What's Your Line?

The buzz lately is that there is a story going around D.C. that 'everyone' knows, which means the media people, and the L.A. Times can break it at any time. So far the newspaper is sitting on it. This story is described as potentially devastating, a sexual scandal, involving a 'leading Presidential candidate', according to Ron Rosenbaum.com. The L.A. Times is debating the timing of releasing the story to the world and whether or not to do so during the primary season.

And, no, he says it is not the story going around about the state of the Edwards marriage and John's alleged long time affair that is circulating out there.

So, it all revolves around the gotcha game played over politics and sex. How much are we to demand of the candidates concerning their personal lives? Are we, the voters, entitled to know all about their private lives, and if so, where's the line drawn?

I think the culture of our society has so devolved that for instance, when Bill Clinton ran for President the first time, he was asked on an MTV appearance if he wore briefs or boxers. And like a damn fool, he answered the question. Why? Why wasn't it ridiculed as a question of no substance and let it go at that? Really. Who cares?

Sometimes the argument revolves around the private life indicating the character of the politician. If that were true and we were serious voters in this country, Clinton would never been elected to any political office. His history was well known as far back as his days in Arkansas but it was put aside. Hillary hired her 'bimbo eruption' squad and off they went.

Ronald Reagan was a divorced man. JFK had women parading in and out of the White House, especially as Jackie traveled and raised the kids. Humans are not perfect creatures and a lot of the difficulty lies in the notion that we expect our elected officials to be unblemished. Especially our presidential candidates.

Now, Rosenbaum speculates that the mystery candidate involved in this sexual scandal must be a Democrat. His opinion is that if it was one of the Republican front runners, it would gleefully be splashed all over the front pages of the country. He's probably right about that. There is no denying the double standard in the world of journalism today. And, I'll remind you of the spouting off that Hillary's spokespeople have done that if Rudy is the GOP candidate, well, all kinds of nastiness is coming over his personal life and how they will use that in nasty commercials. That's pretty arrogant, seems to me, with all the baggage the Clinton marriage has. Especially considering if Hillary were married to anyone else she wouldn't even be the candidate today.

Hillary wants the world to think she is super feminist woman, yet when the going gets tough, she throws the victim card and how mean those men are to her. Poor dear. Bless her heart.

She's simply entitled to the job and she wants you to believe that. She stayed with Bill all these years, letting him humiliate her internationally, and this is her pay off. She is woman, hear her roar. Hillary is a stark example of why the original feminism movement is dead.

Ah, the deals that are made in marriage.

Slate Magazine is doing a series on the candidates wives. I'm assuming they mean Democrat candidates wives, but we'll find out about that soon enough. The first chosen was the Obama marriage. It was an interesting read.

Michelle Obama is a modern kind of American wife and mom. She's the modern kind of political wife, too. She makes speeches for her husband, the candidate, and she has used the method of downplaying the notion that he is a perfect human being. That's a bit refreshing but she was told to knock it off by the staffers fearing she was emasculating him. Interesting. She's in the P.R. biz so I think that would make her the perfect political spouse.

"Almost invariable, the first thing friends mention about her is that they have never known her to be caught unprepared." "Today, watching her in action - giving a speech better than he does, and working a crowd equally well- one wonders not why she and her husband are together, but who in the world else he might have married."

Michelle goes with the dilemma of raising children in busy professional lives. "You only think about yourself," she would tell him. "I never thought I'd have to raise a family alone." And it was Barack that said Michelle told him as he went on stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention:"Don't screw it up, buddy."

Their's is described as "the marriage of two people who actually mean it when they say that setting up one guy as the lead dog who is supposed to pull us out of this mess can only cause more of the same. They see that leadership model as a risky way to run a family - or a country."

"If people are attracted to him, it's because he can lead without being authoritarian." That's a quote from his friend Cassandra Butts.

I know from my own marriage, almost 25 years now, that marriage is all about compromise and agreements. I've been a single parent within my own marriage for the majority of it. That's how it is. Would I ever think of telling my husband he can't do the work he enjoys and the travel that goes with it? No. Would he ever think to tell me I couldn't do something, too? No. Our compromise was for me to stop working outside the home when our son was born and I have been a stay at home mom since, with a small break for a couple of years as I helped open a Children's Museum, which evolved out of my community volunteer work. I never stopped that.

So, where's the line we draw with the political marriages?