Politicians often do not have the best reputation with the general public. It has been this way for a very long time. Politicians are generally seen as being dishonest or corrupt. Some are accused of blatant pandering. This means the perception is that some politicians will simply say anything in order to get votes or support while campaigning. There is also a long history of politicians letting constituents down after being elected. Those officials might suddenly stop supporting something critical or stop doing anything at all. The idea of dishonest politicians does have some evidence behind it when looking at the larger government system.
Something that has been happening with increasing frequency in the previous decades is when a politician is caught being a hypocrite. This is especially true when it comes to politicians who profess strong religious beliefs or intensely conservative social values. The standards that many of these people talk about are not always practical to follow in everyday life. Other people condemn certain actions or work vehemently to oppress groups of people only to be revealed as partaking in those same actions or communities later. This can be seen in all the elected officials who fought against gay rights only to later be revealed as having gay relationships.
A man named Mike Webb in Virginia decided to run for office in the United States House of Representatives. Webb is relatively young Republican. He uses social media and the Internet a good amount to help promote his candidacy. This includes using Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis. Webb has been painting himself as a Conservative with strong religious values. His numerous social media posts often contain lengthy quotes from the Bible. He regularly speaks about God, churches and religion. Webb has spoken about upholding high standards, being a good Christian and honesty.
Webb recently decided that he had a complaint about a local employment agency in Virginia. He looked the agency up on Google, loaded a map of the location and then took a screenshot. Webb posted the unedited screenshot from his computer directly to Facebook. The problem is that viewers could clearly see what else was opened in his multiple browser tabs. One tab had the name Layla Rivera in it. A second browser tab contained the name Ivone. A quick Internet search shows that these are both the names of popular pornographic film stars.
The two stars are not just nude models. They appear in highly explicit videos. The two tabs were immediately noticed by a large number of people following Webb’s campaign. This resulted in many posts to his official campaign Facebook page. Some of the posts were humorous. Others declared that Webb was a hypocrite for talking about Christian principles and morality while viewing porn. A few people pointed out that Webb was viewing porn while he was supposed to be working and potentially on a work computer. The embarrassing post stayed up for nearly a half-day before Webb finally took it down.
Webb responded as any politician would after realizing what was happening. He took the post down and put up a new one with no pornographic tabs along the top of the browser. He then made a long post on Facebook filled with religious references and a Bible quote. He thanked people for pointing out the problem. He also bragged about how his number of followers and views increased dramatically due to the post. He then went on to talk about how God will forgive him. He finished by talking about his own campaign. The responses to the Facebook post showed that a good number of people were simply not impressed by the glossy response to the incident.
