The disgraced and depraved former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens said on Monday that he is running for his fellow Republican Roy Blunt’s U.S. Senate seat.
He made the announcement on Fox News, which tells you something about his contempt for Missourians.
He clearly hopes voters have short memories. Somehow, he believes they will excuse a scandal so repulsive that Republicans and Democrats worked together to force him from the governor’s office.
But Missourians should neither forget nor forgive. Eric Greitens is unqualified — politically, intellectually, morally — to ever again serve in any public office, let alone as a U.S. senator. And if his fellow Navy SEALS have anything to say about it, he will never return to public life.
Let’s review.
Greitens resigned as governor in May 2018. He resigned because of credible testimony, under oath, from a woman who claimed he’d sexually coerced and assaulted her.
The details were outlined in a report from state House investigators. “Out of nowhere,” she said, “(he) just, like kind of smacked me and grabbed me and shoved me down on the ground.”
Greitens called the woman, who had to be forced to testify, a whore. He blindfolded and restrained her in his basement, after taking away her phone and clothes. She believed he took a photograph while he had her tied and taped up. Republicans and Democrats in the House agreed: The woman, who had been his hairdresser, was completely believable.
Greitens has denied acts of violence, but he has also claimed his actions with the victim were “consensual.” He refused to testify before the legislature’s committee.
Again on Monday, he claimed innocence. “The facts are, after a 20-month investigation by the Missouri Ethics Commission, they came out and said we were completely exonerated,” Greitens told Fox News. That’s a complete lie.
His actions on the contrary disqualify Greitens from public life. And they reinforce our view of him as a narcissistic, sadistic figure only interested in personal aggrandizement and his own pleasure.
He doesn’t care about Missouri, or your family, or the problems in the state, or how the government might address those problems. He cares about Eric Greitens, and only Eric Greitens.
Can’t outrun sexual assault allegations
His decision to run for office again isn’t surprising. He may feel a need for vindication, and he obviously thinks Missourians will deliver that at the ballot box. On that last point, he may even be right.
But his decision exposes his utter lack of self-awareness. Now, the woman he abused will be dragged through the mud, again. She’ll be viciously attacked by the far-right crowd Greitens calls his base.
Imagine what she’s thinking right now.
And what of Greitens’ family? He and his wife are now divorced, but must she and their children spend the next two years reliving this nightmare? Is Greitens so hungry for approval that he would subject them to a dissection of his behavior?
Greitens will be, and should be, asked about the scandal at every stop, in every debate, every time he shakes a hand or holds a rally.
There is no reason for Greitens to run. He has no political philosophy, or agenda. His record as governor was a disaster — secrecy, dark money, improper use of a charity mailing list, alienation of every potential ally, and no real accomplishments.
“Punishing Missouri’s most vulnerable citizens — children, the elderly, the poor — isn’t tough,” we wrote in 2017. “It’s the behavior of a bully governor, insensitive to the needs of anyone except himself and his outsized political ambitions.”
He will get lots of attention for this announcement, which is of course what he wants. And Missourians, like it or not, will have to spend significant time working their way through the misleading claims he’ll spread between now and Election Day next year.
Missourians will have an opportunity to show the nation in 2022 that this is a state that rejects violence against women. His nomination would be a gift to Democrats. But politics aside, his candidacy is a terrible idea.
