Politician: Mark Sanford
Position: Governor of South Carolina
Party: Republican
"I've been unfaithful to my wife," the Republican governor told a news conference in Columbia, the state capital. "I developed a relationship with what started as a dear, dear friend from Argentina."
...
"All I can say is that I apologize," he said, adding that he would appreciate a "zone of privacy" for the sake of his family.
...
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour immediately takes over as head of the Republican Governors Association, CNN has learned.
-- June 24, 2009
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: resigned from position as chair of Republican Governors Association; still governor of South Carolina
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: John Ensign
Position: US Senator from Nevada
Party: Republican
Senator John Ensign (R), Nevada, issued a statement today admitting that he had an affair with a campaign staffer last year...
Ensign told the Associated Press, "I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions."
-- June 16, 2009
Source
Ensign has said he intends to remain in the Senate, though he resigned as head of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking spot in the leadership.
-- June 20, 2009
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: resigned from position as head of Republican Policy Committee; still a US senator
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: David Vitter
Position: US Senator from Louisiana
Party: Republican
"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there-with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way," Vitter said.
-- July 10, 2007
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: none
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: Rudy Giuliani
Position: Mayor of New York City, 2008 candidate for President of the United States
Party: Republican
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's estranged wife has filed for divorce, citing adultery.
The filing by Donna Hanover, 52, came more than a year and a half after Giuliani filed to divorce her, citing cruel and inhuman treatment.
Hanover's lawyer, Helene Brezinsky, said her client rejected the grounds on which Giuliani's divorce was based.
"If there's going to be a divorce, let's have the truth about why — Rudy's open and notorious adultery," she said.
-- June 21, 2002
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: none
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: John McCain
Position: US Senator from Arizona, 2008 Republican nominee for President of the United States
Party: Republican
John McCain was talking about his presidential ambitions when the question came.
"You had an affair during your first marriage," CNN's Bernard Shaw said to the Arizona senator. "The sitting president is being impeached for his conduct with Monica Lewinsky. Should a politician's private acts be part of public discourse?"
"Let me say that I am responsible for the breakup of my first marriage," McCain replied. "I will not discuss or talk about that any more than that. If someone wants to criticize me for that, that's fine."
-- February 12, 1999
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: none
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: Ronald Reagan
Position: President of the United States
Party: Republican
A series of women passed through Ronald Reagan's bedroom in those years, so many, in fact, that he later told Joe Santley, a publicist, that he once found himself in the Garden of Allah Hotel with a woman he didn't know. "I woke up one morning and I couldn't remember the name of the gal I was in bed with. I said, 'Hey, I gotta get a grip here.'"
-- Excerpt from Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography (1991), discussing the later years of Ronald Reagan's marriage to Jane Wyman; Reagan started dating Wyman while she was still married to Martin Futterman.
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: none, unless you count being turned into a Republican fetish as a consequence
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: Larry Craig
Position: US Senator from Idaho
Party: Republican
Mike Rogers, who calls himself "the nation’s leading gay activist blogger" has just finished a nationally-broadcast interview on the Ed Schultz Radio Show in which he alleges that Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig has engaged in same-sex sexual activity.
Senator Craig’s office flatly rejected the claims. "The Senator says this story is absolutely ridiculous – almost laughable," said press secretary Sid Smith. “It has no basis in fact.”
Rogers said he has talked to three men unknown to each other who all reported in detail their sexual encounters with Craig over the last four years. The men were of legal age, Rogers said.
-- October 17, 2006
Source
Sen. Larry Craig on Thursday said he was not resigning from the Senate despite a Minnesota judge denying his request to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his arrest in a sex sting at an airport men's room.
...
Craig, a 62-year-old, three-term senator, is up for re-election in 2008, but advisers said he had decided against running for another term before the news of his arrest was made public.
-- October 4, 2007
Source
Sen. John McCain said today that his longtime Republican colleague, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, should resign from the Senate following his guilty plea on a disorderly conduct charge from his arrest in a men's room of the Minneapolis airport.
-- August 29, 2007
Source
A GOP leader Sunday denied a double standard in pushing Sen. Larry Craig to resign after a sex sting guilty plea, while remaining silent over GOP Sen. David Vitter's involvement with an escort service.
...
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the Senate Republican campaign chairman, said Craig "admitted guilt. That is a big difference between being accused of something and actually admitting guilt."
"David Vitter never did that. Larry Craig did," continued Ensign on ABC's "This Week" program.
-- September 3, 2007
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: incompetently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct; wasn't planning on running for reelection anyway, but almost certainly would have been defeated in a primary
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: Eliot Spitzer
Position: Governor of New York
Party: Democratic
In the past few days I have begun to atone for my private failings with my wife, Silda, my children, and my entire family. The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me. From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every New Yorker, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize.
I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been, but I also know that as a public servant I, and the remarkable people with whom I worked, have accomplished a great deal. There is much more to be done, and I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor.
-- March 12, 2008
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: resigned from position as Governor of New York; political career over
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: James McGreevey
Position: Governor of New Jersey
Party: Democratic
And so my truth is that I am a gay American. And I am blessed to live in the greatest nation with the tradition of civil liberties, the greatest tradition of civil liberties in the world, in a country which provides so much to its people.
Yet because of the pain and suffering and anguish that I have caused to my beloved family, my parents, my wife, my friends, I would almost rather have this moment pass.
For this is an intensely personal decision, and not one typically for the public domain. Yet, it cannot and should not pass.
I am also here today because, shamefully, I engaged in adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony. It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable.
And for this, I ask the forgiveness and the grace of my wife.
She has been extraordinary throughout this ordeal, and I am blessed by virtue of her love and strength.
...
Let me be clear, I accept total and full responsibility for my actions. However, I'm required to do now, to do what is right to correct the consequences of my actions and to be truthful to my loved ones, to my friends and my family and also to myself.
It makes little difference that as governor I am gay. In fact, having the ability to truthfully set forth my identity might have enabled me to be more forthright in fulfilling and discharging my constitutional obligations.
Given the circumstances surrounding the affair and its likely impact upon my family and my ability to govern, I have decided the right course of action is to resign.
-- August 12, 2004
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: resigned from position as Governor of New Jersey; political career over
* * * * * * * * * * *
Politician: John Edwards
Position: US Senator from North Carolina, Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in 2004, candidate for President in 2008
Party: Democratic
In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough.
...
It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up, feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.
-- August 8, 2008
Source
Consequences of being a lying, cheating jerk: Although Edwards held no elected position at the time of his adultery or public confession and had already long since dropped out of the presidential race, he was widely considered a strong candidate for a Cabinet position in President Obama's administration. His political career is now effectively over.
* * * * * * * * * * *
So what have we learned? A few conclusions (though there are obviously some exceptions):
- When a Democrat is caught with his pants down, the consequences to his political career are dire. When a Republican is caught with his pants down, he tends to get either a slap on the wrist or the Republican nomination for president.
- IOKIYAR operates in full force when a moralizing, "family values," lying, cheating, hypocritical Republican can't keep it in his pants unless said Republican happens to be caught with a person of the same sex. If a Republican is caught being one of Teh Gayz, his career dissipation warning alarm starts sounding like a tornado klaxon in Oklahoma just before an F5.
- When Republicans get caught, they seem to operate on either the "God/Jesus forgave me, so you should too" model or the insincere I'm-saying-I'm-sorry-for-appearance's-sake-but-I-don't-really-care-what-you-think-so-long-as-you-kee
p-blindly-voting-for-me model. When Democrats get caught, they're focused more on the pain they have caused their families.
- Republicans like to talk a lot about threats to marriage and family, particularly from Teh Gayz. But it seems like a lot more marriages and families are broken up by heterosexual people who have yet to learn that adults are endowed with the ability to control their sexual urges in order not to hurt people they supposedly love.
Look, here's what it comes down to for me: it's not really any of our damn business if these people cheat on their spouses -- that's between them and their families. If you want to say that a politician who cheats on his/her spouse can't even be trusted by his/her family so we can't trust him/her either, I can understand that too. And if you're still pissed off at Bill Clinton for the incredible stupidity he displayed by fooling around with an intern, I get that too. But ultimately, as long as taxpayer money isn't involved and no one breaks any laws, it's not our business. Your cheating may make you a crappy human being, but so are most politicians these days.
But if, as the vast majority of Republicans do these days, you rely on a "family values," "pro-marriage" platform in the context of your religion in order to propel yourself to power and you can't even remain faithful to your own spouse, you make it our business.
Because you're demonstrating that neither family nor faith nor the people you claim to serve really matter to you. Instead, you're showing that all you really care about are the power of your position and all the attendant perks that come with it.
I know it may seem like I'm cherry-picking cases here. That's probably because I am. There have been cases of Democrats cheating on their spouses and moving on as if nothing had happened, and there have been cases of Republicans cheating on their spouses, accepting responsibility, and suffering dire consequences to their political careers. But with the exception of Bill Clinton -- and he got impeached -- I think I've outlined some of the most prominent examples of Republicans and Democrats who were caught with their pants down and the consequences to their political careers. And the trend is pretty clear -- the party that claims it stands for "family values" really doesn't. I'm not going to claim based on a bunch of cheating spouses that the Democrats do, but they're generally not the ones moralizing about "family values," are they?
So the Democrats, who at least aren't making hypocritical pronouncements about the sanctity of marriage the centerpieces of their political identities, tend to resign from office to concentrate on their families if they get caught with their pants down. And the Republicans, ever the hypocrites, carry on with business as usual, confident that the people they claim to represent will eventually forget about the fact that they're so insincere and so dishonest that their pants may actually be on fire.
In short, never let anyone tell you the Republicans are the party of "family values." Because the truth is that they're the party of "family has good value as a prop."