Distraction, Gresham's Law, Moral Skepticism

"Cheap talk drives out quality talk". I believe Gresham hit the nail on the head with this remark. The ever arduous task of filtering out what the public should know and should not know about public officials private lives has not been taken seriously enough in our democracy. Thompson's article "Private Life and Public Office" really gets at the heart of the problems our society has with exposing public officials private lives. Yes, I do accept that there are certain behaviors by public officials that require exposure. As Thompson points out, the unity of virtues idea, which means private conduct will directly translate into public conduct is true to a certain extent. However, we must decide when private conduct actually will affect public conduct and when it will not. There is a hard line between individuals behaving in private life and public life. This is due to the fact that public ethics and private ethics are inherently different. This is evident because what someone would do for a private relationship only affects that certain relationship. In public life, actions are much more far reaching and have many implications. Individuals act differently in public than in private life.
So why does our society feel the need to expose public officials about their private life when in most cases it does not translate to their public relations? Its sexy, sensational, and fun. However, this is an extreme detriment on our democratic process, as Thompson points out. Why are these private matters exposed when most of these activities are morally relative to each individual? The public is being distracted by what one may see as immoral and another person may see as perfectly acceptable. Also, these are actions done in private life. It has been shown that people are bound to separate their public actions from private ones.
So, the next time you hear of a sex scandal by a leading public official on Fox News, maybe try to focus on the health care reform that they have been working on for years or their dedication to improving our energy crisis. Once we can do this we can stop squabbling over the latest sex scandal and direct our energy on improving public policy.