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Like others of a Certain Age, I was not surprised by the recent sex scandals involving a number of prominent priapic politicians. Politics has made strange bedfellows since the earliest days of our Republic.
Founding father Ben Franklin, for starters, proudly wrote and published accounts of his extensive womanizing. George Washington wrote adoring letters to Sally Fairfax, wife of his close friend and neighbor at Mount Vernon. Thomas Jefferson romanced two married women, as well as, allegedly, his young slave, Sally Hemmings.
Warren G. Harding had a series of mistresses. One, Carrie Phillips, a good friend of Harding’s wife, received a substantial blackmail payment for the return of Harding’s love letters. Another, Nan Britton, the daughter of one of Harding’s close friends and 31 years Harding’s junior, published a tell-all book in 1927 charging, among other things, that Harding once made love to her in a coat closet in the White House Executive Office.
Such political sex scandals have occurred – in varying degrees – throughout the years.
Thus, like other old-timers, I was inclined to shrug when news broke about the sexual shenanigans of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and other such “family values” politicos as John Ensign, David Vitter, Larry Craig and even the one-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
We knew how these episodes often play out: Quoting the Bible, the offending politician apologizes profusely to his family and constituents, vows to never sin again and plows back into his old or new job with renewed vigor, as if to say, “Vote for me and I’ll respect you in the morning.” Often, the public forgives his transgressions as long as they don’t involve a tax increase.
So why were we old folks so indignant when news broke about Tiger Woods’ once secret sex life? I’ll tell you why. For us, learning that Tiger was a “cheetah” was like learning that your favorite grandson had stolen Christmas. Tiger had presented himself as a beatific family man, when in fact what he was doing for R&R with his bevy of mistresses made most political cheaters, past and present, look like amateurs.
Even the media coverage of Tiger’s sex life outpaced coverage of most past political scandals. There was, at least, one positive development. The media hoopla raised the age-old question of how much privacy a public figure is entitled to. I can’t answer for sports celebrities, but I do know that in the political world the question has been debated, pro and con, over the years – and is never quite resolved.
The press has given curious dispensations to some favored politicians, notably Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Many White House reporters surely knew about FDR’s affair with Eleanor’s social secretary Lucy Page Mercer and, perhaps, with Missy LeHand, his personal secretary. But they didn’t write about these indiscretions until after FDR’s death.
JFK received similar license from the press. I was one of several reporters covering the White House for The New York Daily News during the Kennedy administration and, I can assure you, we knew about some of his storied liaisons. We looked the other way, contending his private behavior was off-limits unless it affected his performance in office. But looking back, I confess that many of us simply didn’t want to tarnish the Camelot image.
One reporter rationalized: “If we printed stories about every sex scandal in Washington, America would run out of trees.”
This laissez-faire attitude of the press didn’t last long. By the 1970s, reporters were having a field day with political sex scandals. The Fanne Foxe caper of 1974 was tailor-made for the tabloids. Foxe was a stripper known as “the Argentine Firecracker” (no relation to Mark Sanford’s Argentine amante) who performed in a Washington, D.C. nightclub. Her number one fan was the married Rep. Wilbur Mills, D-AK, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. One night, Mills and Foxe were driving around town when police stopped their car for speeding near The Jefferson Memorial. Foxe jumped out of the car and plunged into the Tidal Basin, providing an eager press with sensational stories for days. Mills, an alcoholic, checked into a rehab center. He retired two years later.
Gary Hart’s extramarital affair with a shapely model came to light in 1987 after he made the biggest mistake of his political life by daring the media to check into his personal life. A two-term senator from Colorado, Hart was running for president and was considered a front-runner for the 1988 Democratic nomination. Then The Miami Herald accepted Hart’s challenge and put several reporters on his trail. They ultimately photographed Hart aboard the yacht “Monkey Business” with model Donna Rice perched provocatively on his lap. He later dropped out of the presidential race.
In the 1990s, the extensive, strip-search media coverage of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair broke all previous records. No other sex scandal in the history of the Oval Office had been so fully exposed. Ironically, those calling for Clinton’s impeachment included Mark Sanford, John Ensign and then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who was having his own extra curricular affair.
Only a politician with Clinton’s charisma and drive could have made a comeback after this no-holds-barred media coverage.
Has the pendulum swung too far in favor of the freedom of the press? Personally, I don’t think so. I think the American public is capable of determining which stories are relevant and accurate and which are mere muckraking. For more sage advice, I refer you to Alexander Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury.
Hamilton once came under attack by the press because of an extramarital affair. He was, nonetheless, a champion of the free press.
“The truth must not be used wantonly, if for the purpose of disturbing the peace of families,” Hamilton wrote. “But if it is within the domain of what the public should know to behave responsibly at the polls … then the truth should be printable without fear of retribution.”