5 great youthful indiscretions

Prompted by the Home Secretary's admission that she used cannabis, here are a list of other youthful indiscretions that politicians have owned up to:

1. Shooting a child dead. Quite a bad indiscretion as these things go, but not enough to prevent Adlai Stevenson from becoming a Governor and Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956. In 1912, while staying at his grandfather's house Adlai and some friends started playing with a .22 rifle the future politician found in the attic. It accidentally went off, while the 12-year-old Adlai was handling it, and killed his distant cousin, 16-year-old Ruth Merwin.

2. Participating in an orgy. While running for Governor in 2005, Arnold Schwarzenegger found himself questioned about an interview he gave to Oui magazine in 1977. He had confessed, in fact boasted, to orgiastic sessions with other bodybuilders. The actor shrugged off the article, arguing that he hadn't always wanted to be a politician.

3. Driving under the influence. In 1976, future President George W. Bush was arrested by Maine police near his family's Kennebunkport summer home. Bush pleaded guilty to the misdemeanour DUI charge, paid a $150 fine, and had his driving privileges briefly revoked in the state of Maine. The story came out just before the 2000 election, but didn't prevent his eventual victory. Some think it made the result closer, though.

4. Being a communist. In America being a member of the Communist party might make it, ahem, hard to attain really high office. In Britain the same does not apply. Denis Healey became Chancellor having been a member of the Communist Party in his youth, and party membership did not prevent John Reid from later becoming Home Secretary.

5. Sleeping with someone else's wife. During impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, it was revealed that the Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman, Henry Hyde, who was strongly pursuing the President had himself had an affair with a married woman. Cherie Snodgrass had three children. Mr Hyde claimed it was a "youthful indiscretion". He was 41 years old and married.

Comments

[Candadai Tirumalai]

George W. Bush used to say from time to time that he had been a wild young man: a Prodigal Son before he came home. Some of his old friends liked him the better for it.
Bill Clinton admitted that he had done marijuana but added that he did not "inhale".

[Joseph Francis]

Surely Joschka Fischer's radical hooligan past should make the cut above GWB's DUI charge?

[Tommy Bilweather]

What about the French Prime Minister who had entered mainstream politics as a Trotskyite mole? Jospin, was it?

[Brad Gelder]

Re: GW

Is it youthful indiscretion to prosecute an immoral war based on lies from inception to present? I'd rather my President smoke pot while in bed with a married goat than conduct affairs of state as has our GW. Knowledgable citizens differentiate between personal immorality affecting only the actor and his immediate family and global immorality perpetrating evil on the planet. Only Bush apologists such as your Mr. Blair can't make the distinction.

[Tom Donald]

The depressing part of all this is the po-faced recital "I tried cannabis and I didn't like it" or "I was Wrong" or of course "I didn't inhale".
BORING!
I'd love a competent politician to announce "I smoked dope at university. I loved it. Even now, my wife and I like to get stoned and have sex on thursday evenings". Alas hypocrisy is a highly valued part of the politician's toolkit. Why do we always elect such dullards?

[Brian Lewis]

It seems rather unfair for a minister to send someone to prison for a hefty stretch when she herself admitted (confessed) to the same crime. It is more and more acceptable to admit to a crime but to say 'you haven'enough eveidence to convict me!

[Frank Upton]

Funny....I don't see Teddy Kennedy's name on the list.