Zero Tolerance = False Equivalencies

A few premises:
1. Racism is bad.
2. Sexual Assault is bad.
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is bad. 

A few other premises:
1. Dressing up in black face 35 years ago does not, in and of itself, make one a racist; nor does it make one incapable of governance; the possibility that one was in a picture of somebody in black face standing with somebody dressed as a Klansman, and the fact that he could tell his constituents two diametrically opposed stories, makes the issue a bit more thorny.
2. An allegation of unwanted sex, 15 or 20 years after the alleged occurrence, first brought to light only when the alleged perpetrator can be pushed to a precipitous fall that might, coincidentally, be politically expedient for somebody else, does not make that accused person a sexual predator; nor does it make him incapable of governance.  
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is always bad. 

One more premise:
We flit, and flitting is bad. 

I don't know whether Virginia's governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's lieutenant governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's attorney general should resign. I do know that each situation is unique, and that a rush to judgment in any direction for any of these men is a bad precedent to set. 

I do know that we need conversations rather than knee-jerk reactions. About race, and about gender. As to corruption, the kind of corruption that affects us as a nation, that threatens to chip away irrevocably at our common good, the kind of corruption that plainly and overtly pervades our current administration (and I include, here, those who hold their noses and look the other way), we have already begun the conversation at the ballot box, and we will, I hope, continue the conversation when the next election rolls around. For that, as an electorate, we should have zero tolerance.

As to the rest, there are nuances. I have known not only of powerful men, but of young men in college, who can be and have been taken down by uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault or harassment. Is that where we want to be? And, unless Mother Theresa comes back to life, we will be hard pressed to find somebody who has not been guilty, in his or her past, in word or in deed, of some form of intolerance or apparent ignorance. We are all, last time I checked, human, inherently flawed. We should not be so eager to cast stones.

The most any of us can do is acknowledge our errors and try to do better. And keep the conversation going, and allow for redemption, when it is possible.