Port: Shamelessness is no virtue in a political leader

MINOT — We live in the post-shame era, especially when it comes to politics.

I wouldn't say the political class has ever been eager to take responsibility for their words and actions. Still, there was a time that, when confronted with their misdeeds, the politicians would accept responsibility. They'd apologize. Sometimes, they'd even resign from office to make room for someone who hadn't disgraced themselves.

That happens now less than it used to.

Disgraced former President Donald Trump is campaigning for a second term in the White House despite being found by a jury to be civilly liable for rape and facing dozens of criminal indictments.

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, is still in office despite being indicted for taking bribes in the form of gold bars, luxury cars, and other lavish gifts. Menendez also remained in office after a 2015 indictment for bribery and fraud ended in a mistrial.

Closer to home, state Rep. Jason Dockter, a Republican from Bismarck, and Rep. Nico Rios, a Republican from Williston, remain in office. Dockter was recently convicted of a misdemeanor criminal charge related to a sweetheart lease deal he and his business partners cut with the State of North Dakota. Rios drove drunk and, while being detained, berated the officers with bigoted and homophobic slurs while also attempting to use his status as a lawmaker to get out of the arrest.

In another era, these men would either have resigned in shame or been forced from office. That sort of accountability is in short supply in 2024.

This brings me to Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, who is running for governor. Her campaign recently made a terrible mistake. They ran an ad attacking Miller's primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong, for the time he spent working as a criminal defense attorney. The Miller campaign dug up a case in which Armstrong represented a man who abused two young girls.

The ad accuses Armstrong of "enriching himself" by "helping a child molester avoid prison" in a 2007 criminal case after "abusing two little girls."

When I spoke to the two women mentioned in the ad, they told me they consider Armstrong a friend. They also resent their personal tragedy being turned into a political assault. They've asked the Miller campaign to take the ad down.

The Miller campaign is refusing. They won't own their mistake.

Something similar happened during the 2018 election cycle. Then-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's re-election campaign used the names of sexual assault survivors in an attack ad targeting her challenger, Kevin Cramer. The women had not permitted Heitkamp to use their names. One of the women told me her father first learned that she had been assaulted from the ad.

It was a terrible blunder, but, to her credit, after I broke the story, Heitkamp was contrite. The ad was pulled, and Heitkamp apologized. That wasn't easy. That Senate race was one of the most hotly contested in the country, and owning the mistake was not politically convenient.

Still, it was the right thing. If only Miller would do the same.

We need more political leaders willing to do the right thing, even if it's not an easy thing.