Create a scale of degeneracy to rate badly-behaved politicians

I’m looking at Althea Cole’s column. The one where she shakes her finger at the behavior of public figures. It would be helpful to create a scale to measure these behaviors. There are those that are odd or ridiculous, yet don’t threaten life or limb, and the affairs of state move on. I’d put Fetterman there. Below I’d put sexual encounters, as per Gov. Noem, rated at PG. That, to me shows her arrogance and unmerited confidence in the voters of South Dakota, but no other public life or limb was endangered and, barring a Clinton-sized scandal, the ship of state will sail.

Then, you’ve got PG-13 rated behavior, like Boebert. Adults shouldn’t flaunt the rules of decorum by vaping, groping and fondling in a theater or flipping off security. But compared to (“Oh, lord, it gets worse,” says Cole), a VA state house candidate, and her husband whose streamed behavior hit the R rating. Had they been on HBO, it would be X-rated, but I reserve that rating where life and limb and the ship of state are threatened by illegalities that can’t be ignored by voters or the Halls of Justice. There we find George Santos. If Bob Menendez took gold, he rates an X. I put the Jan. 6 rioters in X. They tried to bribe Congress by intimidation. And then, off the chart, far lower than X, is Trump whose guilt is not forgivable, unless Justice Thomas trades his vote for a free weekend at Mar-a-Lago.

Gerald Ott

Ankeny