Reader comments
Readers' forum: Personal life irrelevant

Ryan,
You and I totally disagree. A person's character and a person's integrity are more important than how a person does his/her job - especially when that person is a public official. Public officials work for us. They represent us. Their conduct reflects on us.

An individual who cannot or will not control himself/herself to abide the laws of our society has no business representing himself or herself as one who is qualified to uphold our laws and to prosecute members of our society in court.

We do not live in a two-tier society where the 'elite' dictate to the rest of us how we should live, and hold us accountable, while they ignore those laws themselves.

Corrupt personal behavior by a public official must not be allowed. We do not live in a kingdom where we have to tolerate lack of ethics and lack of integrity. We live in a democracy where we choose the best and brightest of us to represent all of us.

It's nice to know...

We can finally quit going over every nuance of what Barack Obamas' pastor said. No charges were laid. It doesn't affect how he does his job.

I can continue to have some 'animal house' antics at my house. Like so many things, they're wrong in Utah, but none of anybody else's business.

L Miller should step down, she practised law without a license. If I drive without a license and get caught, I get punnished so why shouldn't she. She is not above the law anymore than the rest of us. What is elite? People who think they are better than others mmmmm go fly a kite folks. LMiller is not a nice character and her performance on the job is very questionable

In this case, it seems to depend on how you define witch-hunt. Sometimes you're just looking for witches, and sometimes you know there's one out there and you're trying to hunt her down and get rid of her. Miller's problem is that a lot of people put her in the latter category.

Unfortunately when one runs for, and gets into public office...there will always be a witch-hunt. If you do not want your private life exposed...stay out of politics, or you had better be on the straight and narrow. That way you have no skeletons in your closet that could be brought out! The surest way of getting exposed of any wrong doing, is to run for or hold a public official job. It isn't right, but these people know it is always a possibility! They accept this risk, so I don't feel sorry for them in the least, even though it isn't right.

L Miller is unfit for the job in every respect -- respected ADA's are jumping ship or getting canned, her personal life is out of control, and she's been practicing without a license. Worse than any of that is the bizarre pattern of prosecutions, or rather non prosecutions. Step down now.

Conduct doesn't have to be illegal to be reprehensible.

Character counts!

Isn't she the one with the big red R next to her name?

Another "famliy values" bizantine in our midst. As long as the R is there, she's holy.

So those of you who think a big red R next to her name means her character doesn't matter, and "Conduct doesn't have to be illegal to be reprehensible" and Personal life IS relevant for politicians to do their job?

So... Were you being this rabid when President Clinton's supporters were saying his personal life didn't have any bering on his ability to be President?

Were you the first to call for his resignation at the first accusation of inpropriety?

Did you expect his resignation when the investigators started finding dirt?

Did you demand his resignation when he committed purgery to cover up his inproprieties or when he was impeached by Congress?

Seems to me you are being hypocrits. It seems like the big blue D is what you need to call off the self reightous "Impropriety Police".

I'm sorry, but a person's personal conduct (and what it illustrates about her personal character) is absolutely relevant to her qualification to hold public office.

You might say that ideally, the character of a person elected to represent citizens shouldn't matter; people should select candidates based on their positions on the "issues." Unfortunately, it's simply impossible to identify, ahead of time, each "issue" that will come up before an official and demand a decision. For better or worse, we have to be able to predict how a representative will exercise her discretion when faced with an issue that none of us specifically anticipated -- and her character *is* absolutely relevant to help predict how she is likely to react.