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Agent: Sir, he's coming down from his heroin high. We tried to wake him up, sir, but he's out of it.
Vice president: Give me the darn phone.
Look, the issue is not whether some politicians fib about prior drug usage because they want to get elected -- they do -- but whether we want our leaders to reflect the best America has to offer. People look to politicians for leadership and to the president as a role model.
We're all fallible. Since the beginning of mankind, there have been and always will be temptations. Those include, but are not limited to, drugs and alcohol. Society's best and brightest -- and whatever you think of their politics, presidential candidates tend to be extremely bright, highly capable individuals -- can experiment with drugs or abuse alcohol early in their lives and get away with it, or nearly so.
But there are still consequences. Ultimately, each candidate had to recover from his experimentation of drugs or abuse of alcohol to become a viable contender for president. The reason is quite simple: Americans don't want to elect a known alcoholic or a drug addict as president, but they are willing to consider a candidate who overcame an addiction or made a bad choice as a youth and learned from those experiences.
We all know people who have abused drugs or alcohol. I used to work closely with an attorney; let's call him "Bob." Bob and I were friends; our families socialized. Our offices were right next to each others'. Bob graduated from prestigious universities. We tried cases against each other, but he never lived up to his potential as a trial attorney. One week I beat him at trial, and his performance was poor. The next week, he passed out during a different trial. It turns out he had been drinking a fifth of scotch a day for 12 years.
He got professional help, fights the urge to drink to this day, and is now a world-class advocate, father and husband. Just think, though, of all the clients he failed prior to getting help.
Here's the point: He chose to abuse alcohol and lived. If he had chosen, say, heroin, he would probably be dead.
Charles "Cully" Stimson was a local, state, and federal prosecutor, a military prosecutor and defense attorney, and deputy assistant secretary of defense. Currently, he is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
Vice president: Give me the darn phone.
Look, the issue is not whether some politicians fib about prior drug usage because they want to get elected -- they do -- but whether we want our leaders to reflect the best America has to offer. People look to politicians for leadership and to the president as a role model.
We're all fallible. Since the beginning of mankind, there have been and always will be temptations. Those include, but are not limited to, drugs and alcohol. Society's best and brightest -- and whatever you think of their politics, presidential candidates tend to be extremely bright, highly capable individuals -- can experiment with drugs or abuse alcohol early in their lives and get away with it, or nearly so.
But there are still consequences. Ultimately, each candidate had to recover from his experimentation of drugs or abuse of alcohol to become a viable contender for president. The reason is quite simple: Americans don't want to elect a known alcoholic or a drug addict as president, but they are willing to consider a candidate who overcame an addiction or made a bad choice as a youth and learned from those experiences.
We all know people who have abused drugs or alcohol. I used to work closely with an attorney; let's call him "Bob." Bob and I were friends; our families socialized. Our offices were right next to each others'. Bob graduated from prestigious universities. We tried cases against each other, but he never lived up to his potential as a trial attorney. One week I beat him at trial, and his performance was poor. The next week, he passed out during a different trial. It turns out he had been drinking a fifth of scotch a day for 12 years.
He got professional help, fights the urge to drink to this day, and is now a world-class advocate, father and husband. Just think, though, of all the clients he failed prior to getting help.
Here's the point: He chose to abuse alcohol and lived. If he had chosen, say, heroin, he would probably be dead.
Charles "Cully" Stimson was a local, state, and federal prosecutor, a military prosecutor and defense attorney, and deputy assistant secretary of defense. Currently, he is a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
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