why adultery matters when you're an american politician

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commenter noblesavage had the following to say in response to my previous post about the despicable philanderer edwards:

IMHO, I have never been much of a fan of Edwards, but I guess the question is, so what? He cheats on his wife and had a love child. As Bill Clinton or Jack Kennedy so ably demonstrated, personal foibles are not particularly well related to professional ability.

You are implicitly making such a connection without stating it outright. I'm not sure that is true.

you're goddam right i'm making such a connection, noblesavage, and i guess after ten years it's high time i put my thoughts about this issue into writing.

see, throughout the whole monica lewinsky debacle, i found myself having to rebut a never-ending stream of idiotic commentary from a lot of otherwise very intelligent people along the lines of, "yeah, so he lied? big deal--of course he lied; what married man wouldn't? whatever bill did or didn't do with monica/paula/gennifer/[your name here] should be between him and hillary."

and you know what? if we were in france, that would be true; it wouldn't make a goddam bit of difference--hell, it sure hasn't hurt sarkozy.

problem is, we're not in france; we're in provincial, puritanical america. and if you're an american politician and you cheat on your spouse--and knowing that nothing will alienate an american voter quicker than hypocrisy--you have to lie about it. and as soon as you start down that road, two things happen: (1) you become vulnerable to forces beyond your control; and (2) you become a chronic liar, conspirator, obstructor and coverer-upper--it becomes second nature.

and if you really don't think that combination doesn't have any bearing on an elected official's effectiveness, allow me to tell you the following story (widely documented everywhere--google it):

los angeles, august 1962: two fbi agents, watching the apartment of judith campbell (former lover of mob boss sam giancana and current lover of president john kennedy) observe a break-in into her apartment by two brothers whose getaway car, it later turns out, had been rented by their father, the chief of security of a little second-tier defense contractor by the name of general dynamics (maybe you've heard of 'em).

the fbi agents do not interfere; they merely file a report (which, thanks to the freedom of information act, is available to us today).

three months later, the pentagon just happens to pick general dynamics for an unexpected outta-the-blue multibillion-dollar defense contract. wow--lucky, huh?

later that same year, defense secretary robert mcnamara overrules strenuous recommendations by both the air force and the navy and, instead, orders the experimental tsx fighter plane (later named the f-111) to be built by--guess who? well, if you guessed boeing, mcdonnell-douglas or hughes, you'd be wrong. nope, it went to our old friends general dynamics--a huge coup of almost incalculable profitability for a company with relatively little aircraft experience that few thought was even in the running.

after a disastrous start-up of the tsx program by a company which was clearly in over its head and resultant outrage at billions of wasted dollars (yeah, we used to get outraged about shit like that), a congressional investigation is ordered for early 1964--which resultant scandal might well have torpedoed any chance at a kennedy second term (had he lived long enough for the investigation to occur, of course).

and all this blackmail, intrigue and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars simply because the president couldn't keep it in his pants.

it mattered in 1962--and it matters now.

as for clinton, if you really wanna try and convince me that the last two-and-a-half years of his second term weren't totally dictated by the fact that he--the most powerful man on earth--not only was fucking around, but was fucking around with whatever young, stupid, emotionally unstable little twits he could get his hands on, then you're gonna have to tap-dance pretty hard (and god only knows how he sold the interests of his country down the river in order to keep other scandals quiet that we'll never know about).

and that, noblesavage, pretty much sums up the problem i have with promiscuous-yet-pious family-values-type politicians--of whichever party.

you wanna rebut? be my fucking guest.

sober update: jeez, i worked myself up into a fine, drunken froth over that one, didn't i?

edwards gets a pass from the msm

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i mean, talk about a story--here we have a prominent senator and two-time presidential candidate

• whose family-man image has been a cornerstone of his every campaign;
• who has [allegedly] conducted a long-term clandestine affair resulting in a child with a woman his campaign hired and then excessively compensated for minimal services rendered; and
  
• who, when challenged last year, not only denied the affair but, in concert with various of his minions, [allegedly] orchestrated an elaborate cover-up of same, going so far as to set up one of his (married) underlings as the self-confessed father of the baby;
  

all while his wife is at home battling deadly cancer.

and it all came to a head the other night in los angeles at the beverly hilton on the corner of wilshire and santa monica boulevards, where the national enquirer--which had first broken the story a year ago and has steadfastly pursued it ever since--cornered the good senator like a rat in a trap after a[n alleged] late-night rendezvous with his [alleged] mistress and [alleged] new baby.

this should be big news, right?

well, apparently not if you're the new york times, the los angeles times, the washington post, the three major networks, cnn, time or newsweek--none of them are touching the story.

why? ostensibly, because it came from a "questionable" news source--you know, one of those tabloids who get a tip, doggedly follow it up, work their sources, send reporters out in the field and nail it down. in other words, the kind of thing that newspapers used to do but seem to be above now (and perhaps a major reason why they're all swimming in red ink while the enquirer's thriving, but i digress).

or then again, could it possibly be a little of that famous liberal bias that they so vociferously deny exists? especially, for instance, when you consider the innuendo-filled (but factually light--especially compared to this) smear piece the new york times ran earlier this year on mccain and that lobbyist he was supposedly fucking.

either way, it's pissing me off--this is a major news story about a major hypocrite who stands to become a major player in the next administration, and it needs a full, public airing.

[disclaimer: while i have great sympathy for senator edwards' wife (who seems to be a class act), i cannot nor nor have i ever been able to abide this pompous, fake-folksy, blow-dried ambulance-chasing socialist phony; therefore, my earnest desire to see this story get the full airing it deserves probably has as much to do with my personal distaste for its subject as with any love i might have for the truth.]

baby's first sick joke

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[sometimes the mere act of writing a post is all it takes to initiate a chain of thought that whistles through the twisted windmills of my mind in just such a way as to unearth a long-dormant memory and thus trigger the next post; such turned out to be the case here.

the following story, though maybe not 100% accurate in its details (because it's been awhile), is close enough to the truth for me to comfortably present it as such.]

* * * * *

new years' eve (or thereabouts), 1963.

my parents throw a holiday party.

i'm supposed to be in bed along with my brother and sister; instead and true to my nature, i'm up and discreetly roaming the periphery of the action--soaking up the heady ambiance, avoiding capture, scanning for intelligence.

in the kitchen i spot my mother's best friend, laverne ash (always a source of interest) laughing uproariously with another neighbor over something or other, and i make it my mission to find out what. this isn't a woman who laughs much, so it's gotta be good.

mrs. ash and i are natural adversaries. barren and childless, she is uneasy around children and has always resented my tendency to eavesdrop upon adult conversations (she calls me "ears"); i, on the other hand, have always resented her ongoing efforts to thwart my innate need to know everything.

this night, i watch her light a tareyton and open another pabst blue-ribbon

proper and impeccably-groomed as she invariably was, mrs. ash was also ex-military--when she drank, she drank beer from the can with a dash of salt from the shaker she carried with her onto the lid preceding each sip 

and when she's in mid-gulp and thus distracted, i sidle into the kitchen and squeeze between the table and the wall, right behind her. perfect.

until she says, without turning around, "you think i don't know you're back there, ears, but i do--i always do."

damn.

"get your nosy little ass out from behind that table," she barks in that clipped voice she reserves only for me, "and into bed where you belong."

normally that'd be enough--i'd be off like a shot.  but not tonight.

"no." i boldly reply. "i wanna know what was so funny that it made you laugh like that."

maybe it's the alcohol, or maybe she's finally had enough of me; whatever--she sets her beer down, turns fully around, reaches across the table, grabs a handful of pajamas, pulls me close, and--eye to eye, nose to nose, teeth bared and nostrils trailing cigarette smoke--says, "you really want to know?"

i breathlessly reply yes, she hisses, "fine. what did jackie kennedy got for christmas, ears?"

i can only gaze back at her, frozen. she smiles, her eyes narrow and through clenched teeth she sneers a punch line i'm sure she figures i'll never understand

"a jack-in-the-box"*

then shoves me back against the wall, lets go, says, "happy now, you little sneak?"

well, hell yeah i am. once the nickel drops--and to her astonishment and clear discomfiture--i start laughing uncontrollably.

this naturally gets my mother's attention. she drifts over, says, "mkf, what are you doing up and what's so funny?"

i shriek, "she got a jack-in-the-box, ma!"

"laverne! dear god, you didn't tell him that awful joke, did you?"

 

but she had, and pandora's box was open.

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* as tasteless as it might have been, this was merely the first "gift for jackie" joke (the second being: what did ari give jackie as a wedding present? answer: an antique organ).

the pedophile joke

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i tend to divide the world into two groups: those who get the pedophile joke, and those who don't.

if you fall into the first group, i can probably relax around you; if you don't, i'll always have to be careful in what i say when you're around (in which case i'll probably write you off sooner than later, since i have a hard enough time tolerating people i'm comfortable with, much less those i have to tiptoe around).

i remember exactly where i was when i first heard the joke: a bunch of us had gone to grauman's chinese to see titanic in the big room (so this is, what--1997?). we settle into our seats, we're munching our popcorn, waiting for the lights to go down, and some guy in the row ahead of us tells the joke to his friends. one gasps, the other groans, but neither laughs.

but, boy, i do. in fact, i giggle all the way through the movie, much to the annoyance of everybody around me. titanic, i don't remember so much; the joke, i'll never forget. and in case you haven't heard it by now, it goes like this:

pedophile's walking a little kid into the woods. kid looks up at him, eyes wide, squeezes his hand and says, "gee, mister--it's cold and it's getting dark, and i'm scared."

pedophile looks down at the kid and says, "how do you think i feel? i have to walk back by myself."

after the movie we went somewhere for burgers, and i polled the group--there were six or seven of us--and only two other people found the joke even remotely funny; the rest were horrified that i'd laugh at a joke about child molestation and murder.

and that was one of those light-bulb moments when i realized how differently i see things than most people.

because to me, this wasn't even remotely a joke about child molestation and murder; it was a universal indictment of self-centered, narcissistic assholes everywhere (i.e., the quintessential l.a. inside joke)--and, even though the people around that table that night were talented actors and screenwriters who had individually and collectively been walked into the woods by a never-ending parade of such pedophiles, nobody seemed to get the joke but me.

well, this joke became my litmus test of compatibility--i told it to everybody, just to see how they'd react. and all my real friends (each of whom immediately saw the beauty of the joke, of course) knew this--and they always held my feet to the fire.

me: omigod, i've met this guy [insert name here] i think i really like.

them: yeah, yeah--have you told him the pedophile joke yet?

and almost always, i hadn't--and almost always when i did, that pretty much killed it.

[until v, of course, who not only got it, but--for whatever reason--still chooses to stick around.]

and you, faithful reader? when you first heard this joke, were you horrified, or did you laugh out loud?