Congressman (for now) Anthony Weiner never heard or perhaps forgot this important lesson of politics. But he didn’t just try cover-up the scandal by lying in one written statement. He lied to everyone, the press, the public, everyone. And, he did it continuously for a week.

And, of course, he lied to his wife.

The sex aspect of Congressman Anthony Weiner’s downfall does bother me a bit. It makes him a dick of husband (had to say it), and while it seems like the other women were adults, it’s unclear how many of them were asking to see the Full Weiner.

He lied about all of it in full-on John Edwards-style: looking at the press and the people dead in the eye and proclaiming his innocence. This is what bothers me.

The reason why so many liberals liked Weiner was because of impassioned and forthright speeches like this one.

He talked about “courage” and “cowardly” things like “providing cover” “instead of doing the right thing.”

He was talking about being truthful.

Weiner should have listened to his own advice. His passionate voice on so many issues now rings hollow.

One might think that when it came to governing, the public might actually like the idea of someone who portrays himself as rational, deliberate, attentive to opposing points of view — a conciliator rather than a head-banger. But Americans have always thought of themselves as tough and uncompromising — able to beat their problems or enemies into submission. Older white men, a key part of the Republican Party base, seem particularly to want their politicians to be heroic and full of bluster — just like Schwarzenegger.

Not coincidentally, this is also the very thing that Americans, again especially men, have always loved about their movie heroes. Our most popular films are predicated on a bold individual who, usually without much outside assistance or much internal reflection, vanquishes everything before him. Our heroes get the job done, whatever it takes.

And again, not incidentally, they also get the woman, who swoons in the cloud of his testosterone. We all know that female subjugation is one component of the American male power fantasy.

It is no wonder, then, that our movies and politics would become conflated, especially in California, home of the motion picture industry. Schwarzenegger’s appeal in the gubernatorial race was that he came on like a hero, the un-Gray Davis, California’s then-governor, who seemed aptly named. Davis appeared wimpy. Arnold seemed … like Arnold. He was everything that a movie hero and a governor ought to be: a real man’s man.

But that sense of untrammeled masculine power is also embedded, in politics as in the movies, with a certain attitude toward women. Our film heroes aren’t gauzy romantics. They are sexual swashbucklers who often have little use for women — or, more accurately, have one use for women.

Though he had tempered his public misogyny since his bodybuilding days, Schwarzenegger wasn’t elected in spite of his disregard for women. Insofar as it informed his machismo and demonstrated his masculine power, he was elected because of it.

This goes back to what I wrote last year about politicians who insult their opponents by saying they should “man up.” The phrase implies that manliness and machismo are requirements to hold elective office. It’s not a big leap between that attitude and the lack of female elected officials in this country compared to the rest of the world.

Gabler analysis of how voters feel about politicians gives insight into how some voters feel about women and their role in politics. Macho heroes in films, he writes, don’t have any use for women except one. The implication is that one reason is sex. The female character can’t do anything else for the macho hero – not help him, not work with him, not take the lead as the hero. If sex is the only thing the macho hero needs from women, and voters look at their political candidates and movie heroes in similar ways, is sex the only thing those macho-loving voters expect from women?

This is more than just what voters want from their candidates. It’s about the public’s expectations for women.

Gabler takes an odd turn at the end. He surprisingly – and wrongly – excuses Schwarzenegger’s actions:

But you can’t really blame Schwarzenegger for hitting on women, even his own housekeeper. He was simply acting out the male fantasy that men had already imposed on him.

Schwarzenegger is a grown man with free will. He made bad choices and needs to own them. Don’t blame society. Giving Schwarzenegger and other politicians a pass is what allows sexism in politics and everywhere else to continue.

Read Gabler’s entire piece here.

UPDATE:

I just found the following bite from a January article in the New York Times Magazine. I set it aside for a post I was trying to write earlier this year that never came together (which just proves it’s a good idea to save those unfinished ideas and occasionally go back to them!).

In the Times piece, Rebecca Traister, who authored “Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election That Changed Everything for American Women” about the 2008 presidential election, wrote:

The mythos of our founding revolves entirely around fathers, save for the seamstress Betsy Ross and the querulous spouse Abigail Adams.

What we do have, to serve as the foundational fantasy of female strength and individualism we’ve agreed upon as embodying American power, are cowgirls: Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, the outlaws, frontier women and pioneers who pushed West, shot sharp, talked tough and sometimes drew blood. Frontier womanhood has emerged as one of the only historically American models of aspirational femininity available to girls — passive princesses and graceful ballerinas not being native to this land — and one of the only blueprints for commanding female comportment in which they are regularly encouraged to invest or to mimic.

Compared to male leaders, Traister wrote in the piece, “We have made considerably less imaginative space for ways in which women can persuade us of their ability to lead.”

So, women must have that macho swagger for elective office, too. But if they made the same sexual transgressions as some male politicians have, I don’t think the public would be as forgiving of them and as forgetful of the sexual wrongdoing.

See Also:
Man Up And Cry

Photo Credit: NOVAOnline/Flickr

Let’s connect on Twitter and Facebook.

Apparently, Newt Gingrich isn’t like most politicians.

The former House Speaker and possible 2012 presidential candidate sat for an interview with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network in which he talked about “God’s forgiveness” relating to “personal issues” in the past. He said:

There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.

Here’s some background on those things “that were not appropriate:” Newt proposed to his second wife, Marianne, in 1980 while his first wife, Jackie, was in the hospital fighting uterine cancer. Newt hadn’t asked Jackie for a divorce before he proposed to Marianne. After Marianne was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999, Newt dumped her for Callista Bisek, with whom he was already having an affair and who became Newt’s third wife in 2000. Ironically, Newt was having the affair with Callista while pushing for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment over lying about sex with Monica Lewinsky.

So those “personal issues” – as the question was posed to Gingrich in the CBN interview – were caused by how hard he worked for America?

Well, if a guy’s going to run for president, and he has to justify leaving two wives while both were battling life-threatening illnesses, he’d better have a very good reason. Especially if during one of those affairs, the guy was trying to get a president impeached for lying about sex. What better reason than his passion for America that made him do it? He may have cheated on his wives, but it was because he loves America so much. He’s passionate about it to a fault. And by the way, that’s why he’s qualified to be president.

The excuse doesn’t fly, of course. But some politicians never miss an opportunity to wrap themselves in the American flag – even for the most absurd reasons.

Here’s the full question and answer from CBN:

h/t: Mediaite

Follow me on Twitter and connect with me on Facebook.

Representative Chris Lee (R-N.Y.) resigned from the House of Representatives this week following an email flirtation with a woman he met after responding to an ad in the “Women Seeking Men” section of Craigslist. Sadly for him, the woman also knows how to use Google to look up people’s names, and how to send emails to Gawker.

See the Gawker reporter who broke the story.

And while it’s remarkable what 24 hours can do to damage the life of a politician with high libido, low impulse control and a camera phone, I want to – instead – look at one particular sentence that the Washington Post wrote in their article covering the incident:

“The familiar cycles of a Washington sex scandal were compressed into a blur of tweets and news alerts.”

This sentence is remarkable to me in so many ways.  Take the first part: “The familiar cycles of a Washington sex scandal…” Can you feel the fatigue in that sentence? The implied “here we go again” sigh? The list of scandals pepper the headlines of the past: The obvious Clinton-Lewinsky saga, Newt Gingrich’s affair with aide Callista Bisek, Elliot Spitzer’s foray into, well, whatever it was. And just recently, new allegations about Speaker John Boehner having multiple affairs (reported by The Enquirer, but possibly coming closer to being printed in a more reputable news source soon.)

But even the San Francisco Chronicle’s online version of Lee’s recent misbehaviors asks of the many scandals, “Is anyone keeping count?”  The answer is, yes. We are. The same way we keep track of celebs who are dragged to rehab time after time. There’s an equal mixture of distain and train-wreck-curiosity that simultaneously makes us want more juicy details (Are there more photos? More women?) while also claiming we’re above it all.

Let’s also take the second part of the Post’s sentence: “…compressed into a blur of tweets and news alerts.” Within hours, the man’s dalliances were posted on thousands of websites, and tweeted relentlessly (not without some humor, mind you: “cellphone camera is the worst thing to happen to men with bad impulse control”). The story broke at noon, and by 3pm, he had resigned. That is astounding to me. Pre-Internet news, this would have taken weeks to formulate and resolve itself. Now, a man’s career is over in 3 hours (barring any further revelations, which I have an inkling might be lurking somewhere in Rep. Lee’s email box.)

So, as another politician’s sex scandal flashes through the headlines, this time it’s not the weeks-long-affair (no pun intended) of news days gone by. Within hours, it’s published, denied and verified. Capitulations are made, leading to the astoundingly rapid resignation of a rising politician. The news cycle gets faster and faster, thanks to emailed photos, online news distribution, fast-forward Twittering, email tracking, Google, and Gawker. This was the 3-hour flash scandal. Do I hear 3 minutes?

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t over.  The former Rep. Lee will definitely write a book, possibly get a divorce, and may even be offered a talk show on a cable news network depending on his level of charisma. He may even make his lie come true and become – as he stated in his emails – a lobbyist.

Then again, maybe it’s better if he just disappears. The statement on his website,“I have made profound mistakes,” leaves me – and undoubtedly a thousand tabloid reporters – asking one question: Why is the word “mistakes” plural?

You can follow Beth on her blog and on Twitter.

One of the big political stories on this weekend before the election is the anonymously written piece in Gawker by a guy who said he had a “one-night stand” with Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell.

There’s a lot of outrage about it. There is definitely a mean, misogynistic streak in the story. “But there were signs that she wasn’t very experienced sexually,” the author wrote, along with details about her pubic hair. It seemed the story was out to hurt her personally and not just tell the facts of the evening in question. The story is written anonymously. The writer should have the courage to stand behind his story.

It’s relevant, though. As Gawker argues:

Christine O’Donnell is seeking federal office based in part on her self-generated, and carefully tended, image as a sexually chaste woman. She lies about who she is; she tells that lie in service of an attempt to impose her private sexual values on her fellow citizens; and she’s running for Senate. We thought information documenting that lie—that O’Donnell does not live a chaste life as she defines the word, and in fact hops into bed, naked and drunk, with men that she’s just met—was of interest to our readers.

If the story is true, O’Donnell is sexual hypocrite (not the first in politics) and Gawker badly executed the revelation (anonymous writer, mean-spirited and misogynistic).

Both fail.