Dig around deeply enough and long enough and you'll find dirt on anyone.
Running for political office is brutal. Anyone with anything to hide or a family to protect is crazy to put themselves into such a public position. And since that includes just about everyone, the most qualified people to run have no actual motivation to do so; in fact, quite the opposite.
I bring this point up every year when I teach the Constitution to my 8th graders. Last year, I told one of my GATE classes that "even I have something in my past that I wouldn't want everyone in America to know about." For the next week, kids were trying to guess what my secret was. One student was convinced that I was a hard-partying alcoholic in college. One student actually accused me in front of the whole class of having secretly had an abortion (the principal gave him on-campus suspension for that, quite deservedly so!). After I confirmed someone's suspicion that it had had "something to do with the police," the guesses went everywhere from shoplifting to drunk driving. When I told them that I am a rape survivor, they were completely shocked. We held a discussion about assuming the worst about people, the importance of an individual's privacy and about how running for office in today's society pretty much destroys it.
I don't approve of digging into Bristol's private life and the circumstances of her pregnancy. I've worked with teenagers long enough to know that kids from even the best of backgrounds sometimes make questionable choices. But I don't understand why Sarah, who was a journalism major, would put her family in a position where their privacy would be completely shattered. She must have known this would become national news; just look at any tabloid magazine's photos of suspicious "baby bumps" to know that hiding the pregnancy wasn't going to be an option.
The million dollar question: Is there a better way to select our elected officials? One that encourages public service while avoiding the obliteration of personal privacy?
