You Can Cheat on Your Wife if I Can Have a Husband

It seems like a fair trade, right?

This week, Gov. Sanford of South Carolina (R) admitted to an affair with an Argentinean woman. Last week, U.S. Sen. Ensign of Nevada (R) admitted he had cheated on his wife. Last year, U.S. Sen. Vitter of Louisiana (R) was linked to a prostitution ring. Also last year, U.S. Sen. Larry "Foot Tappin" Craig of Idaho (R) was caught soliciting sex from a man in the Twin Cities airport bathroom. And of course around that time, megachurch pastor Ted Haggard decided to one-up everyone by admitting to an affair with a male prostitute while doing crystal meth. (Merry Crystal Meth-mas!, as one of the best YouTube clips ever says.)

And let's not forget Newt Gingrich going through several wives and leaving his last one while she was dying of cancer. Or Rush Limbaugh's three wives and drug addiction. Yawn... repetition is boring. I'll get to my point.

Some people were quick to point out that democrats cheat too. "Look at Sen. John Edwards, Pres. Bill Clinton, Gov. Elliot Spitzer, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick..." a friend said to me. True, true, true, and true. But the difference between the two groups is simple: the democratic slimeballs didn't build their careers by preaching to others how to live their lives. The democratic slimeballs didn't vow to destroy any legal recognition of gay couples because committed gay couples are an affront to the "sanctity of marriage." We have a simple, English word for people who do precisely that which they condemn in others: hypocrites. In a pinch, "asshat" works too.

There's a reason that when Pres. Clinton admitted to an affair his popularity actually went up in the polls: because democrats largely didn't care. Live and let live. Frankly, I don't care how many hummers the President is getting in the Oval Office... as long as he's effectively running the country.

But while Clinton's popularity went up after the Lewinsky scandal, Craig and Ensign's poll numbers have dropped and soon Sanford's poll numbers will have dropped as well. Why? Well, because people give a damn when you're a hypocritical son of a bitch. And because some of those Republican voters who put them into office actually, like, expected them to be as pure as the driven snow.

Last night Rachel Maddow put it more eloquently than I possibly could: "Moral superiority isn't a prerequisite for public office. But it is a prerequisite for those public servants who claim that they are morally superior." Amen, brother.

Maybe the bigger point is that political men and religious bigots--like all men--are just manwhores at heart. They're kids in a candy store. Except the candy is pussy and there's generally no charge (unless your Sen. Vitter and then you have to pay the hooker... or you're Sen. Craig and you're not down with the va-jay-jay). Accordingly, they should stop telling us whom we are allowed to love, whom we are allowed to have sex with, and whom we are allowed to marry if they themselves cannot even decide between their wives, their altar boys, their airport bathroom hook-up, their female hooker, their crystal meth-addicted male hooker, or their Argentinean mistress.