When the Saturday Fun Activity gets solved early—as it inevitably does—I feel like the readers are being cheated. So here is something extra, a piece I wrote for the Sun-Times national network yesterday that never got used, as far as I can tell. There isn't much to say about the Hastert scandal that isn't obvious, but I didn't hear anybody exploring this point, so I thought I would give it a try.
Dennis Hastert
didn’t just damage his victims—allegedly—the boys he is accused of molesting
as a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School.
There are more, others who are harmed as well.
No, I’m not
referring to the reputation of Congress—no allegations necessary, here. Hastert has without question done that, years ago,
through his shady land deals and ignoring the 2006 page scandal, we now
suspect, because he secretly had a dog in that race.
The Justice Department charged him with financial misdealings, trying to cover up some undefined past sins. But Hastert’s
abuse—which, it must be said, even as he is condemned by general acclamation, has not been officially alleged, never mind
proven—will certainly feed a bias that never gets articulated, yet is there.
I’m reluctant to
articulate it now.
But it is a common
one, that we usually don't think about, even though, in essence, we're helping spread the damage of abuse, in a low level sense.
So here goes:
So here goes:
For harried
working guys, trying to scrape together a buck, who can’t imagine volunteering
to coach teams and lead programs, for busy dads, overwhelmed just trying
to take care of their own biological children, never mind anybody else's, there are baseless allegations of the mind, a squint,
applied to coaches, scout masters, club advisors, church youth group
leaders, and men of that ilk. You wonder: why do they do it? What’s in it for
them? You wonder if, perhaps, something’s wrong
with them. You might trust them, eventually, when you get to know them. That’s
what usually happens.
But you sure
don’t trust them at first.
That might be prudent, but it sure isn’t fair,
I’ll say immediately. If more than a small percentage of wrestling coaches like
Hastert was were also child molesters, we’d know about it.
Wouldn’t we?
But life isn’t
fair, and the responsible parent, handing his child over to that middle-aged
man in a khaki uniform, scrutinizing the debate coach who’s going to drive the
team to another city for the night, has to wonder. And worry. That's part of being a parent.
Suspicion can be good, protective.
I remember hovering outside of my home office, listening, while my son’s chess tutor
put him through his paces. He was a Russian, and he slapped those pieces hard down on my fancy chessboard, which made me wince, a little, but not enter the room. That wasn’t what I was listening for.
This nagging suspicion gets a little stronger with every new Dennis Hastert flushed blinking and shamed
into the spotlight. And that vast majority of good, decent self-sacrificing
coaches, scoutmasters, church youth group leaders and teachers of every stripe
have another straw of doubt, of guilt by association placed upon their
backs. Their tough jobs get just a little bit tougher.
Life isn’t fair, as I said. But it’s more unfair to some than others. Each perpetrator of abuse leaves behind many victims. The vast majority he never meets. Instead, we do. We are unconsciously deputized by depravity, and act as the abusers' proxies, inflicting the corrosive damage of unspoken accusations in tiny, unmeasured doses to those whose only crime is trying to make the world a better place and our children better people. We might want to think about that.
Life isn’t fair, as I said. But it’s more unfair to some than others. Each perpetrator of abuse leaves behind many victims. The vast majority he never meets. Instead, we do. We are unconsciously deputized by depravity, and act as the abusers' proxies, inflicting the corrosive damage of unspoken accusations in tiny, unmeasured doses to those whose only crime is trying to make the world a better place and our children better people. We might want to think about that.