he had carried on a four-year affair with backbench MP Edwina Currie.

David Lloyd George, leader of Britain’s coalition government in the latter years of World War I, was nicknamed the goat on account of his womanising (he was also, by all accounts, prodigiously endowed), and King Edward VII had a string of high-profile mistresses.

In Britain, things seem to get messy only when there are national security implications, as when Defence Minister John Profumo was famously sacked for having a relationship with call-girl Christine Keeler, who was simultaneously sleeping with a Soviet spy.

Closer to home, Australian prime minister Bob Hawke had a reputation as a philanderer. Like Petraeus, Hawke had a relationship with his biographer (the exotically named Blanche d’Alpuget). The Aussie media knew of Hawke’s infidelities – the relationship with d’Alpuget was public knowledge – but it was never a hot political issue.

Closer still, New Zealand journalists have tended to turn a blind eye to politicians’ affairs, even when they were relatively common knowledge (as in the case of the late Robert Muldoon, who was once the subject of a wickedly witty fake newspaper billboard that read Rooting pig shot in Ngaio; PM safe). The general view was that it was none of the public’s business unless the relationship compromised the participants politically, implicated them in illegality (as in the case of two Labour MPs who were outed for homosexual activity before it was decriminalised) or reflected poorly on their ability to do their job.

An exception was National MP (and later Speaker of the House) Doug Kidd, whose affair with a parliamentary secretary was exposed by the feminist lobby in 1983 with the express purpose of causing him political embarrassment. The feminists were gunning for Mr Kidd (as he was then – he was later knighted) because he had moved to amend the abortion law.  

Otherwise, the only recent sex scandals I can recall in New Zealand politics were those that came to public attention because they were the subject of police complaints. The politicians involved – National’s Richard Worth and Labour’s Darren Hughes – both resigned.

The big difference in America is that even when an adulterous relationship has been between consenting adults and there has been no suggestion of criminality, the code of public morality often demands that the transgressor be punished.

For a long time, a respectful American press left presidents alone. Franklin D Roosevelt had mistresses, one of whom was even assigned a code name by the Secret Service. Dwight D Eisenhower’s relationship with his English female chauffeur during World War II was never referred to while he was alive. John F Kennedy scattered his seed with impunity, knowing he was protected by the sanctity of his office.

All that changed post-Watergate, when the US media began applying much more critical scrutiny to politicians.  Two high-flying casualties were senators Gary Hart in the 1980s and John Edwards in 2008 – both contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination who became soiled political goods when their extra-marital activities were made public.

Even in business, careers have been destroyed by affairs – as in the case of Lockheed Martin president Chris Kubasik, who was forced to step aside because of his relationship with a subordinate.

President Bill Clinton is a remarkable exception to the rule. Miraculously, perhaps due to personal charisma, America seems to have forgiven him his indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky (and Gennifer Flowers, and Paula Jones, and probably others that we don’t know about).

Adultery and politics are natural bedmates, if you’ll pardon the metaphor. The personal characteristics that make men successful in politics – ambition, charisma, energy – are often the same as those that make them sexually adventurous and attractive to women.

No doubt that’s true of many military commanders too. And it’s hard not to feel sympathy for General Petraeus.

Few men wouldn’t have been tempted in his situation: isolated from home and family, in a lonely, dangerous and unimaginably stressful job, suddenly finding himself the subject of flattering attention from a much younger woman. But he has paid the price demanded by a tradition of censorious public morality that probably dates all the way back to the puritanical Pilgrim Fathers.

 

Journalism as blood sport

It has been interesting, if not entirely edifying, to observe the way the Darren Hughes story has unfolded. It has followed a now familiar and generally predictable trajectory.

It started with a mere sniff of a story in which an unnamed MP was at the centre of a police investigation, then gathered momentum with striking speed – as is now the pattern – as the facts tumbled out.

Few things move faster or more mercilessly than the parliamentary press gallery when it has the scent of blood in its nostrils. In quick succession we learned the identity of the politician involved (Hughes had little option but to out himself, since the controversy threatened to cast suspicion on his colleagues) and that there was a homosexual element – an irresistible frisson to anyone old enough to recall that homosexual smears derailed the careers of high-profile Labour MPs Colin Moyle and Gerald O’Brien in the 1970s.

In short order the controversy engulfed both Phil Goff and his deputy Annette King, in whose house the alleged unspecified incident with the unnamed 18-year-old complainant took place. Under intense media pressure, and no doubt sensing a spreading taint, Goff shifted from being strongly supportive of Hughes to a more distanced position.

As the crisis escalated, Hughes (who has insisted throughout that he did nothing wrong) went from merely being placed on leave – the standard first step in damage control – to losing his roles as chief whip and education spokesman and then resigning altogether. All this in less than three days, and largely in response to relentless media pressure.

In the meantime, significantly, the focus shifted from the MP at the centre of the affair to his leader. Suddenly it was Goff’s behaviour, rather than that of Hughes, that was under scrutiny. Why had he not taken the initiative when he first learned of the police investigation two weeks previously? (A fair question: he might have been in a better position to control the story, and he wouldn’t have had to answer awkward questions about the inconsistency between keeping quiet about Hughes when he had attacked John Key in 2009 for not being more forthcoming about his errant former cabinet minister Richard Worth.)

The speed with which such stories develop is a feature of the modern media. There was a time when, if the facts emerged at all, they would have been prised out over a period of days or even weeks. Now they can assume tsunami force within hours. The first hint of the Hughes controversy emerged on Wednesday morning and by Friday he was toast. Phew; it fair takes your breath away.

Watching it unfold, I was reminded of Tony Blair’s comments in 2007 about the pressure placed on politicians by the relentless 24/7 pace of media coverage and the need for "impact" in news bulletins. Events developed at outstanding speed, Blair said. "Make a mistake and you frequently transfer from drama to crisis. Things harden within minutes.” If Goff didn’t fully understand that before this week, he certainly will now.

The question now is whether Labour’s panic-stricken attempts to contain the damage will be enough to ensure Goff’s survival – which brings us to another phenomenon of contemporary political coverage.

Media scrutiny of Goff’s behaviour has gone beyond simply informing the public. It rapidly progressed to the point where journalists seemed intent on undermining him. Breathless reports that Goff's leadership was on the line seemed to lack any solid corroboration, which led me to suspect that it was journalists, rather than disaffected Labour MPs, who were greasing the skids under him. Anything to drive the drama on and keep the story at the top of the bulletins.

There is a fine line between reporting events and driving them. I get the uneasy feeling that some of the more aggressive political journalists, such as TV3’s Duncan Garner and Patrick Gower, will stay on the case until they have a scalp to hang on their belts (or better still, two scalps; why stop at Hughes when Goff presented an even more tantalising target?). At times like this, political journalism starts to resemble a blood sport. At the risk of mixing my metaphors, Garner and Gower are the hyenas with their teeth clamped in the wounded gnu's buttocks.

Is this the legitimate role of the media? Traditionally, journalists have been content to report the news then step back and allow events to take their natural course. But increasingly, they see themselves as central players in the political process rather than as mere passive observers. As I wrote in a column a couple of years ago, journalists have become choreographers of the political ballet, using their power and influence to shape and drive events.

I don’t care one way or another whether Goff remains leader of the Labour Party, but I don’t think it’s for journalists to decide. Their job is to brings facts out into the open and leave it to others – in this case the Labour caucus – to determine what, if anything, should be done next. But the media wield such power that when journalists latch onto a vulnerable politician as they have done with Goff, undermining him by questioning whether he’s up to the job, it has a habit of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t believe that’s the function of the media in a democracy. Bringing down a government is sometimes cited as the ultimate journalistic coup, but I think that’s a distortion of the journalist’s role. We should remember that when Woodward and Bernstein exposed the Watergate affair, which is often cited as the high-water mark of journalism in the 20th century, they didn’t set out to bring down Richard Nixon. Their revelations weren’t accompanied by strident denunciations. Their job was simply to report what had happened and let events take their course, which is exactly as it should be.

Hughes has done the right thing

I was sorry to hear that Darren Hughes is the Labour MP being investigated over an alleged incident involving an 18-year-old. Of the politicians I know, Hughes is one of the more likeable – genial, witty and intelligent. He says he has done nothing wrong, but he has done the right thing in identifying himself and thus removing suspicion from some of his colleagues.

Deals done behind closed doors

(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, May 25.)

IT’S HARD to recall a time when the business of government was more opaque.

Increasingly, deals of far-reaching significance are being done behind closed doors, away from public scrutiny, and then presented to the public as a fait accompli.

Parliament, where our elected representatives sit, laws are passed and issues are debated openly – as they should be, in a democracy – often seems reduced to an incidental role: a place to posture, let off steam and indulge in a bit of political theatre.

In a recent letter to this paper, Tony Orman of Blenheim commented on the low level of attendance in Parliament by MPs. But it’s hardly surprising if the House is half empty when the decisions that matter are being made away from the debating chamber.

Take the aborted deal to give the Urewera National Park to the Tuhoe, for instance.

The public heard about this only when it was revealed that prime minister John Key, presumably nervous over rumblings that the government was going too far in humouring Maori demands, had done a U-turn. Even then, it seems, the information reached the public only as a result of a leak to Maori TV.

Up till that moment, the Urewera handover was a done deal. Accommodation had been booked in Whakatane and commemorative pens made for the signing.

Most of the ruckus over the Tuhoe controversy centred on the political implications of Mr Key backtracking, and particularly the impact on National’s relationship with the Maori Party. But a far more pressing concern, I would have thought, was that the public had been kept in the dark on a matter of vital national interest.

Welcome to the realpolitik of MMP, where deals are done out of the public view largely to appease minority parties. The same happened with Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples’ sneaky trip to New York to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the full implications of which haven’t even begun to emerge.

At this rate Parliament, which is supposed to be the centrepiece of our Westminster democratic system, risks becoming irrelevant. It makes you wonder why we bother with elections.

* * *

SPEAKING of political theatre, I wonder if the poor mug who sits directly behind the prime minister gets paid a special allowance.

Under Labour this job fell to the hapless Darren Hughes. Under National it’s Chris Tremain.

Both are their parties’ chief whips but their primary function, it seems, is to laugh uproariously – or at least maintain a rictus grin – at their leader’s witty utterances. This is because the TV cameras are on them constantly and it would never do to suggest that they are less than rapturous in their admiration of the boss.

Mr Hughes is a personable and talented politician – a future Labour leader, perhaps? – and Mr Tremain is said to be on an upward trajectory within National. It seems a shame that the price such politicians must pay for advancement is to look fatuous whenever they are on display in the House.

* * *

IT WAS A bit rich of Rugby World Cup organiser Martin Snedden to rebuke greedy accommodation providers for wanting to suck the blood out of visiting rugby fans next year.

Snedden accused them of jeopardising New Zealand’s reputation – but surely they’re only taking their cue from the International Rugby Board, the tournament sponsors and everyone else associated with the RWC, all of whom seem bent on wringing every last dollar out of the event.

Even Parliament is complicit in this, passing ridiculous legislation to protect the precious interests of sponsors who are terrified that someone else might crowd their patch and steal a buck off them. A plague on all their houses, I say.

Rugby is no longer about the game itself so much as the interests of broadcasters (which is why we no longer see daytime test matches) and commercial interests whose only interest is in the sport as a marketing vehicle. These interests were once peripheral to the game; now they are central.

Rugby is no longer a sport but a brand. Even All Black coach Graham Henry talks of it as a product.

For a reminder that it wasn’t always thus, I recommend Hard on the Heels, a superb exhibition celebrating 60 years of All Black photography by the redoubtable Peter Bush.

Bush’s pictures capture a golden era when players toured on a shoestring, often had to wash their own gear and got straight back into club rugby the week after they got home from arduous overseas tours. At the recent opening of the exhibition at Masterton’s Aratoi gallery, a strong thread of nostalgia ran through the speeches by Sir Brian Lochore, Sir Colin Meads (those “Sirs” still don’t seem quite right) and Bush himself.

I got the distinct impression these rugby giants liked things better the way they used to be, even if all they ever got was a miserly daily allowance.

Hard on the Heels will tour provincial cities before opening in the four main centres to coincide with the Rugby World Cup (assuming no sponsor objects). It’s worth seeing.