Feet of Clay

Thank you, Lance, and thank you, Oprah. The cat, as they say, is out of the bag. Our world has been rocked. Now what?

Shouldn’t we be a little used to hearing about the fatal flaws of our heroes or pillars of the community? Lance is just the latest in a pretty long line, of course. Many of the recent ones are from sports, like Jerry Sandusky. Politics? Arnold Schwarzenegger. Entertainment/media? Jimmy Savile of the BBC. Finance? Bernie Madoff. Part of us must enjoy seeing the mighty fall – but there’s the other part that yearns for someone absolutely flawless.

I’ve always believed that Human Being 1.0 comes with a “worship chip.” That’s why we invented religion. Atheism doesn’t fix this. If we don’t have religions or churches in the traditional sense, we make them up. The Baseball Hall of Fame. The Oscars. American Idol.

Americans in particular, as I have often said, turn everything into an Olympic sport. If you look at it from a distance, the whole notion of putting singers with widely differing talents – or actors, for that matter – into some kind of competition is a little silly. I knew the Last Days couldn’t be far off when I saw a similar competition on one of the food channels about who made the best cupcakes.

But we do have to have our winners. Those who get close to the top often feel the most pressure to get there and stay there. They know that no one is going to remember them if they only win the Silver Medal. Or become First Runner-Up. Or the last to be voted off the island. So they do bad things – in the case of Mr. Armstrong, some pretty awful things. Once they get to the top, they get into an almost life-and-death struggle to hide anything that would threaten that status. The tragedy is, those within striking distance of the top have extraordinary talent long before they dope, cheat, lie or commit other unsavory acts.

Once they’re on top, the majority of us want to keep them there. Investigative reporters go against the grain. They try to give us the truth. Someday, the majority of us are grateful, but for a long time, we just don’t want to hear it – which is why it takes extraordinary courage to do that job. The criers in the wilderness face scorn, financial ruin, and even threats of death.

When one of our idols is actually toppled, we’re ready to fix blame, but as usual, the idol wouldn’t have been on a pedestal quite as high without our help.

BTW, I write this under the influence of a performance-enhancing drug, which you may have heard of: caffeine. I leave it to you to decide if the performance was actually enhanced.

Maybe Arnold's Right

California's "governator" has made no secret of the fact that he would love to run for President, if the law allowed it. Our Constitution, of course, doesn't, according to standard interpretations of the 14th Amendment. . He wasn't born here. In the case of Barack Obama, the Birthers just won't let go of their claim that he really wasn't born here, either, and has no legal right to be President.

Even if Arnold Schwarzenegger could run for President, I probably wouldn't vote for him, but I wish he could anyway. From what I read, the constitutional provision barring such a thing dates back to Alexander Hamilton. In this nation's infancy, there was a real fear that we could fall under the domination of a foreign power, and the birth requirement was a link in the chain of defense.

But that was then, as they say, and this is now. Millions of immigrants have made our country what it is today without trying to take it over in behalf of a foreign power, because our system has allowed them to prosper. As for domination by foreign powers, well, someday, at the rate we're going, we may have to turn over the keys to China or India. But that's a whole 'nuther animal.

Personally, I've had it up to here with people who think that simply because they were born here and speak English, it makes them better than those who weren't or don't. Your birth is something you have absolutely no control over -- so how can you take credit for it? As for English, if that's what you were raised with, there's not much more credit you can claim for that.

The fact is, if most of us who were born here had to take a citizenship test, we'd fail miserably. Immigrants who have taken the steps to become citizens, like TV late-night host Craig Ferguson, for example, or our governor, have demonstrated a commitment to this country that most of us don't have to.

I am all in favor of immigration reform to come up with a system that's well-defined and realistically enforceable. As for the presidential issue, I'm all in favor of a residency requirement -- even a long one -- for naturalized citizens who want to run for President. But this "born here" part of the Constitution, while it's a nice tradition, has outlived its usefulness. And Birthers, don't we have more important things to argue about right now?