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stephenkmacksd.com/

Jun 10, 2026

Editor: These first paragarpghs of Stephens eviseration of Graham Platner porvides Stephens with an opportunity to sound the notes of Cotton Mather, of another time and place in American History? Reader do I exagerate? this self-serving apologist needs to deflect the from the crimes of the Gaza Genocide? And the crimes of agains Lebanon? Mr. Stephens finds Graham Platner as the perfect atitdote to the crimes of Netanyahu and his cadre? I quote Stephens paragraph as demonstrative of his ‘methology of deceit’ !

It isn’t clear what effect, if any, Graham Platner’s multiplying personal scandals will have on his chances in the Maine Democratic primary that’s occurring as I write this, to say nothing of November’s general election against Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican senator. But there are at least two good, if contradictory, possibilities.

The first is absolution — not only for Platner, but for every nominee or candidate, Republican or Democratic, with a blemished personal history — on the grounds that we elect or install people in high office to achieve the results we desire, not to serve as paragons of moral rectitude. If nothing else, this could make our politics less repellent to talented if imperfect people who now steer clear of public service because they don’t want to put themselves or their families through the inevitable media inquisition that comes with every campaign.

The second is consistent judgment of anyone, Democrat or Republican, who falls far short of clear and unyielding standards of moral conduct. Perhaps this will finally re-erect the political barriers that formerly prevented shameless people, our current president not least, from degrading our politics and setting a putrescent example of what is — and what isn’t — necessary to reach the high places of American life.

What ought to stop is what we have now: inconsistent standards selectively applied according to our political bias.

Lest you’ve been wintering in Antarctica, here’s what’s lately been learned about Platner, the 41-year-old combat veteran and oyster farmer:

That his wife had told a campaign aide that he had been trading sexually explicit messages with six women, and perhaps as many as a dozen, before the beginning of his political run. That a former girlfriend, Lyndsey Fifield, alleges that he lied when he claimed he did not know a chest tattoo he had gotten during his military service strongly resembled an official insignia of the Nazi SS, and that he had once referred to it as “my Totenkopf.” That Fifield also alleges that he had once “twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out” and that she later described him as “the most toxic literally abusive man on earth.” That she said he referred to women as “hatchet wounds,” using a crude word for female genitalia. That other women romantically connected to Platner also described unsettling behavior.

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