By Wes Pedersen
Political power is one of the ultimate aphrodisiacs, a sexual turn-on responsible for lurid revelations in the world's press and the courts, a footnote in most historical accounts of presidencies real and potential.
Wheelchair-bound Franklin D. Roosevelt had an affair with a friend of the family. General Dwight Eisenhower's reputed dalliances with his pretty English driver did not keep him from being elected to the White House. The modest Jimmy Carter submitted to a Playboy interview in which he confessed not to actual philandering but to lusting, in, of all places, his heart.
John F. Kennedy famously held down twin reputations, as White House supporter of family values and paramour of Marilyn Monroe and even, the press reported, the girlfriend of Chicago's most notorious mobster.
Allegations of dalliances dogged Richard Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, while Bill Clinton submitted to the availability of a nubile intern, then insisted, "I did not have sex with that woman."
Irony gained new meaning when the then Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, led a posse demanding Clinton's head as a violator of pristine family values. Gingrich was himself exposed as an adulterer without remorse, presenting divorce papers to his cancer-victim wife. (Gingrich now believes the public will forgive his transgressions and elect him president.)
During the last presidential campaign, a potential nominee, Senator John Edwards, was forced to acknowledge the fathering of an illegitimate child as his wife suffered through the pain of cancer.
Now we find Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, admitting to being the father of a child via a household facilitator ten years ago. And Maria Shriver has left the family nest, with divorce papers almost certain to be served on the errant governor, who, despite being born outside the United States, dreamed of one day becoming president. Ave, Maria!
Contending for headlines with the governor is the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a towering figure in French politics. He sits wizening in jail, charged with sex crimes against a 40ish hotel housekeeper. Details released by the police indicate two forms of sexual violation.
Over the years, we've seen countless senators and even more small-change representatives engaging in behavior driven by lust and cheap passion, and telling constituents what great family men they are.
It doesn’t say much for the moral leadership of those in politics who preach purity while fouling their relations at home and in office.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C. |
Brian M (5/19):
Only a matter time for a PR firm to spark up a sex scandal recovery practice. They'd make a killing in Washington.
Kevin Foley (5/19):
It does say a lot about the purient appetites of we puritanical Americans to the exclusion of anything substantive or critical. Recall while we were all salivating and tisk-tsking over Lewinsky's stained blue dress, Osama bin Laden was preparing 9-11.
Fed Up In NYC! (5/20):
France has nothing on us! |