Eleanor Roosevelt just wasn't enough for her husband. Pictured: FDR (left) and his mistress, Lucy Mercer. (Photo courtesy of AP)

When it came to protecting the personal privacy of public officials, FDR was the chief spokesman. The press during his administration knew the president’s Rooseveltian Rule all too well:

“The private life of a public official should stay private and undisclosed unless it seriously impinges on his or her public performance.”

In other words, unless FDR’s carnal relations with Lucy Mercer opened the door for the Nazis to invade Rhode Island, reporters should back off. As hard as it is to believe today, the press honored the president’s request and turned a blind eye to most every unscrupulous misstep public officials made. Issues of morality—or lack thereof—were left virtually untouched.

In turn, FDR was able to rescue the country from certain economic turmoil and simultaneously fight a multi-front world war, all while privately engaging in extramarital affairs with his wife’s personal secretary. JFK, too, dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the rising threat of Communism, and he did so while philandering with women other than Mrs. Kennedy—namely Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Angie Dickinson.

These men were able to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution without being faithful to their wives. And because these affairs had no effect on their job performance, they went unreported.

Today, it is inconceivable that such high-profile breaches of morality would be left untouched by the mainstream media. In this era of junkyard journalism, in which every morsel of gossip is shamelessly splashed across more than just Page Six, the Mark Sanfords and John Ensigns of the world stand no chance.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., is just the latest victim of this vicious news cycle. Having admitted that he had an affair with a female staffer, Souder decided to preemptively resign in an effort to save face and avoid the media’s brutal post-exposure onslaught.

“In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon, often twisted for political gain,” he said. “I am resigning rather than put my family through that painful, drawn-out process.”

Even the dead can’t seem to hide these days. In his controversial book “Bobby & Jackie: A Love Story,” author C. David Heymann examines the alleged affair between the late Robert F. Kennedy and his sister-in-law, former First Lady Jackie Kennedy. Following the assassination of JFK, the two found solace in each other as they tried to cope with the tragic loss of a loved one, Heymann asserts. This, in turn, developed into a relationship rife with passion and fit for a TV soap opera.

Whether Heymann’s theory is true or not is beside the point. As one astute reader pointed out in a comment on the author’s Boston Herald article last July:

“Regardless of where one’s opinions lie, I simply have to ask: Who cares anymore?”

Indeed, who does care what two consenting adults did in the wake of a national tragedy over 40 years ago? Who cares if John Edwards cheated on his cancer-stricken wife with a film-producing floozy, or if Mark Souder “sinned against God” by having an extramarital relationship with a female aide?

If public officials—officials that we elect to serve our country, not exemplify moral rectitude — partake in what many consider to be immoral conduct and have extramarital affairs, so be it. These are politicians, not the Pope. While their actions are most certainly reprehensible, their behavior is irrelevant if it doesn’t interfere with their job performance.

The glory days of the Rooseveltian Rule weren’t glorious simply because ignorance was bliss. In fact, it was quite the contrary. Instead of focusing on scandalous affairs and innuendo, Americans were more inclined to pay attention to the issues at hand. We could benefit from that during these days of similar economic peril, multi-front wars, and general discontent with the direction in which the country is heading. The complex issues that so many Americans fail to understand are what matter most, and it is the duty of reporters everywhere to break these issues down and explain them to the public.

Somewhere along the way, journalists seemed to have forgotten this.

Following Ted Kennedy’s debacle at Chappaquiddick, the media felt somewhat responsible for the untimely death of young Mary Jo Kopechne since they had been aware of Kennedy’s drinking habits for quite some time. Add Watergate to the mix and a new generation of junkyard journalists was born. Feeling as if the country had been taken advantage of in the wake of a national scandal, reporters adopted the mentality that anything goes. Be it sex, drugs, or anything in between, every detail of politicians’ private lives became fair game for public consumption.

An honorable attempt to keep public officials in check became a self-righteous crusade to expose irrelevant immorality in their private lives, effectively depriving Americans of potentially great political leaders.

Perhaps the newspapers publish these tabloid stories in order to sell more papers. But according to recent polls, these stories only appeal to a certain demographic of Americans. In a June 2009 Gallup poll, 92 percent of those surveyed considered infidelity “morally wrong.” But 46 percent said a presidential candidate who engaged in such behavior would bother them either “not much” or “not at all.”

Like the astute reader from the Herald points out, nobody cares. Sure, it is not right, and indeed public officials should exemplify moral rectitude just as any other average citizen should. But rather than branding these otherwise decent men with scarlet letters, journalists should be charged with the task of reporting what really matters. Slinging mud and broadcasting irrelevant personal details of politicians’ lives does a disservice to the American people.

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