If the man I loved told me he’d slept with a prostitute, or some random woman he met on the road but whom he cared nothing about, I’d be crushed.  But with some emotional work shared between us and loads of time to heal, I might be able to get over it.

If the man I loved was a politician, a famous athlete, a movie star or anyone who has access to more than, say, thirty sexy women on any given day, I’d almost expect him to be sleeping around.  Smart, handsome, charismatic men working at your local Denny’s have cute gals buzzing around them like bees.  Add a couple mil to the guy’s wallet and some paparazzi flash bulbs and he’s got a swarm.  I would want my famous man to be faithful, just as I would be to him.  I’d expect him to try, but wouldn’t be shocked if he slipped.

Now, if my man was traveling all the way to goddamn Argentina to be with a woman with whom he was sharing “a love story,” well, Houston, we’ve got a flippin’ problem.  If he slept with several prostitutes, got busted by the Feds then made me stand next to him on national television while he apologized for his indiscretions?  Aw, hell no.  Ain’t happenin’.

The first lesson to take from the latest ongoing political sex scandal brought to us by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, is never, ever marry a politician.  Not only may you have to endure his affairs and attempts to get pleasured by cops in bathroom stalls, you’ll have to publicly stroke his back as he begs forgiveness from your country and your Lord.  At least if you marry a rock star who cheats, you get your own reality show.

I’ve always assumed most political and celebrity marriages have agreements, in which Hubby gets to do who he wants as long as Wifey gets to keep his heart and his house.  My guess is these arrangements center around three rules: Don’t get caught.  Don’t embarrass me.  Don’t fall in love.  Break the rules, and I’m out.

Which is why I dig Mrs. Sanford.  She was nowhere in sight when the Governor fessed up to his affair.  The Governor broke the rules.  Not only did he get caught, but he’s currently embarrassing the bejesus out of her by admitting to loving his mistress and not loving his wife, while airing their dirty laundry on a daily basis to the press.

About time one of these women save themselves and their families before their husband’s egos and careers.  If ever my heart was broken by a woman’s public appearance, it was when poor Eliot Spitzer’s beautiful and accomplished wife stood by the putz during his confession, her face drawn and robbed of color as if everything in her soul had collapsed and died.  I didn’t despise Spitzer for screwing hookers.  I despised him for making his wife prop him up.

The second lesson to take from the scandal is something those of us who don’t marry famous people can take to heart.  We all know love and marriage won’t survive if we go hopping into the sack with anyone other than our partners.  We know falling in love with someone else threatens a partnership more than anything.

But part of commitment also means being able to say to each other, ‘there are parts of me that are ugly and stupid, selfish and cruel and weak.  I’ll share them with you so we can understand and heal each other, and I will do my best to keep them in check.  But if they do emerge, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t suffer.’

I saw it in Mrs. Spitzer’s face.  ‘You were supposed to protect me from this,’ she seemed to be thinking.  ‘You were supposed to protect us.’  Maybe Mrs. Sanford wasn’t ready to publicly defend her marriage since her husband hasn’t done it himself.

Fortunately, most normal folk will never be asked to stand before their peers to announce their spouses’ affairs:

‘Friends, we’ve asked you to this pool party to tell you Judy’s been sleeping with a guy in accounting.  But we’ve asked God’s help in healing our marriage, and request that you give us our privacy as we face this difficult challenge.’

Still, these political scandals are an extreme though significant reminder.  Love isn’t only about protecting your partnership from other potential lovers.  It’s about protecting it from yourself.

In breaking news which caused the major cable news outlets to cut away from endless tape loops of Michael Jackson’s final rehearsal at the Staples center, Sarah Palin has announced that she is stepping down as Governor of Alaska.

The 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate made the surprise announcement Friday from her home in Wasilla, Alaska. In a rambling and emotional address, Palin said: “The problem today is apathy. We’re fisherman. Only dead fish go with the flow.”

In deciding not to “go with the flow,” Palin said she didn’t want to be a lame duck, and she said she can affect change from “out of government.” She later corrected her remarks to “outside the governor’s office.”

Palin asked Alaskans to trust her on the decision, and she says she is transferring power to Lieutenant Gov. Sean Parnell. She said this is the best way to continue her administration’s agenda. There is speculation that Palin will seek a Senate seat in 2010 as a warm-up to a presidential run.

She made clear she will be staying in the public eye. “I’ll work very hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government and strong national security for our country and support our troops and energy independence, and for those who will protect freedom and equality and life,” she said, her voice shaking as the emotion overtook her. “I’ll work hard for and campaign for those who are proud to be Americans, and who are inspired by my ideals….And I don’t care what party you’re in or no party at all, inside of Alaska or outside of Alaska”.

According to a Palin aide, she is stepping down so that she can take the fight for her issues elsewhere. In her rambling speech, she said her work will continue, but wasn’t clear what it was that her work will entail. “But I won’t do it from the governor’s desk,” she said. “I’ve never believed that I nor anyone else needs a title to do this – to make a difference to help people”.

Democrats were quick to respond with criticism. Hari Savugan, a spokesman for the DNC, said: “Her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.” The news media followed with speculation about her sudden announcement.

Indeed, in today’s speech, Palin said that one reason for her decision to leave office is because of the bad press that has descended on Alaska as a result of the “mean-spirited” battering she and her family has suffered at the hands of the press.

Bad press has followed her since the beginning of her run for vice-president. Most recently, in this week’s Vanity Fair, anonymous John McCain campaign workers blamed her “narcissistic personality disorder” for sabotaging the campaign. Todd Purdum, the writer of the Vanity Fair piece, described Palin’s public life as “an unholy amalgam between ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Northern Exposure’,” a cult comedy-drama from the 1990’s about life in Alaska.

In Purdum’s profile, he quoted Palin as saying “Believe me, Alaska is a microcosm of America.” Purdum countered with “Believe me, it is not.” The article is the talk of Washington this week, but the media has pretty much been having a field day at Palin’s expense since she burst onto the national scene.

Keith Olbermann, on his MSNBC political talk show, featured the now-famous video of Palin’s pardoning-a-turkey photo-op standing directly in front of a man engaged in the act of slaughtering turkeys. It was hard to listen to what Palin was saying as turkeys were being shoved into a grinder right behind her.

More recently, Palin’s famous feud with David Letterman gave the media a chance to keep Palin in the news just as interest in her seemed to be subsiding. In his Top 10 segment, Letterman joked about Palin’s trip to New York: “She bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her slutty flight attendant look.” He went on to joke about her trip to Yankee Stadium by saying, “her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” The next night he made another joke about her visit to see the Yankees, where she sat next to Rudy Giuliani and her 14-year-old daughter Willow. “They had a wonderful time. The toughest part was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.” The reference to the ex-New York governor who got caught with a prostitute was the last straw, and Palin came out firing, as did her husband Todd, who called Letterman “perverted.”

Letterman let the feud build up for a week as he saw his ratings soar past Conan O’Brien’s “The Tonight Show.” “Late Show With David Letterman” was in second place for years when he was opposite Jay Leno. Letterman spent the week of the feud making half-hearted apologies in between jokes as he watched his show go to the top of the ratings. Sarah Palin and her husband Todd hit the talk show circuit and milked the publicity for all it was worth. Letterman finally made a full apology and the media went back to other matters.

The Letterman feud seemed to change the tide of public opinion toward Sarah Palin. While many tuned in to Letterman’s show to see his response to Palin’s over-the-top reaction, most people thought Letterman had crossed the line, including his fans. The fact that Letterman gave a heart-felt apology, saying that he wasn’t referring to Palin’s 14-year-old daughter Willow, but was joking about Bristol, who is 18, didn’t go over well with even some of Letterman’s fans. Letterman got a pass however, as he asked the public to look at his record, and they did, letting Letterman settle back into his routine of coming in a close second to “The Tonight Show.”

Talk show hosts and pundits generally said that Sarah Palin had milked the Letterman feud for political gain, and the were probably right. Joan E. Dowlin, in the Huffington Post, wrote that Palin’s acceptance of Letterman’s apology was “a triumph not just for the Governor, but for women and girls across the country”. Dowlin went on to say: “If we can learn anything from the Palin-Letterman feud, it is that speaking out for rights of all people is not just a freedom but our responsibility. Seeing all the unrest and oppression in Iran puts everything in perspective, and I for one am glad to live in a country where we can even have this conversation”. Dowlin wrote that on June 18, and since than the situation in Iran took on explosive proportions, with the videotaped killing of Neda Agha-Soltan, who was watching a demonstration in Tehran. The news spread quickly through the Internet and made Agha-Soltan the face of oppression in Iran.

The media focuses on what the public wants to know, and the death of Michael Jackson put all other news on hold. Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina dodged the media spotlight for much of the week after his extra-marital affair with a woman in Argentina hit the news the day before Jackson’s death, and it was picking up steam. Sanford got a reprieve because of Jackson. The country forgot about Neda Agha-Soltan. Farrah Fawcett died, but tributes to her were put on hold. The same for Ed McMahon before her, and Billy Mays and Sky Saxon after her. I still haven’t figured out who Billy Mays and Sky Saxon are, but now, with the focus on all things Michael Jackson, I never will.

Friday, the day before the 4th of July holiday, started out as a slow news day. A minute-and-a-half tape of Michael Jackson’s last rehearsal was running over and over, as news commentators just broke the news about his funeral, which they announced would be held next Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Sarah Palin broke the Jackson tape loop by announcing in a trembling, emotional speech: “So Alaska may progress, I will not seek reelection as governor”. What she will do is anybody’s guess. She said the decision to step down as governor of Alaska was made awhile ago. But one thing’s for sure, she waited until the time was right to make her announcement. If she had given her speech one week earlier, nobody would have been watching. Michael Jackson was the biggest news event of the century. And with the new way news is spread today at the speed of thy Internet, Michael Jackson’s untimely death may have been the biggest news event ever. And it’s not over.

After Palin’s speech, the media cut away to the videotape of Michael Jackson’s last rehearsal. His comeback tour has been canceled, but the full tape of Jackson’s final rehearsals are in the can. Look for the biggest selling DVD of all time.

In the meantime, Sarah Palin went back inside her house, where her view of Russia is obscured, and on July 16 she will become a private citizen. Hopefully, she’ll fade into obscurity, but probably not. She has her eyes on the 2012 presidential race. Michael Jackson will still be in the news, but a lot can change between now and 2012. As she weighs her political options, Palin’s best hope is to sign a book or movie deal. In politics, there are no guarantees. There’s one thing I do know. Sarah Palin will never become president of the United States of America.

http://www.paulsolomon.blogspot.com

Bill Clinton got spiritual counseling.  Eliot Spitzer dragged his poor shell shocked wife to the podium with him as he let the world know he’d been spending time and money with call girls.  Jim McGreevey decided he was a gay American.

And now South Carolina’s sometimes absent Governor Mark Sanford is taking it all to a new level.  First, he’s caught in a more dramatic way than anyone before him.  But that’s nothing compared to when he got started talking!

Here’s just a bit of what we’ve learned so far.  The affair in question was no run of the mill booty call.  No.  This was a love story.  I’m sure his wife was glad to hear that.  Then, he referred to his mistress as his soul mate.  Again, not thrilling for Sanford’s wife to hear. 

Sanford admitting trying to break off the affair multiple times, but he just couldn’t.  You know, cause this was his soul mate after all.  Soon after coming out with all those beauties, the governor admitted crossing the line (but NOT SEX) with other women.  That was restricted to the soul mate, who was not his wife.

And now, just moments ago, I saw a web headline stating that Sanford is saying he thinks it’s possible that his wife might forgive the affair.  Perhaps she’s coming around to understanding that what this is is indeed a tragic love story in which the gov just could resist pursuing his one true love?  Seems like a long shot to me.  But what do I know about their marriage?

I try really hard not to attack people’s personal lives, but Sanford is making it trulyimpossible to avoid commenting.  His behavior is unbelievable.  At minimum, he’s showing a true disregard for his wife and family by continuing to talk and reveal personal  business in a misguided attempt to save his political future.

On the other hand, his strategy seems so ill advised that it’s got me thinking the goal isn’t to repair his future prospects so much as to get his wife to dump him.  Maybe he’s a romantic after all and just does want to be with his Argentinian lover.

Whatever the case may be, I’m fed up with cheating politicians who feel they must apologize and share details with the public that the public has little right to know. 

Kennedy never apologized.  Sure the press was different back then, but the point’s the same.  Kennedy, for whatever his flaws, was a man who stood by his decisions and actions.

Just once I’d like to hear a politician say “you know what, I did it and it’s none of your business why”  or if he/she had to reveal info than I’d like it go more like this:

“I cheated cause my partner and I are done.  Our marriage is a shell.  There’s no more sex between so went looking elsewhere in a misguided attempt to find affection”

OR

“You know what?  Sex with one person for the rest of my life just wasn’t my bag, man.”

OR EVEN

“No freaking comment!”

Now THAT would be refreshing.

The bizarro governor of South Carolina seems incapable of shutting his yap. During the past week or so, this guy has admitted he lied to his staff about an Appalachian Trail hike, when instead he was visiting his mistress in Argentina.

Since then, he’s said, among other things, that his wife knew about the affair, that he asked her permission to visit the woman, that she was his soul mate, that he’d messed around with other women but hadn’t had sex with them. Let’s see, did I leave anything out?

Sanford, you may remember, was full of righteous indignation about the sexual foibles of Bill Clinton. He’s also the fool who didn’t want to take stimulus money even though his state’s education system badly needed it.

The people of South Carolina must suffer fools gladly. So must Sanford’s wife Jenny and their four kids. Talk about public embarrassment!

But this isn’t really about that. It’s more about a sitting governor being addle brained enough to drop looking after the business of the people of his state to follow his heart (or another part of his anatomy) all the way to South America. Is it any wonder he’s refused to release financial records that might show whether he used taxpayer funds to hang out with this woman in the past?

Equally as hilarious is the notion that Mark Sanford can somehow redeem his marriage by staying on as governor.

If there’s a connection between these things, it escapes me. It also escapes a growing chorus of voices in his home state that are calling on him to resign. Those who support him are telling the press he’s tired, but showing no signs of instability. Is that what it takes to govern  an American state in the 21st century? No sign of instability?

The amazing thing about the litany of serial political adulterers is that party affiliation has little to do with whether they stray. Democrats do it just like Republicans. Liberals, conservatives, religious zealots, it just doesn’t matter. I think I know why they do it, but I won’t share it here, lest I be called sexist or worse.

However, there is this to ponder. Very few women in politics get caught up in the foolishness that’s nailed the likes of Eliot Spitzer, John Ensign, Larry Craig, David Vitter, Bill Clinton, Mark Foley, and yes, I’ve left some out.

Why is that? Yes, there are fewer female elected officials, but are they better at not getting caught? Are they smarter? Or perhaps, are they just not drunk enough with power to think any member of the opposite sex they fancy is fair game?

Whatever. The central question is, Can Mark Sanford survive the calls for his political head? I’m guessing no, not too much longer.

What do you think?

So many politicians have been getting busted for cheating lately – all of them men, needless to say.

Gov. Sanford: Why is this man smiling?

Last week, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, once touted as a potential presidential front-runner in 2012, became the subject of much giggling after saucy e-mails to his Argentinian mistress were leaked to a local newspaper.

A week earlier, Nevada Senator John Ensign admitted to having an affair with an ex-member of his campaign staff. A little while back, Louisiana Senator David Vitter’s name turned up in the phone records of a Washington D.C. madam.

Republicans aren’t alone in the sex scandal department.

Former Democratic New York Governor Eliot Spitzer got caught arranging a rendez-vous with a high-priced call girl last year. John Edwards, a 2008 Democratic primary candidate and John Kerry’s vice-presidential running mate in 2004, was nailed having an affair while his wife battled breast cancer. It was speculated the ex-senator might even have fathered the other woman’s child.

Then there’s the biggest dog of ‘em all, Bill Clinton, whose Oval Office escapades are so legendary they can still make me blush.

I want to be shocked by how many high-profile male politicians apparently can’t keep their weapons in the holsters.

JFK: Loved the ladies.

At the same time, I recognize that this is how it’s always been – the tale of the politician-lothario is as old as time itself. Revered presidents like John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson all were philanderers. (Can’t think of a Canadian example; probably too cold up here for prime ministers to drop their pants on a passionate whim.)

It’s different nowadays, though. Thanks to technological gadgetry, there are so many eyes and ears everywhere that a politician would be foolish to think he can get away with having a mistress. These things fast become media feeding frenzies, and careers usually implode once the tryst is made public.

But is it really our business what elected officials get up to in their own time? Long as they’re doing their jobs in a competent manner, does it matter if a politician gets busy with a woman who isn’t his wife?

Apparently the French don’t mind. Former president François Mitterand had an illegitimate child with his mistress. Everyone in the country knew about it, yet didn’t seem to care.

MJ made some bad personal choices, but he's still a legend.

If I judged my musical idols solely on the crazy stuff they did in their personal lives, I’d have few left to admire. (Heck, Michael Jackson said he liked sleeping with boys, yet I and countless others still regard him as one of the greatest artists of all time.) And actors or sports stars? If they deliver when they’re called to/paid to, I also don’t give a hoot what they do when not in the spotlight, with a few exceptions (Mel Gibson, Michael Vick.)

But elected officials must be held to a higher standard.

At some level, we vote for people who we perceive to have sound morals and values. Male politicians might have affairs, and that’s their choice. Who am I to judge? But when they lie about it, as they invariably do, then throw the mistress under the bus in an effort to end the scandal and remain in office, it’s hard not to question their character.

Despite knowing it will likely come back to bite them, these politicians make dubious and reckless choices in their personal lives. Maybe they think they won’t get caught, or they confuse their power with invincibility. Either way, how can we be sure they’ll exercise proper judgment when making decisions for the collective good like, say, how to spend taxpayers’ dollars?

I’m not saying Governor Sanford shouldn’t have a Latin lover down in Argentina. (OK, maybe he shouldn’t.) But the governor can’t lie to the public about his whereabouts and use taxpayer money to subsidize a rendez-vous with her. He has signed a social contract to uphold a certain ethical standard in public life.

So far Sanford has refused to step down over the matter, however, but no doubt this incident will factor in if he decides to pursue the Republican presidential nomination for 2012.

All the same, it might not turn out that badly for the governor. As Clinton, Kennedy, Roosevelt and Jefferson proved, lotharios often make great presidents.

ryan@roadtostarrdom.com

Way, way classier than Sanford. He says so himself.

THERE’S a huge difference between what South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford did, and what ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer did. “I didn’t fall in love with any of them,” Spitzer was overheard telling LMDC executive director Avi Schick the other day at Solo in the Sony Building on Madi son, where they had the $24 prix-fixe lunch. And Spitzer didn’t use any taxpayer money on his trysts, while Sanford is reimbursing the state about $12,000 for travel expenses to Buenos Aires.

Yes folks, because spending thousand of dollars on prostitutes is much better than having an affair with one woman who’s real name you actually know.

Three cheers for Governor Sanford! Another “family values” Republican fell off the wagon, and he did it with such flair, too! I’d like to say a few things about him here real quick, if I may.

First of all, did anyone read the emails he sent to his Argentinean lover? They’re pretty disturbing. Not for the reasons you might think. In particular, when describing his return from a family trip, he tells his lover that it was a bit of a “world wind trip.” That disturbs me. Is the Governor of South Carolina really one of those people who thinks it’s a “world wind” and not a “whirlwind”. What does “world wind trip” even mean?

Furthermore, how can he write that out and rationalize it as having the meaning he was looking for? Is he known for making up phrases with improper meanings on the spot? These are things I wonder about when I see things like this. Seriously, he’s probably one of those people who thinks it’s a “doggie-dog world” instead of a “dog-eat-dog world.”

But enough about his literary works, let’s talk about the situation itself. Mark Sanford, as I mentioned, is a Republican. More specifically, he was considered to be one of the “family values/moral Right”. Now, the great irony of his situation is that not once, but twice, in his career, he stood up against EXACTLY WHAT HE JUST DID, under the guise of “morality”.

When Bill Clinton was having sexy parties in the Oval Office, Mark Sanford was a Representative, and he spoke out against Bill Clinton’s escapades. In 1998, when House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston’s infidelities were revealed, he was incredibly critical of him, as well. Yet, now, all of a sudden, when he’s in the same spot, he doesn’t feel as though he should have to step down.

Clearly, he thinks he can run the state of South Carolina better when he’s in Argentina and no one knows where the fuck he is or how to contact him. Ironically, he’s also against gay marriage. Obviously, it’s gay people getting married that would destroy the sanctity of marriage, and not, for instance, the straight people who are married and are running around cheating on each other and getting divorced. No, that’s keeping the sanctity intact. Keep fighting that good fight, Governor!

Now, some people are quick to point out that this is a situation similar to Eliot Spitzer’s, and that’s not really fair. First of all, Spitzer did resign. Also, what Spitzer did was illegal, so he had more cause to resign. And, say what you will about Eliot Spitzer, but at least he was doing his part to stimulate the American economy. Sanford was refusing stimulus money and then spending 5 days in Argentina. How is that helping the state of South Carolina, Mr. Governor?

Rush, of course, was in full-on denial mode. He suggested that Governor Sanford only cheated because he felt as though the country and his state were going down the tubes, so he might as well enjoy himself. Naturally, this was all Obama’s fault, thanks to the added stress of failing to reject stimulus funds. Except, Rush apparently has difficulty synchronizing timelines. According to Governor Sanford, he met the woman a year ago, when Bush was President, and his wife and family found out about it 5 months ago, well before the stimulus issue, and only a few days after Obama was even inaugurated, so there’s a pretty good chance it was actually happening before the inauguration. Besides the timeline, how does the economic situation in any way justify running off to Argentina to cheat on your wife on Father’s Day? Seriously, how fucked in the head do you have to be to think that somehow it’s justified because of economic woes. Well done, Mr. Limbaugh. You fail at life once again.

But, the ultimate point is that this concept of a “moral authority” in government is a bunch of crap. On the Republican side, you’ve got Sanford, Ensign, Foley, Livingston, Craig, and Vitter, all involved in illicit sex scandals. On the Democrat side, there’s Clinton, Spitzer, John Edwards, and Gary Condit. And those are just the national politicians involved in sex scandals. That doesn’t even count people like our asshat of a former Governor Rod Blagojevich or Alaska’s illustrious Ted Stevens.

Look, I’m not trying to say that Republican’s are less moral than Democrats, I’m just trying to show that they are definitively not more moral than Democrats. The truth of the matter is that Democrats and Republicans both are human (for the most part), and to suggest that party affiliation has anything to do with their sense of morality is preposterous. If there’s anything these recent scandals should have taught you, it’s that everyone is corruptible.

But enough of all this heavy shit, how about some random crap? Why not?

You know what bothers me? When people try to quantify something on a number line, but they can’t even stick to the damn rules. Like, when people say, “On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this ice cream an 11,” or, “On a scale of 1 to 5, I give that joke a .1.” You know what that makes me want to do? It makes me want to run and grab the nearest blackboard or dry erase board and explain to them exactly how number theory and the number line work and then ask them where the number 11 appears between 1 and 10. I mean, really, what’s the point of labeling the upper and lower bounds of the number scale if you’re not going to adhere to them? Needless to say, that annoys the crap out of me.

Sometimes I feel like asking people to describe something’s awesomeness on a scale of the first 10 prime Fibonacci numbers. I think it’d be worth it just to see them try to figure out exactly what the scale is. Maybe then they’ll understand why labeling something as an “11 out of 10″ is idiotic. At least my numbers are definable and within limits.

So I was driving back home from floating this weekend, and I noticed a sign on the Porter Paints store that said “Paint Sale”. I thought to myself, “Well, duh! It’s a paint store! What other kind of sale would they have? A sandwich sale?” Sure, just putting a sign up that said “Sale” might make people think it’s a brush sale or something, but if you run a paint store, for any sale, it would be a fair guess that the sale involves paint. There’s really no reason to be redundant.

There must be an unwritten rule in Hollywood…when you can’t find a famous enough Italian guy to play an Italian guy, hire Andy Garcia. Godfather 3, The Untouchables, Hoodlum, Pink Panther 2.

You know what else is an apparent unwritten law in Hollywood? If you’re making a movie with Nazis, make sure you hire all English actors so their accents sound exotic. It also applies to Romans. Unless it stars Tom Cruise. He can still sound American. I’m watching Valkyrie, so let’s play “One of These Things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong!” Ready? Ok! Here’s the cast list -

Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, David Bamber*, Tom Hollander, Tom Wilkinson, Tom Cruise, Terence Stamp, Eddie Izzard, and Kenneth Cranham*.

Hmm. Something doesn’t quite fit. The accent thing just drives me nuts. They’re all German, right? Why does one guy sound so much different than the others? It’s the equivalent of a group of Chinese kids who grow up together, and then one of them speaks Chinese with a Spanish accent. If I was a German in that movie, I would have hounded him about his accent and accused him of being a spy. In fact, they should have added a guy who kept doing that and slowly went ballistic trying to explain why he thinks he’s a spy. “He doesn’t sound anything like us! What’s wrong with you guys?”

* – Also in “Rome” on HBO, hence the addendum to the rule.

Just days ago Bank of America, Citigroup and J P Morgan propped up the markets by announcing numbers that signalled green shoots of recovery only to have their faces blotched up with big eggs. Last week saw Bank of America stock sink by 14%. U.S. stocks fell, ending a six-week winning streak for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, as concern grew that credit losses at banks are worsening and drugmakers slid following disappointing earnings. Who will ever trust the credit figures of US banks or for that matter any bank? It is the crisis of transparency that is turning into a vicious crisis of confidence.

In her interview with Margaret Popper of Bloomberg, the noted short seller of banking stocks, Meredith Whitney (See “From Wall Street to Crawl Street” in the issue of Corporate Governance) said “Underlying credit is deteriorating at a faster rate. As banks are shrinking they have been cutting their credit lines.”

Whitney,39, has become a legend in her own lifetime, since she started working with Steve Eisman and shorted the subprime pools. She was an obscure analyst until on October 31, 2007, when she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what in the stock market, but it was pretty obvious that on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash. By the end of the trading day, a woman whom basically no one had ever heard of had shaved $369 billion off the value of financial firms in the market. Four days later, Citigroup’s C.E.O., Chuck Prince was chucked. In January, Citigroup slashed its dividend.

The market meltdown has no economic basis other than the loss of investor confidence which is feeding itself with daily exposures of the kind of John Thain, Bernie Madoff and Ramalingam Raju. Investors have been alarmed by seeing all their gods and demigods falling off their majestic heights. Almost everyone has been found swimming naked. Hence no one trusts any one. The strategy to restore trust in such a crisis is not doling out bailouts but changing the culture that has led us into it.

With 40,000 blogs and similar number of home videos uploaded everyday on YouTube and other internet sites, we have no alternative but to vigorously promote candour in conduct. Marketers have turned bloggers started taking revenge. Marketers could not let the likes of Jimmy Cayne, John Thain, John Mack, Richard Fuld, Angelo Mozilo, Phil Gramm and Hank Paulson – all named as “The Architects of Destruction”, in a special report by Wealth Daily Investment Research of Baltimore, get away with their booty coolly. So each has been skinned. The strobe like glare of public scrutiny has melted the veil of secrecy and unmasked their misdeeds and exposed the culture of cosiness, conceit, concealment and corruption that has characterized the financial markets. The cat was let out of the bag by the long queues outside a seemingly robust British Bank – Northern Rock over 18 months ago. Soon thereafter the French Bank, BNP Paribas froze withdrawals from three of its funds.

Citigroup which in 2003 was a behemoth with $250 billion of assets is only a fraction of that at $38 billion. Despite all the help from Phil Gramm, a US Presidential hopeful, or perhaps because of it , UBS, his benefactor Swiss bank, had to write down $19 bn debts resulting in the sacking of UBS’s boss. UBS is currently being investigated for a massive tax evasion. The manipulators and fraudsters have nowhere to hide in this economy of strobe like glare. Markets were waiting with bated breath for holding the guilty accountable. With insider knowledge markets are using the same instruments to bust the last refuge of scoundrels – shorting the sub-prime and the property market to pulverise their asset values.

Within a span of next 12 months the heads of the world’s 5 biggest investment banks – James Cayne of Bear Stearn, Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, Blankfien of Goldman Sachs, John Thain of Merrill Lynch and John Mack of Morgan Stanley lost combined personal wealth to the tune of $2.2bn. Other fraudsters have been given the boot. Markets are in turbulence only because there are several still at large. They will not calm down until all have been held to account.

Mr Henry Paulson, the outgoing Treasury Secretary, worked in the office of President Nixon in the early seventies. Mr Nixon who was successfully impeached for Watergate Scandal used to say “You can disobey all Ten Commandments as long as you follow the eleventh one: “thou shalt not be found out”. This maxim created a breed of business school executives whose success depended not on doing the right thing but manipulating success at all cost by perfecting the art of HNTGC (How Not To Get Caught). As the rules got more and more complex you needed young executives who were brighter and communicative enough to master the art of HNTGC. So these financiers queued up outside best business schools to recruit such executives at remunerations that were a King’s ransom. Hence today’s financial world is replete with Harvard and other Ivy School MBAs. It is these bright MBAs who used their creativity and innovation in designing mathematical models to unleash an insatiable appetite and turned into weapons of massive destruction.

The problem was that western governments themselves play hostage to the big financiers and are scared of regulating them lest they move their assets to lightly regulated territories. This is precisely what happened to Wall Street and New York Stock Exchange . Scared of the draconian effect of Sarbanes Oxley Act many companies who delisted from the New York Stock Exchange were coaxed by the London Stock Exchange saying they did not believe in such draconian regulation and UK corporate governance laws did not make the regulation binding and gave the opportunity to the firm to explain why they could not comply with a particular regulation. There was as such a race to the bottom by regulating authorities to invite investment.

Satyam’s main contribution should be the unfolding of a sordid state of insider trading – a hush hush word – in all the bourses. The investigations reveal the large scale selling of the company’s shares by institutional investors days before Raju’s confession of cooking books. US must be given credit for putting an icon like Martha Stewart behind bars for a year for lying in a case of insider trading. Yet insider trading on Wall Street is starting to look as troubling as it was in the time of Ivan Boesky in the 1980s, the head of enforcement at the US Securities and Exchange Commission warned recently. Linda Chapman Thomsen, the SEC’s director of enforcement, said she had been “quite dismayed” at the nature of the commission’s recent insider dealing actions.

Ms Thomsen shocked at the magnitude of insider trading when she saw the “multiple incidences” of insider trading and cases involving “tippers and tippees” who were both professionals. Recently a former Ernst & Young partner was charged with allegedly passing insider trading information to an investment banker friend ahead of seven deals involving the accounting firm’s clients. In one of the most high-profile cases recently, 13 people, including a Morgan Stanley compliance officer and a UBS executive director, were charged in relation to an insider trading scheme.

The market crash therefore was long in coming. In an interview to Wall Street Journal, Eliot Spitzer, the much defamed former Attorney General of New York, said: “The honour code among CEOs didn’t work. Board oversight didn’t work. Self-regulation was a failure”. Even a staunch defender of free capital markets as Joseph Ackerman, Chief Executive of Deutsche Bank says ” I no longer believe in the market’s self-healing powers.”

Knowledge economy has changed the way people buy and behave. Knowledge is the only resource which increases when shared. Transparency helps companies share the knowledge and achieve multi fold results. The challenge of change is today so ferocious that whatever made you successful in the past wont in future. This means you have to constantly innovate. Innovation is a risky business. You have no perfect model. You are always improvising – seizing the unknown imperfectly knowing you don’t have all the answers. And you cannot succeed all the time. But if you fail and that fear puts you into hiding think where the world would have been had Thomas Edison gone into hiding after initially failing to produce incandescent lamp. The other person would have had to start from the scratch. Today the public scrutiny is so intense that unless you can celebrate your failures the media will give you depression. In any event there is no place to hide. Further the punishment for being found out by media is much more than being candid in the first place. You have to learn to love failure under and the communication skills to talk about them unabashedly as both Mahatma Gandhi and Barack Obama have done.

To restore trust in the market we have to start with basics. What are we being taught in schools? Good old days schools used to compete with each other on the quality of their mission statements –truth alone brings victory” or “if wealth is lost, nothing is lost, if health is lost something is lost but if character is lost everything is lost”. Today’s schools and more importantly our Business Schools compete only on the packages drawn by their alumini. A journalist who studied in Harvard Business School described it as “a factory of unethical practices”. Students use educational loan to buy flashy cars and fall into debt trap well before they graduate. Our challenge is to make them aware of the ethical context and sharpen their moral compass. We have to change our metaphors of success “winner takes all” and “success at all costs” and develop a value system that prides in ethics, morality, equity, legitimacy, transparency, value dissent and diversity. Transparency requires courage to say: “We are sorry we made a mistake”. That is the only statement that tells your client you are earnest.

There are no classes, no courses, no seminars on how to build moral courage, ethics and self-pride. Pride in becoming truthful of who you are – the kind young Barack faced when the teacher asked whether they could all call him “Barry”. We need classes and credits for how often we acknowledge, own and atone our failures. We should have credits and rewards based on the quality of our apologies. We have a policy that aims to reward those who own mistakes and punish those who hide them. Markets must know that there is a greater punishment for concealment than failure itself. As Einstein said it is not the mistake that causes the serious damage. It is the mistake that you make of defending the first mistake that causes the greatest damage.

These mindsets can only be changed through training. Because denial, double-speak, self-deception and hypocrisy are an inherent part of our organizational life, we cannot get rid of them without proper training. People all over the world are asking what were the boards doing when their companies were being sucked? Warren Bennis the legendry guru of leadership and James O’Toole created a diagnostic tool to identify the unique behavior characteristic of the company, profiling the type of individuals who get ahead in the organizations. One of the questions was “What is the company’s joke that no one would tell the boss?” It is eventually the values of leaders that drive the organizational culture, any process that aims to surface those will help in establishing the climate of candor. Only when the boards honestly and objectively ask themselves “What do we really cherish and hold dear – power, money, quality, excellence, morality, ethics” can organizations take a useful step to bring transparency and candor.

We need training at all levels – boards and investors both. The training should widen the outlook and make business feel global in outlook. A business is different from a political person because the former’s constituency is global. Businesses need to steer clear from blame games between communities, regions and nations. Also unless the governance moves to a global platform it will remain ineffective. The training should be to challenge people to reach beyond their grass – to value failures as building blocks of success and learn to talk about them proudly. The purpose for the training should be to excite the spirit of enquiry, spark innovation and develop holistic, integrated and independent thinking. As Scot Fitzgerald said “The test of first rate intelligence is your ability to hold two opposing views in your mind and still retain the capacity to function”.

Today’s corporations are facing many challenges. The biggest is the challenge of change. There are two certainties. First is whatever made you successful in the past wont in future. This means you have to constantly innovate. Innovation is a risky business. You have to recognize you cannot succeed all the time. But it is no good hiding when you fail. There is no where you can hide. You are under the constant glare of public scrutiny. The second certainty is that if you try to hide failure, you are bound to be found out. The punishment for being found out is more than being candid in the first place. In order to succeed you have to learn to love failure under and learn to talk about them unabashedly as both Mahatma Gandhi and Barack Obama have shown. But admitting failure requires courage. It took a long while for Gordon Browne to apologies for the affront Damian McBride had caused to Tory leaders by undermining their reputation through a website which propagated nasty stories about these leaders. The worst none from his party or opposition had expected the apology. They buried the story in shock. So the lesson is wear your badges of embarrassment as badges of honour.

As Thomas Friedman writes in his New York Times column of June 27,2007 , “The Whole World is Watching”: “We are all public figures now.” Anyone has the ability to tilt is cell camera in our direction and catch us in our most embarrassing moments – squabbling with a sales clerk or shouting at your spouse. Negative information can be spread much more rapidly and once committed to the internet will stay there forever. We have to reconcile to all that until the internet protocols become more forceful in vetting, verifying and authenticating information. This is the price we pay for the huge promise of transparency. No other issue has so much potential to transform the future of our children not just for bringing back to order. We do need to reskill our boards to face the challenges of the new transparency and its role in inspiring commitment, confidence, collaboration, creativity and build company wide competence and competitiveness. This alone will enable your companies to access flood springs of domestic and global capital hidden underneath the arid drought and bring back the market alive.

*Dr Madhav Mehra is founder President of World Council for Corporate Governance, UK

ELIOT SPITZER

According to Page Six of the New York Post, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer was recently overheard at lunch gloating about how his marital infidelity wasn’t nearly as bad as that of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s. Spitzer was overheard saying at least “I didn’t fall in love with any of them,” referrring to the women he cheated with including prostitutes. Unlike Sanford, Spitzer also didn’t use any government money to fund his trysts.

The last two days, no matter where you were in the world, if you looked at a newspaper or turned on a TV, you saw the face of Michael Jackson. On Friday night’s half-hour broadcast of “NBC Nightly News” host Brian Williams spent three minutes discussing news other than Michael Jackson.

Now that the shock has warn off, fans are celebrating Jackson’s life, rather than mourning his death. News of possible drug use is surfacing in the Jackson case, and to fill the time, reporters are now discussing his financial empire, which is in disarray. But we already new that. The news media is now finding time to devote to other matters.

The main beneficiary of the sudden and worldwide media storm over the death of Jackson was South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who disappeared for most of last week, leaving his family and staff scratching their heads wondering where he was. The state was without a leader, leading some to speculate what would have happened if there had been a state-wide emergency. The Republican governor held a news conference Wednesday admitting to an extra-marital affair with a woman in Argentina.

On Thursday morning, Gov. Sanford was the was the talk of the media, because we all like a good scandal. Then Michael Jackson died, and Sanford got to dodge the spotlight for a few days, and all the other news went on the back burner. We took a few days to mourn a legend, and now other news items are beginning to pop up in between Jackson coverage. Now we’re learning that on at least one occasion Gov. Sanford used taxpayer money to fund his extra-curricular travels. In other news, his wife has gained national media exposure for refusing to stand by the governor after he admitted to having an affair. This breaks the normal spousal response in such matters.

Ex-Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer’s wife famously stood next to him last year when he admitted to seeing a high-priced call girl. Silda Spitzer, a Harvard Law School graduate, was noticeably uncomfortable, but she remained stoic, and she held hands with her husband as they walked off the podium after his statement. Hillary Clinton famously stood by her husband through the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Although he resigned in disgrace as governor, Spitzer remains married. We all know about Hillary Clinton. Gov. Sanford, on the other hand, hasn’t indicated that he will resign as governor of South Carolina. What we do know, and the news media is eating it up, is that his wife, Jenny Sanford, no longer wants to have anything to do with him. A new media star is born. Jenny Sanford has broken the mold. She’s taken the spotlight off her husband. Now she’s the news.

In other developments, government leaders around the world are censoring Internet reports of the Iranian protests out of fear it could cause a revolution from their own repressed citizenry, according to the Washington Post. Bloggers and Twitter users in China have colored their profiles a light green in support of Iranian protesters, and some observers have noted parallels between the protests and China’s own Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989. The Communist Party in China is reportedly using the playbook of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by portraying the Iranian unrest as a Western conspiracy rather than a homegrown movement. Other countries, such as Cuba and Myanmar, are also working to stop Iranian news reports from gaining attention.

The House of Representatives held a moment of silence Friday for Michael Jackson. While the world wasn’t watching, they also, by an incredibly close vote, 219 to 212, passed a climate change bill, despite claims among Republicans that the economy would worsen if we forced to have a “national energy tax.” While Republicans complained that the bill would be a “massive transfer of wealth” from the United States to foreign countries, Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan said that the bill was needed so that the country would not be dependent on people who want to “fly planes into our buildings.” The Republicans fear that the bill will raise the average family’s energy bill by thousands of dollars a year. The Environmental Protection Agency said it would amount to a yearly increase of less than $111. The goal, according to Democrats, is to protect the country’s national security, improve the environment, and boost the economy.

Back to news of Michael Jackson, as we continue to look into the possibility that drugs were the cause of his death, his family is looking through his finances, which are a confusing mess. His creditors will be busy for years, according to a report in the New York Times. After piling up millions of dollars in debt, Jackson needed a last-second $24 .5 million loan last year just to keep creditors from liquidating the Neverland Ranch in Northern California. “He never kept track of what he was spending,” Alvin Malnik, a former adviser, told the Times. “He would indiscriminately charter jets. He would buy paintings for $1.5 million. You couldn’t do that every other week and expect your books to balance.” Jackson does have his assets, notably $1 billion in publishing rights. His biggest asset in his collection are the rights to the Beatles song catalog, which he bought for $47.5 million in 1985, causing a rift with Paul McCartney. The two had been good friends up until then, but the sale of the Beatles catalog to Jackson was big news after McCartney made headlines with his displeasure.

Speaking of money, and the fact that the news media is making room for non-Michael Jackson news, Bernie Madoff is expected to be sentenced on Monday to 150-years in the slammer, the maximum, at least if prosecutors get their way. It would be an unprecedented sentence, but because of the unprecedented nature of the crime, the maximum would seem appropriate. It was the biggest financial crime in history, and if Michael Jackson had died three days later, it would have gone unnoticed.

News of Michael Jackson’s death shocked the world, but life goes on. And so does the news.

http://www.paulsolomon.blogspot.com

What would comedians (or satirical poets) do without politicians? Now there’s a question for the sages, but I will leave the plowing of that fertile field to others and settle for a few digs with my poet’s pen (yes, there are still several of us pen-poets left).

DOGGEREL MAY BE A DOG BUT
DOGMA MAKES MORE MANURE

Ideologues prize
A left or right agenda….
But the other guys
Still won’t surrenda
As both sides reprise
‘Return To Senda’
While truth and lies
Blur in the blenda
And compromise
Goes out the winda.

HAIKU ON THE HUSTINGS

The candidate smiles,
waves warmly to massed strangers;
he’s been here before.

I’M REVIEWING THE SITUATION ROOM

You’re in The Situation Room;
And even if you’re not, I’m.
Why? Witnessing whether Wolf’s worth
Three hours of our time.
My grade: a Fair for Wolf Blitzer,
Plus Affair for Eliot Spitzer….
With apologies for a desperate rhyme.

Courtesy of NPR, enjoy this helpful list of the “Who’s Who” of political sex scandals. I would have to argue that 2007-2008 takes the cake (so to speak), as we saw Larry Craig tap rainbows with his feet in a public restroom, David Vitter was caught with an escort, and Eliot Sptizer was caught in an escort.

Bonus points are taken away from Gov. Gibbons and Sen. Ensign, as one expects these sorts of things to take place in Nevada. This list is fairly comprehensive – and doesn’t even include Clinton! Washington has done so much good this decade. Enjoy!

Blood shoots out of my eyes as I read this. CNN reports that South Carolina Gov. Mark Stanford came back from a secret trip to Argentina during which he carried out an extramarital affair with a woman in Buenos Aires.

“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” Sanford told a news conference in Columbia, South Carolina. “I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina.”

CNN states:

“His voice choking at times, Sanford apologized to his wife and four sons, his staff and supporters, and said he would resign immediately as head of the Republican Governors Association”

I believe it would be more appropriate to resign as governor…

You can read the article here on CNN.

Or, if you want the real news, here on Fox News.

I don’t know about you, but I still vividly remember all the reports about fellow Yid Eliot Spitzer, NY Governor, and his “high class prostitution ring.” His wife looked like she aged 100 years from the beginning to the end of his press conference confession. And who can forget John Edwards, who had a scandalous affair with a former campaign videographer while his wife suffered from cancer? And he thought he deserved to be President????

All you have to do is take a look at Time’s Top 10 Political Sex Scandals if you want to understand what absolute morons the US elects into office.

I think the whole idea of a scandal is an interesting thing. It shows up everywhere! And as much as I love Israel, I have to also point out how continuously appalled I am by the sheer number of political lies and back-door deals that run amok in the knesset (which would never happen with United Torah Judaism). Look at Olmert and Katzav! Two major scandals in a row. Hey, look at Mulroney!!!! How can anyone feel comfortable with politicians who are plain and simple dishonest in all their means.

Anyway, this is really just a short vort (or vent) on absolute nonsense. It just makes me angry.

To sum it up, against stupidity, Hashem Himself is helpless.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Wednesday as he admits to having an affair.

Sen. John Ensign of Nevada at a press conference admitting to an affair with a campaign staffer.

Jacob Smilovitz
AC360° Intern

Today’s admission by South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford that he made a secret trip to Argentina where he was having an affair with a woman may be interesting, but it is definitely not unprecedented in American politics. Tonight on AC360° we dig deeper into what makes these political figures take such risks. For a quick refresher, here are some notable apologies and mea culpas over the years.

Gov. Mark Sanford (R – South Carolina)
June 24, 2009

In a news conference:

“And so the bottom line is this: I have been unfaithful to my wife. I developed a relationship with a — what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina. It began very innocently as I suspect many of these things do, in just a casual e-mail back and forth in advice on one’s life there and advice here.

John Edwards admitted in August, 2008 that he had an affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, wife at his side, apologizes on March 10, 2008 and announces he is stepping down.

Sen. David Vitter apologized after his telephone number appeared among those linked to an escort service.

This photograph taken from CNN television shows President Bill Clinton testifying on August 17, 1998 in the Map Room at the White House.

But here, recently, over this last year, it developed into something much more than that. And as a consequence I hurt her. I hurt you all, I hurt my wife, I hurt my boys. I hurt friends like Tom Davis. I hurt a lot of different folks.

And all I can say is that I apologize.”

Sen. John Ensign (R – Nevada)
June 16, 2009

In a news conference:

“Last year, I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage. It’s absolutely the worst thing that I have ever done in my life. If there was ever anything that I could take back in my life, this would be it.

I take full responsibility for my actions. I know that I have deeply hurt and disappointed my wife Darlene, my children, my family, friends, my staff, and all of those who believed in me. And to all of them, especially my wife, I’m truly sorry.”

Former Sen. John Edwards (D – North Carolina)
August 8, 2008

In an ABC News interview:

“In 2006, Two years ago, I made a very serious mistake. A mistake that I am responsible for and no one else.

In 2006, I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness. And we have kept this within our family since that time.

All of my family knows about this and just to be absolutely clear, none of them are responsible for it. I am responsible for it. I alone am responsible for it.

And it led to this most recent incident at the Beverly Hilton. I was at the Beverly Hilton. I was there for a very simple reason, because I was trying to keep this mistake that I had made from becoming public.”

Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D – New York)
March 10, 2008

In a news conference:

“We sought to bring real change to New York. And that will continue. Today, I want to briefly address a private matter. I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family, that violates my or any sense of right and wrong.

I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public, whom I promised better. I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the state of New York.

But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family. I will not be taking questions. Thank you very much. I will report back to you in short order. Thank you very much.”

Sen. David Vitter (R – Louisiana)
July 10, 2007

In a written statement:

“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there-with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way.”

President Bill Clinton (D)
August 18, 1998

In a primetime address:

“Good evening. This afternoon in this room from this chair, I testified before the office of independent counsel and the grand jury. I answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life, questions no American citizen would ever want to answer. Still, I must take complete responsibility for all my actions, both public and private, and that is why I’m speaking to you tonight.

As you know, in a deposition in January, I was asked questions about my relationship with Monica Lewinsky. While my answers were legally accurate, I did not volunteer information.

Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.”

Another Republican admits to an affair.

The Holier-Than-Thou Party has brought forth another sinner to confess his moral transgressions.  South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has admitted to cheating on his wife:

“I’ve been unfaithful to my wife,” Sanford told a news conference in Columbia, the state capital. “I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina.”

His voice choking at times, Sanford apologized to his wife and four sons, his staff and supporters, and said he would resign immediately as head of the Republican Governors Association. The affair was discovered five months ago, Sanford said.

Sanford’s confession comes less than a week after after Nevada Senator John Ensign admitted to an affair of his own.  Now that the attention has shifted from him to Sanford, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Ensign just became the happiest Republican in the party.

But what are we to make of these affairs from famous Republicans?  How can you call yourself the party of family values when you’re taking part in actions that usually result in the breaking up of a family?  How can you worry that gays will destroy the holiness of marriage when you break your own sacred wedding vows?  Ah, I can smell the hypocrisy wafting in the room.

The point?  Neither party should claim to be the party of family values because all humans are imperfect.  For every embarrassing Mark Sanford story, there is an equally embarrassing Eliot Spitzer story.  And what about presidential candidates?  Sure, there’s John Edwards’ gut-wrenching story of having an affair while his wife had cancer.  But let’s not forget about the not-so-glorious affairs of John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Newt Gingrich.  And, of course, we can never forget about Bill Clinton.

I tend to heap more criticism on Republicans because of how the party acts morally superior to the Democratic Party.  It’s like how FOX News claims to be “fair and balanced” even though the network is a public stage for right-wing extremism.  All networks are biased in some direction on the political spectrum, so there’s no point in claiming you’re in the middle when you’re clearly not.  Similarly, both parties are prone to adultery, so there’s no point in claiming your party is more moral than the other.

Bottom line, it’s another sad day for American lawmakers.  This story will only reinvigorate the contempt most Americans have toward politicians.  Voters will continue to doubt the sincerity of the people they elect to represent them in office.  Not a good day, indeed.

Did you know that some Republicans, like Sen. John McCain for instance, are unhappy with President Obama and his leftist agenda? News at 11!

Your PostBourgie-approved reading material from the weekend:

1. In her exhausting and depressing essay in this month’s edition of The Atlantic, author Sandra Tsing Loh makes a compelling case that the American ideal of a lifelong, monogamous marriage is obsolete. She closes with a mighty thunder clap: “In any case, here’s my final piece of advice: avoid marriage—or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.” It is here that I should mention that Loh is divorcing her husband of the past 20 years.

2. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that convicts do not have a constitutional right to evidence to test it for DNA testing to prove their innocence. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog writes that “while the decision appeared to be focused on whether such a right of access exists after a criminal conviction has become final… the language used by the Court majority made it appear that the sweep of the decision may turn out to be considerably broader.” Glenn Greenwald points out that the decision has raised the ire of many liberal bloggers, and notes that it’s another example in which Obama’s Justice department adopted the position of the previous administration.

3. The Obama administration, which has (rightly) taken a lot of shit for the way it’s handled a bunch of Defense of Marriage Act cases, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and other LGBTQ issues, has organized a meeting with several prominent gay rights groups to help repair some of the damage and figure out a way forward.

4. Against all odds – really, almost all of them – a homeless girl from Los Angeles has earned her way into Harvard. “I was so proud of being smart I never wanted people to say, ‘You got the easy way out because you’re homeless,’ ” she said. “I never saw it as an excuse.” No doubt, Pat Buchanan feels she has denied some white guy of his rightful place in the freshman class.

5. President Obama has issued a cautious statement on the protests in Iran. “Martin Luther King once said – ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”

6. Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy (via ObWi) has some ideas on how raising kids is a lot like international relations: “Most of us love our children deeply, which puts real limits on the amount of punishment we are willing to inflict. Total war just isn’t an option, and the ability to use force is limited, so we’re stuck with coercive diplomacy. And kids quickly figure out which threats are credible and which are not, and they are geniuses at probing the limits of our resolve.”

7. How does Mayor Brad Pitt sound to you? The idea has taken hold with at least a couple of New Orleans residents.

8. Eliot Spitzer gets very candid with Vanity Fair over some hot dogs and a stroll in the park.

9. “I’m not a sideshow. I’m not a freak show,” (Jonathan) Krohn exclaims, pointing his finger, nearly shouting. “I am an intellectual force! Newt Gingrich said that.” Ladies and gentleman, meet the 14-year-old future of the GOP.

10. It would be wonderful if people could play nice and decent, and not go out of their way to offend American Indians. Are you listening, good people of Stockton Springs, Maine?

11. From KateHarding.net, a blog on the “fatosphere” called Shapely Prose that dispels fat stereotypes and catalogs the effects of pop-culture on women from a very funny, blunt and feminist perspective. Check out this article on the lack of fat heroines in romance novels. Also, check on the BMI slide show here.

12. Arturo Garcia at Racialicious is not a fan of the nation’s No. 1 movie. “What I cannot abide is brainless humor. And so, when I tell you that The Hangover is celluloid excrement, I don’t say it lightly.” For what it’s worth, I saw the movie Saturday night and thought it was pretty funny. But very overrated. Also, Racialicious has come up with a list of acceptable white guys for black female performers seeking love or lust or both. In a bit of an upset, Bill Maher doesn’t make the list. But I might quibble with the inclusion of aspiring mayor Brad Pitt because, hey, who hasn’t dated Robin Givens?

13. Newly released FBI documents explicitly (heh) detail how the agency tried – and failed – to stop the 1972 release of classic porno movie,”Deep Throat.”

14. Deconstructing Kobe. Money quote here: “By any measure Kobe just put up a grade A finals for the ages — even if it’s compared to the Basketball Prototype.” That would be Jordan.

15. Speaking of the Lakers, proceeds of the sale of Phil Jackon’s “X” hat, in commemoration of his record 10 NBA championship rings, will go to the American Indian Scholarship Fund.

16. Former NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar is an absolute mess.

17. There’s so much wrong with this story: a Corpus Christi, Texas, strip club is suing a 14-year-old girl that it hired as an exotic dancer.

18. And to make up for all that divorce unpleasantness earlier, let’s talk about love:

And for the first time since we made the round-up a regular feature, I actually had trouble narrowing down the list of submissions. Thanks to everyone that made a contribution.

Never talk when you can nod – Eliot Spitzer

(Source: The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma)

It’s nice to see somebody having the guts to do the right thing instead of doing the easy thing. Case in point, Las Vegas Review-Journal Publisher Sherman Fredrick is refusing to run a full-page ad for a Canadian dating website that wants to capitalize on Senator John Ensign’s revelation of an extramarital affair.

The $20,000 ad is reportedly an “open e-mail” addressed to “US Senator from Nevada,” but does not name Ensign.  It continues “Having an office affair is just too big of a gamble. The odds of getting caught are just too high,” and finishing with, “It suggests the senator should have used the “secure, completely anonymous” website, “No headlines, no scandals.”

The ad was supposed to run a couple days after Ensign acknowledged having and affair with Cynthia Hampton, a Las Vegas woman who had worked on his campaign. Hampton’s husband, Doug, also worked for the senator.

Turns out, the ad was similar to one he placed in a New York newspaper after that state’s governor, Eliot Spitzer, was identified as Client-9 in a pricey, multi-city prostitution ring. Spitzer resigned in disgrace.

It’s nice to know the Review-Journal has more class than any New York newspaper, and its publisher puts principles before profit.

My only point: take a joke damn it. Last week, Late Show host David Letterman pissed off the Alaskan idiot, Sarah Palin, during the opening monologue, he poked fun at the former VP-nom’s 14-year-old daughter, saying: “The toughest part of [Palin's] visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.” Funny, but Palin takes it so far claiming Letterman was making inappropriate jokes about sexual comments to underage girls. I hate her. She’s looking for publicity (it’s working, hell I’m even talking about it). The surprising part is that Letterman has apologized more than once. Screw that. In the end it’s best for Letterman, his ratings are through the roof.

Why don’t you like Sarah Palin?  People are ALWAYS asking me this.  (Not really.)  There are lots of reasons, but this thing with David Letterman has really awakened the semi-dormant disgust that I felt toward her all during the latter end of the presidential campaign.  Last night, I saw this (I saw it on Huffington Post, but can’t seem to embed from there):

First of all there’s a semantics issue: Letterman did not call her slutty.  He referred to her look.  Not the same thing.

Anyway here in Madrid I don’t watch our 24-hour news channels, and until I watched this I had no idea who Contessa Brewer was, but I might kind of like her, and I know I like her more than Campbell Brown, who kind of gets on my nerves because she’s alright but I don’t understand why everyone loves her so much.  (Although I was listening to a Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! from winter on my iTunes last night and she was the celebrity guest and I have to say that I have a little more respect for her now.)  This Ziegler douche clearly needs a swift kick in the nuts, but I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble.

So then this morning Huffington brought me this:

I wish Letterman hadn’t been so nice, but I SUPPOSE if he REALLY wants people to understand that he doesn’t think raping 14-year-old girls is funny, then it’s okay.  That aside, there are two things about this that really piss me off, and that show Sarah Palin as the vacuous carcass of ridiculousness that I believe her to be.

First: Ziegler went for the sexism angle when Brewer addressed the “slutty” thing and he was all, ‘I dunno, you’re the female, you tell me!’  Look, I would never dare say that there is no sexism in the media, but not every single thing ever said about a female politician is sexist, and just because the word “slutty” is used does not make the statement inherently sexist.  If comedians and entertainers and journalists can endlessly poke fun at Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer and every one else whose personal shenanigans get brought into the spotlight, then Sarah Palin is fair game.  She wants to be a politician, and she clearly likes the attention, so she can’t be okay with all the other politicians and public figures getting made fun of and then whine when it happens to her.  And if we can all happily make fun of Phil Spector’s terrifying face/hairpieces and Michael Jackson’s disconcerting physical appearance, and Donald Trump’s hair, and Angelina Jolie’s lips, and Pamela Anderson’s boobs, and Larry King’s age, and if we can obsess over what Michelle Obama is wearing every second of the day, then we can make fun of Sarah Palin’s clothes.  Either we’re equal, or we’re not.  Saying that Palin looks like a slutty flight attendant/librarian/teacher/secretary/etc. is not sexist, it’s reality.

Second, and this is the worst: Have we been gossiping about Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter since September?  No.  I don’t even know what that kid’s name is.  The media frenzy has always been over Bristol.  Obviously.  (And who, as Letterman pointed out, WAS knocked up and is now an adult.)  No one in their right mind would ever think that in those jokes Letterman was poking fun at any of Palin’s children other than Bristol.  What does that mean?  It means that the only people bringing up the sex life of her 14-year-old daughter are Sarah and Todd Palin.  No one else.  Now that’s good parenting, good politics, and high class.

UPDATE:

I hate that I’m even paying attention to this, but Sarah Palin went on the Today Show this morning to talk about this “feud”.  Turn the volume down if you’re sensitive to shrill:

To be fair, the first in this post above didn’t play the A-Rod joke, and I hadn’t realized that it was Palin’s younger daughter at the game with her .  (But they look really, really similar, and if I’d seen photos in the paper I probably would have assumed it was Bristol since she’s the one in all the tabloids, and it wouldn’t surprise me if others mistook her also.)   And maybe the joke was in poor taste, as Letterman has readily said.  But do you really think that the joke was making fun of Willow Palin?  Is it fair to decide that Letterman thought statutory rape is funny?  I admit that I can’t argue about this one much more because, while I can understand how some might think it crossed the line, I’m a young woman and I simply didn’t find it offensive — in the slightest.  It seems to me that the butts were: Alex Rodriguez, obviously; Bristol Palin, obviously, because she DID get knocked up as a teenager and, because teen pregnancy is generally something that is frowned upon in our culture, we make fun of it, regardless of how tasteful that is; Sarah Palin, because she and her husband exude a certain trashiness while attacking others for having a lack of class, and she would oppose an abortion even if her daughter were raped and she’s a fervent supporter of abstinence-only sex education and was so before her teenage daughter got knocked up.

Her complaints about the “slutty flight attendant” thing hold no water whatsoever.  Putting the word “slutty” before a profession doesn’t necessarily say anything about the profession itself.  Saying she looks like a slutty flight attendant, which she frequently does, just means that she looks like a flight attendant who is slutty.  It would be more insulting to flight attendants if we said that they looked like Sarah Palin, or that Sarah Palin just looked like a flight attendant, because THAT would imply that flight attendants look slutty.  The fact that “slutty” is put before something means we’re qualifying that thing, which we wouldn’t need to do if we felt that all flight attendants were slutty.  We don’t say that a scantily clad woman in cheap thigh-high boots looks like a slutty hooker, we just use “hooker” because, well, duh.

Ultimately, even if you do decide that Letterman’s joke really was inappropriate, doesn’t Palin’s comment about keeping her daughter away from Letterman void her complaints?  Not only did she initially imply that Letterman might be some sort of pedophile, Matt Lauer immediately gave her the chance to clarify and she didn’t budge.

Okay, hopefully this is the end, unless Letterman needs to defend himself which would be understandable.  But otherwise, please can Sarah Palin just evaporate or something now?  I’m embarrassed to have her speaking out on behalf of my gender.

David Letterman consistently came in second to “The Tonight Show” when Jay Leno was the host. Conan O’Brien, who started out with high ratings, has seen the “The Tonight Show” lose ground nightly since his debut a few weeks ago. Last night Letterman passed up O’Brien in the ratings, and he can thank Sarah Palin. Letterman and his “Late Show” writers have had a field day with the Alaskan governor ever since she burst onto the national scene last August as John McCain’s running mate. On the show Monday night, Letterman referred to Palin’s trip to New York last week when he joked in his monologue that during the seventh inning of a Yankees game “her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.” Then, in his “Top 10″ segment, he joked that she “bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to update her slutty flight attendant look.” On a radio interview Tuesday, she said Letterman’s comments were “pretty pathetic.” But Letterman wasn’t done. He joked in his opening monologue Tuesday night about Palin’s visit to Yankee Stadium, when she sat next to Rudy Guiliani: “They had a wonderful time. The toughest part of her visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.” The reference to the disgraced New York governor who was caught with a prostitute didn’t go over well with the Palin family and many conservative pundits and radio and TV personalities. Palin released a statement: “I doubt he’d ever dare make such comments about anyone else’s daughter.” Letterman didn’t say which daughter he was referring to, but since her 14-year-old daughter Willow was travelling with her, Palin’s husband Todd referred to Willow, calling the jokes about his daughter “perverted” and “disgusting”. As to the joke about Palin being “slutty,” conservatives are saying it’s demeaning to women in general and Sarah Palin in particular. Letterman has also gotten the attention of flight attendants, who are infuriated over the less-than-glamorous name. Letterman continues to let the media spin out of control without making any public comments about the subject, other than continuing his nightly monologues where evidently no joke is off limits. To be fair, Letterman will make offensive jokes about just about anyone, if given the chance. And Sarah Palin has given him a lot of material since her meteoric rise to celebrity status. This time though, Letterman may have crossed the line. But his ratings are way up, and that’s the most important thing for Letterman and CBS, the network that carries his show. Look for more controversy from Letterman. After all, he’s got the #1 show. Conan O’Brien’s writers are now working overtime to counter Letterman’s resurgence.