Sense and Sensibility

Not Another Politician With His Pants Down?

South Carolina Gov. MArk Sanford

The best part of last week’s blubbering apology by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford – besides the rich vein of satire it offered late-night comedians ‑ was the absence of his wife at the press conference.

For once, in what has become a conga line of confessionals by wayward politicians, a beleaguered wife did not dutifully march to the public kneeler with her cheating spouse.

For enraged wives everywhere, nauseated by the public humiliation of compliant spouses standing by their men, it was a pyrrhic vindication. OK, the guy cheated with Eva Peron, but at least his wife didn’t stand by him as he belted “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”

At least she had a little dignity.

Since infidelity has become the most popular hobby of the political elite, it is no longer the shock of the revelation, but the drama of the confession that has audiences riveted. Did they cry? Did they whimper? Did they invoke scripture ‑‑ or Rudyard Kipling? What about the other woman? Was she a looker ‑ or a hooker? Or a man? What about the e-mails? Was it Charles and Camilla or Abelard and Heloise?

And what about the wife? Did she quiver with a Stepford Wife stare like Dina McGreevy or turn steely-eyed and brittle like Silda Wall Spitzer?

Outside of the hackneyed and elliptical apologies of the offenders, one of the great unifying themes of cheating politicians is the lumbering clumsiness of their romantic overtures. You get a transcript of some of these emails and cell phone conversations and you understand why Nora Roberts has sold 8 million books. Have none of these men seen “The English Patient?”

Nevertheless, as tedious as these hypocritical homilists have become, there are signs of a New Dawn. Not only did Mrs. Sanford absent herself from her husband’s public farce, but the Italians – the Italians, no less – are tiring of Silvio Berlusconi’s dalliances. What will they tire of next? Olive oil?

The Italians, like the French, are a good deal more indulgent than we in matters of indulgences of the flesh. As long as the trains run on time and the bread is fresh, what happens in Rome stays in Rome.

That, of course, was before Berlusconi began attending the birthday parties of baby sitters. After his wife – a luscious vixen who posed topless in that gem of the Italian cinema “The Magnificent Cuckold” – began chastising him in the Italian press as a chicken hawk, Italians began to take note. It was not just that he was gallivanting about with floozies young enough to be his granddaughters; he was actually plying them with money and jewels. Berlusconi fruitlessly denied this, helpfully telling the Wall Street Journal, I’ve never understood what would be the satisfaction if there isn’t the pleasure of conquest.”

That’s the kind of answer you want from a married man.

Perhaps it is not outrage but fatigue that has bled this story dry. When The New York Times reported that a former White House intern who had an affair with John F. Kennedy would publish a memoir of her experience, all I could do was suppress a sigh. Is it still news that any estrogen-bearing creature within 10 miles of Pennsylvania Avenue had sex with JFK? Wouldn’t it be more newsworthy if you had been a female member of the White House staff who didn’t sleep with him?

If these sagas about finger-wagging cads and sermonizing southerners teach us anything is that we’ve got the wrong bunch of people authorizing canards like the Defense of Marriage Act. When they only real turn of the screw to a political sex scandal is the spouse who didn’t show up, it’s time to move on.

Contact: Tracey@traceyosh.com.