https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2012/02/09/jfk-and-the-intern-should-character-flaws-bar-a-candidate-from-office/feed/HotAir is the leading conservative blog for breaking news and commentary covering the Biden administration, politics, media, culture, and current elections.en-usSat, 13 Jun 2026 06:20:27 -0400<![CDATA[Should politicians’ character flaws, then, bar them from office, especially the oval office? Or does this set an impossibly high standard? Probably. Presidential aspirants reach for the highest office to satisfy some yearning for greatness or even immortality. The historian Richard Hofstadter said that politics for a majority of office holders, and particularly those obsessed with getting to the White House, is a form of vocational therapy. Grandiosity or convictions about standing apart from ordinary men seems to be a central component of the country’s most ambitious politicians. Ambition, of course, is not without its virtues. But when politicians, and especially presidents, let their need to win eclipse the larger good, as has so often been the case, it makes presidential striving a national problem.]]>Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:00:24 -0500<![CDATA[Tina Korbe]]>https://hotair.com/headlines/2012/02/09/jfk-and-the-intern-should-character-flaws-bar-a-candidate-from-office-n89954