It is possible this week to consider such profound topics as troop pullouts, Mass Pike tolls or even celebrity deaths. But it would be better to focus on the topic that’s been on everyone’s mind lately—politicians’ sex lives.
I might not be the best equipped to write about this topic since I am of an age that considered whatever a politician was up to in the sex department was not my business. Jack Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower come to mind.
So I was baffled when Bill Clinton was hauled into an impeachment because he’d had an amusing escapade and then lied about it. I thought lying about it was what everyone was supposed to do when asked about their intimate lives. It’s no one’s business except their own and those affected by it.
But now I realize that attitude is so mid-century. Clearly, things have changed. Now that all will be revealed, we need a hierarchy of how to deal with such matters. So I’m offering one, from the least pernicious to the most.
Level one: Idiots. In cases like these, a randy politician has a romp with a bimbo and gets caught. I know that makes the woman sound like a sex object, but isn’t that what she has decided to be? Women don’t have to behave like bimbos, nor do men have to behave like idiots.
Bill Clinton, of course, is the best example of shenanigans at this level. We always knew he had an eye for the ladies. At least he wasn’t hypocritical. I figured if Hillary could handle it, so could I. Newt Gingrich, of course, could not. But more about him later.
Level two: Scary. The best example here is Eliot Spitzer. We knew the guy was mean and effective. But dumb? He prosecuted crimes like his. This is like the bad boy who grows up to be a policeman or the indifferent student who grows up to be a teacher. It’s not hypocritical. It’s just too risky for comfort.
Level three: True love. This situation can be amusing, as was Mark Sanford’s first press conference after he returned from “hiking the Appalachian Trail.” He loved a woman other than his wife. Apparently most wives can handle an escapade that’s only about sex, if Hillary Clinton and Silda Spitzer are any indication. But if love is involved, it’s harder to work up a laugh. Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower are in this category, and they are not men to laugh at. John Edwards is this level’s current example. Even if we respect the man, it’s still troubling that these men put their wives in a difficult situation. But we don’t know the whole story about these marriages, and we should be cautious about judging them unless we have both sides.
Level four: Slimeball. Politicians at this level make the juiciest subjects, because they are truly bad. One feels no ambivalence about enjoying every minute of their shame, enhanced with a sweet sense of justice. In all these cases the perpetrator is a right-wing, “family values” demagogue who gets caught and then creepily asks for forgiveness. There are a whole slew of these politicians, and—you heard it here—there will be more to come. I guess there are no left-wing examples because left-wingers get self-righteous only about recycling, which doesn’t have the same narrative ring that sex does.
Recent perps at level four are Nevada Senator John Ensign, Louisiana Senator David Vitter, and former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who had the additional distinction of reportedly promoting his wife’s abortion while condemning other women who had one. The slimiest is Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the House, who, coincidentally, was engaged in an extramarital liaison as he was leading the charge against Clinton. Newt doesn’t even bother to ask for forgiveness.
Level five: Governor Mark Sanford, whose behavior illustrates all four of the lower levels. He so far has this level all to himself. How was this guy ever elected to anything?
Now that we have political sex straight, don’t you wish that Sal DiMasi had troubles like these rather than the troubles he does have? Rigging a bid is a cliché in Boston. It just doesn’t have the caché that sex does.