Politicians' Sex Lives
• Laws and Politicians, Mostly Bad
Politicians sex lives have become a regular part of the news since the Bill Clinton presidency. Like almost everything political nowadays reports of politicians’ sexual misdemeanors are highly polarized. Take the New York Times article on John McCain:
Many conservative commentators who cheered on every media revelation about Clinton’s dalliances denounced the McCain story. Of course, it turned out that Clinton did have sex with that woman, and of course McCain scored political points by denouncing a newspaper reviled on the right. But many journalists with no ideological ax to grind have also criticized the piece, and even most liberal bloggers haven’t defended it. And The Washington Post, which ran a story on McCain and Iseman the same day that focused on lobbying but said nothing about romance, largely escaped the backlash.
Ever since Monicagate this has all seemed tedious, tendentious and tawdry.