Conservatives are often bumfuzzled by how the Clintons continue to maintain good electability ratings even as the “trustworthiness” ratings sink into the gutter. The new poll on quarterback Tom Brady and the “Deflate-gate” scandal provides an answer.
In short, a large number of Americans just don’t think ethics are very important.
Here are the two key numbers from the poll on Brady: 69 percent of avid fans “think Brady cheated.” Yet 61 percent of avid fans think Brady “is a good role model for young people.”
This means that at least 30 percent of “avid” fans think that Brady is both a cheater and a good role model.
Come again?
It’s also worth noting that avid fans are far more likely than “all fans” to remember that Brady also has a past of dumping a pregnant girlfriend in order to run off with a supermodel, leaving the girlfriend “heartbroken” because she “believe[s] in marriage.” So it stands to reason that a fair number of those 30 percent (or more) who believe Brady cheated and yet think he is a good role model know that he is both a cheat and a pregnant-girlfriend–dumper and still consider him a good role model for young people.
They also probably know that he doesn’t even pretend to apologize for dropping F-bombs, or that he yells at refs.
The point is not that Brady is an especially bad actor by NFL standards. He’s not. The point isn’t even to blast Brady. The point is to say that a lot of Americans have what seems to me, and probably to many of us, a very strange notion of what constitutes a “role model.” And a whole lot of them are rather cynical about the game of football in general: 80 percent of avid fans think most teams cheat in similar ways, and 73 percent believe Brady still belongs in the Hall of Fame.
All of which has what to do with the Clintons? Well, the same lack of concern about ethics seems to apply with them, too. A lot of people think that the Clintons are corrupt, or even crooks, but think that it doesn’t much matter. Don’tcha know that everybody does it? Aren’t they all on the take?
In Louisiana, the popularity of repeat-governor Edwin Edwards remained sky-high even for a number of years after most people had concluded he was a grifter of the first order. It is not mere legend that a typical response of some Louisianans at the time was: “Sure he’s a crook, but he’s honest about it.” And there the voters would go, straight to the polls to re-elect him.
A very large subset of Americans love people perceived as “winners,” regardless of ethics. Apparently some think that the very fact of being a winner makes somebody — perhaps absent their committing a murder or some major crime — a “role model.”
As for me, I think that even if Brady somehow loses all the vast riches he has accumulated during his remarkably triumphant football career, he can probably get it back rather quickly. I think he has real potential as a trader in cattle futures.