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The era of sex scandals amongst politicians is upon us

Charlotteman

By Charlotteman
in The Coffee House

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Charlotteman Burg

Charlotteman

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Being a polititican ain't easy in 2008, especially for politicians who walk on the wild side. Hardly any time lapses between sex scandals these days. It seems like all the libertine pols would cool it, seeing their peers falling like dominos...but no, another scandal is always right around the corner.

From what I can tell it started with Gary Hart in 1984, who challenged the media to follow him and see "what a boring life" he lived. (He had been accused of womanizing in the past.) So the media took him up on his challenge, and uncovered his affair with a young gal on a boat called "Monkey Business".

There have been so many recently it's hard to keep up with them all........Larry Craig is perhaps the most famous. But now, more revelations are surfacing about Jim McGreevey!

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Justadude Burg

Justadude

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With each scandal there's a little less shock and interest. Unless it involves a crime, a la Craig or Spitzer or even Clinton, it's just not that surprising to find out that a powerful person has had an affair. I think the tabloidization of the cable news networks has dulled our sense of moral indignance... perhaps for the better.

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dxartist Hamlet

dxartist

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When a major sex scandal involving a politician during his/her personal time makes news, I'm simply indifferent. As long as the scandal doesn't involve politics (ie passing laws, passing bills, special intertests), affects job perfomance or involves the underaged, I couldn't care less what they do during personal time.

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Charlotteman Burg

Charlotteman

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Jim McGreevey's divorce trial was in the news today. His wife is seeking $600,000.

This comes after news of threesomes in the N.J. governor's mansion....which she denies, but he says are true. Didn't she just get a book published? She must be pushing this whole thing for all it's worth.

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Justadude Burg

Justadude

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I have yet to come across a scandal more bizarre and embarrassing than this one reported in Vanity Fair involving Dick Scaife, the arch-conservative billionaire who bankrolled the Clinton/Lewinsky media frenzy. The irony is layered so thickly that it almost approaches literary proportions... it's enlightening to see where the "moral majority"'s voice is really coming from.

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Charlotte_native City

Charlotte_native

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Suffice it to say that these scandals cut across party lines -- the difference to me, and it seems most, is how much it makes a hypocrit out of the person doing it. If you aren't marching to the beat of the moral majority drummer then I am not worried about your personal life and what you do in it -- if you are aligning yourself with them then walk the walk. This goes for either party -- for me it is the reason I think Spitzer gets whatever comes his way regardless of his party.

Wide Stance Craig takes the cake though. He still can't let go and just get the h*ll out of office like everyone else does when caught. Sad that he can actually convince supporters that he really didn't do this. At least the likes of Spitzer, Haggard, etc, realize they've been caught and get out of the way.

Now we can add Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to this list for being charged with perjury for testimony where he denies having an extra-marital affair with former chief-of-staff.
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jfmecca Unincorporated Area

jfmecca

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So I guess former Charlotte mayor and current U.S. Congresswoman Sue Myrick's extramarital affair (which resulted in the dissolution of two marriages--hers and the one between Mr. Myrick and his former wife) and former Mecklenburg County Commissioner Joe Chambers and his trysts with his parishioners (he WAS a minister then, too) are just flukes? They are both rabid right-wing, holier-than-thou, Republican demagogues who do nothing but wave the flag of hypocrisy.

I really don't care who they have sex with, as long as they govern in the manner they said they would when running for office. If Rep Sue Myrick wants to break up the marriages of several thousand couples, I don't care--so long as she doesn't campain on the "sanctity of marriage", which, by the way, she has.

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Charlotteman Burg

Charlotteman

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We all knew a new sex scandal was on the horizon. For some reason it's just in the air.

This time it's the spouse of a politician---Thomas Athans, husband of Sen. Debbie Stabenow-D-Michigan. His involvement with an internet escort service was discovered in February. He hasn't been charged by police, and he is "cooperating with authorities in the matter".

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Gard Burg

Gard

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While there seems to be a lot of scandals, I don't think its because there has been corruptions among politicans, but rather in the world of the internet/email/blogs, etc, ect, its become increasingly hard to cover them up. In all, I'm glad that they are being plastered all over the media instead of being swept under the rug for once. I hope it puts continous pressure on government to keep it clean and be a reminder that someone is ALWAYS watching.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

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^ If anything things are more conservative now than they were 25 years ago. It's not a question of people being upset about extramarital sex, but rather a question of the hyprocracy that surrounds it. Politicians have engaged in this type of activity for a long time and until we got so uptight about these things in this country people were willing to look the other way.

My guess is the myspace generation will be less tolerant and more condemning of these kinds of things when they reach the age that you mention than where were are now.

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Gusterfell Burg

Gusterfell

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^That's a good point, but that hypocracy won't exist if the politicians of the Myspace generation don't preach the idea that sex should be reserved for husband and wife. Unless there is a radical shift in this generation's core values, I don't see many politicians taking that stance forty years from now.

There's no doubt that the political scene is more conservative now than it was 25 years ago. However, it is not the Myspace generation that is leading that trend, but their parents' generation now in power. If anything, I would think today's youth (many of whom don't consider oral sex to be sex, and who have had several online "marriages" before they graduate high school) would come to power during the inevitable progressive reaction to today's trends.

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Lowerdeck Burg

Lowerdeck

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I think if anything, it will remain similar to what it is today. With my generation, I really can't see much of a difference than previous generations. Maybe overall things are loosened from the days of 50s moral standards. Maybe a few more people will become part of social and cultural revolutions than in times past. But as a whole, you will still have your population of uppity moralist types and you will have the people who will be very liberal with life.

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