… your lying eyes objective reality, or the preferred narrative? Dave Weigel at Slate worries at the question of how some politicians can ‘overcome’ sex scandals:
This really was a head-scratcher.Chris Beam and Matthew Yglesias spent some time yesterday trying to figure out how politicians survive sex scandals, and Yglesias crafted the tightest rule: “What you need to do to survive infidelity is (a) be an incumbent and (b) don’t quit!” But Schwarzenegger wasn’t an incumbent when the story broke. He used another, more difficult method of scandal-deflection: Populist anger at the source of the story. It certainly seemed, like Mickey Kaus wrote at the time, like Schwarzenegger was taking on water. But Schwarzenegger attacked the paper, and said the Times was taking part in a “puke” campaign with Gray Davis at the helm. Thousands of LAT readers cancelled their subscriptions out of loyalty to the candidate. They were angry that a story Schwarzenegger had denied was being played up. It didn’t matter that he was lying and covering up a worse scandal.
__
This is a tricky stunt to pull. The only other politician I can think of right now who’s pulled it is Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, who was hit with two allegations of marital infidelity at the end of the 2010 primary. The stories were neither proven nor debunked. But Haley characterized them as anti-woman, as did Sarah Palin. Conservative voters sided with her. Former SC first lady Jenny Sanford had her back. And voters chose to believe the spin; they got angry at the media, and gave her a huge win.
The short version, of course, is IOKIYAR — It’s OK If You’re A Republican. But for stories like this, I think it goes back to the “narrative”, the concepts that voters hold about a particular candidate, and the difference between Democratic and Republican principles voters. Modern Democrats, being ‘realists’, have a preference for untidy truth over no-loose-threads stories. Republicans, on the other hand, have spent the last 40 years carefully weeding out ‘distractions’ and ‘false consciousness’ to the point where they not only prefer an Epcot Center small-world simulation to the messiness of actual intellectual travel, they actively resent reminders that we don’t live at Disneyworld and that politicians are not (just) scripted actors but actual human beings. Arnold ‘the Governator’ Schwartznegger was going to crash through the fourth wall and save Kuleefurnya from high taxes, budget deficits, squabbling politicos and scary not-white people babbling strange dialects. The people voting for him not only didn’t care that he might be doing unpleasant things in his supersized celebrity trailer between takes, they resented the reminder that the election was anything other than a short-season reality show intended as a distraction from unpleasant reality. Similarly, Nikki Haley and Sarah Palin were Good Xtian Family Women, so nasty stories about infidelity, fiscal mismanagement, self-centered greed, abuse of office underlings were indignantly rejected as obviously false inventions spawned by demon-cratic minions of the Father of Lies. (And frankly, this is why Clinton survived his impeachment hearings… it did not seem at all out of his public character that he might’ve unzipped his fly for any woman who flashed a thong at him, or that he’d be enough of an old-school suthrun ‘gentleman’ to lie ‘in defense of a woman’s honor’ after the fact. All the Rove effort and Scaife dollars thrown into establishing Slick Willie’s horndog credentials backfired when even the Twenty-Seven-Percenters couldn’t get sufficiently alarmed over a stained dress and the lurid details babbled by third parties listening at doors and betraying their former friends’ confidences.)
JonF
As South Carolinian, I can tell you that no one liked Haley before the scandals, but they didn’t help her at all. She got lucky because he ran against a collection of real schmucks in the GOP primary(and the sex scandals broke after her opposition fell apart) and the Dem didn’t move to the right enough to present any challenge(despite being endorsed by the Chamber of Congress).
Haley is a scandal waiting to happen, sexually and financially.
drkrick
I think you’ve got some of this wrong. The 27%’ers were plenty steamed about Clinton, it’s just that hardly anyone else was. Sort of an early version of epistemological closure.
In Haley’s case, I think it came down to the credibility of the story. A good look at the alleged paramour made it hard to believe. Sure, Newt Gingrich has been able to find mistresses, but in Haley’s case she was the one with the power and could surely have done better.
In Arnold’s case, you’re dead on. Given the stuff he’d already admitted to from his bodybuilder days and what we think we know about how Hollywood works, I’d expect that lots of people thought it was all true but just didn’t give a damn.
Spaghetti Lee
To be honest, I wasn’t even aware of Haley’s alleged infidelity, and I consider myself a close follower of politics. I think it might not be so much Republican narratives as the general rule that pretty people can get away with a lot.
Mike in NC
Well, it did result in Jonah Goldberg’s career as a mouth-breathing wingnut pundit.
Villago Delenda Est
We saw the IOKIYAR dynamic at work in August of 2008 as Sarah Palin paraded her pregnant, unwed daughter in front of cameras with purported father of the child at the Rethug Convention…and it was accepted as if it were just a normal everyday occurrence. If Joe Biden had done the same with a preggers teenage daughter, the asstards of the MSM would have been talking about it nonstop. Imagine that turned up to 11^5 if one of the Obama daughters had been in the family way.
Chuck Butcher
If you’re not busy telling me how I should conduct my love life I really don’t have a hell of a lot of interest in your marriage arrangements. I do have a bit of interest in whether you’re the sort who betrays people.
When a spouse stands up and says ‘I’ve been betrayed’ or such, I do pay some attention. Not because of the sex angle, I don’t like betrayal. Betrayal involves lying and cheating at a very basic level with someone who has a lot more reason to trust you than the electorate and should go to consideration of what you’re telling the electorate.
You can swap ‘electorate’ and ‘public’ around to suit various cases.
James E. Powell
How does this explain David Vitter? Sex plus crime equals re-election by large margin?
gex
It is interesting seeing pundits “go there” and yet refuse to see what is there. Wired for Republicans.
El Cid
Actually, there was an interesting reaction to the revelations of Bill Clinton’s various sexual activities: the good ol’ boys I knew actually had a more positive view of him.
Before they had been surrounded by the liberal fag limp wrist type stereotype of some damn Hillary-tied puss.
After all that, and I’m not making this up, there was the sense that if the man was a dedicated skirt-chaser, well, he wasn’t all bad. It weren’t like he was no homo, and he liked to get him some action too — probably like they imagine they’d like to get if they were high muckety-mucks.
The sex scandals actually gave him more respect among the Southern white conservatives I knew. That was one of my favorite bits about the whole issue.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Cid:
Interesting, Bill Clinton was asked why he “went there”, that is, fooled around with Ms. Lewinsky.
His answer was, IMHO, very honest.
“Because I could.”
Which reflects this:
A very human response. The woman (not my type, but certainly not as horrifically unattractive as Linda Tripp) flashed a thong, and he basically went into the little head doing the thinking mode.
Martin
What’s not noted in the article is that the recall election was set up by Darrel Issa as a means to appoint himself governor. Arnold effectively pushed Issa out of the race. I don’t know if he would have gotten anywhere in the recall had Arnold gotten knocked out with this news, but Issa would clearly have been worse.
jrg
I think those politicians that survive sex scandals are the ones who can brass it out long enough to be seen as underdogs.
People like Spitzer don’t survive sex scandals, because he was seen as aggressive, and somewhat deserving of a comeuppance. Plus, there were no trials, no impeachments. The evidence was compelling, and it was released to the press before his opponents could drag him through the dirt.
Clinton survived because he stayed long enough to be the underdog… Republicans were spending millions of taxpayer dollars on blue-dress bullshit. People got tired of that, and saw the GOPers in congress as bullies after a while.
piratedan
hey moral judgments and austerity for thee and not for me
Villago Delenda Est
I think Clinton also benefited from “scandal fatigue”; the Rethugs had been screaming “scandal!” for six years, and could never actually pin anything on Clinton, aside from being involved in a real estate scheme where he and his wife were far from beneficiaries, more like they were victims of fraud. Then you have the special prosecutor attempting to close up shop and being told by Rethuglican congressmen that you need to find something, anything to pin on Clinton, and all this widely reported in the media.
Also, when you have a mega-asshole like Sam Donaldson gleefully announcing that the guy has no choice but to resign within a weak, that will make you an underdog, fast.
Villago Delenda Est
I think Clinton also benefited from “scandal fatigue”; the Rethugs had been screaming “scandal!” for six years, and could never actually pin anything on Clinton, aside from being involved in a real estate scheme where he and his wife were far from beneficiaries, more like they were victims of fraud. Then you have the special prosecutor attempting to close up shop and being told by Rethuglican congressmen that you need to find something, anything to pin on Clinton, and all this widely reported in the media.
Also, when you have a mega-asshole like Sam Donaldson gleefully announcing that the guy has no choice but to resign within a week, that will make you an underdog, fast.
PeakVT
I dunno. I know I bring it up a lot, but this seems to be another case where tribalism explains what Republicans are doing here – ignoring their own hypocrites and attacking Democrats. The press and independents seem to be a lot harsher towards Democratic infidelity, too. Clinton survived because he was 1) President, and thus a little too big to bring down, 2) there were lots of allegations but no real dirt until the Lewinsky episode, and 3) that dirt didn’t surface until after 5 years of investigations that went nowhere, and people were just tired of it.
Suffern ACE
@jrg: I think Spitzer didn’t survive, if I remember right, because the feds themselves were threatening to put him on trial for the Mann Act if he didn’t. I think he otherwise would have survived.
I still have no idea why Chris Lee resigned. Republican, Incumbent, not involving prostitutes across state lines, underage people, secret families, strange threeways, a complete change in sexual identity…he’s kind of the Area 51 of sex scandals. The men in black have warned us that it was nothing but a weather balloon. But I don’t believe them.
Martin
Well, gutting it out is one way. Another way is to present yourself as a fallen angel. Arnold won’t be able to easily recover from this because nobody will see him as the pious Christian with only the best of intentions that sinned (just like Jesus!).
The only difference between a scumball skirt chaser and a well-intentioned sinner is the marketing.
bryanD
Candidate Arnold Schwartzenegger survived the incipient scandal by essentially saying “Fuck you, J-school graduates and former radio interns! You aren’t gay, ARE YOU?”
Maria, like old Rose Kennedy and Jackie, grins and bears it, happy that her husband isn’t bonking boys.
(The Pope HATES that!)
I say it was an open marriage. Now, about Obama ripping off the unions….!
jrg
@Villago Delenda Est: I think you’re right. I also think that’s why Obama will be very difficult for the GOP to deal with if he gets re-elected after four years of teatard madness.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
This. There was definitely a sense that the Clintons had been investigated forward, backward, and inside out for their whole time in Washington. When they impeached him over the Lewinsky business, there was definitely a sense of “all that time and effort, and this is the worst thing they could find?”
burnspbesq
Speaking of scandals, this seems a pretty sensible take.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ffc7af68-817b-11e0-9c83-00144feabdc0.html
I don’t think Preet Bharara is the right U.S. Attorrney for this. Amazingly enough, he makes me nostalgic for the days of Rudy Giuliani.
Mr Stagger Lee
IOKIYOAR only works in straight sex scandals only, if you are gay, like Larry Craig, you are SOL.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est:
Considering they live in a town with so many strip joints and oversexed congressmen and lobbyists, our Washington press corps is really filled with a bunch of prudes. Same could be said for the NY press. See Gov. Patterson and the two month long attempt to get him to resign by implying that he was involved in a sex scandal (Governor Patterson STILL Hasn’t Resigned Today and We Won’t Tell you Why We Think he Should followed by Embattled Governor STILL Hasn’t Resigned Today…Maybe Tomorrow???).
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Mr Stagger Lee: You can even have a diaper fetish and a hooker habit and survive in the GOP. Again, provided the hookers are opposite sex. Like you said, the gay thing is a deal breaker. Foley didn’t fare well.
JPL
Arnold was screwing the help. There has been little discussion on whether or not the woman was receptive to his advances or was afraid of losing her job.
MikeJ
@Mr Stagger Lee: Nah, he just wasn’t ballsy enough. Remember, his first reaction to the story breaking was to announce he was quitting. A bit later as he saw people like Yglesias asking what was wrong with propositioning strangers for sex in a situation where they can’t leave, he decided to finish his term.
If he hadn’t been so cowardly to begin with he’d still be in office.
Violet
@El Cid:
Same experience here. Southern good ol’ boys gave him grudging respect for screwing anything in a skirt. Must not be all bad if he was doing that, plus it proved he wasn’t a limp wristed homo.
@JPL:
Yeah, it’s pretty sad that that angle hasn’t broken through anywhere. I’ve seen discussion of the “she got pregnant to extort money” angle, though. Typical blame the victim stuff.
Gin & Tonic
@Barb (formerly Gex):
Like the great Edwin Edwards said, dead girl or live boy, that’s all.
Caz
You are so out of touch it’s staggering. I often wonder how people can be so out of touch. It’s probably a combination of early childhood imprinting, media propaganda, denial, faith, emotional investment in people and parties, and the inherent human need to be part of something bigger.
Either way, your post is a perfect example of how out of touch some people are, with no idea how non-connective your views are with how the country/world works and the basic needs/rights of human beings versus the purposes/limits of a government in keeping humans in a civilized, productive societal framework.
Quite an interesting sociological phenomenon.
And the responses to my comment will just prove that what I’m saying is true. (See how I pre-affected the comments that will/might be made in response to my diatribe, lol?)
Troll out!
Gin & Tonic
@Caz:
Of course.
Amir_Khalid
There may have been a comment at #30, but I doubt anything sensible was actually said.
@Violet:
Interesting point. If the woman consented to sex because she was afraid for her job, that makes Arnold (morally at least, and maybe legally as well) a rapist.
James E. Powell
@Caz:
It is characteristic of the deluded person that everywhere he looks he sees confirmation of his delusion.
Suffern ACE
@Violet: How can it be blame the victim when there aren’t even any charges? Or any hint that there will be?
Caz
Amir_Khalid – agreed. At least we have moved past the point of requiring a woman to put up a fight in order for it to be considered a sexual assault or rape. If she’s afraid for her job, that’s rape, morally and legally (definitely morally, and if not legally, it should be).
Jewish Steel
@Caz: You’re argument is nicely laid out but I think you neglected to attach a premise and a conclusion. Maybe it rolled under the desk?
moops
@Villago Delenda Est:
yeah, this is nothing more that IOKIYAR. Nothing all that magical about it. You don’t need to dive into the populace to figure it out, it’s baked into the narrative at the media level. The loop closes at a higher level than mere voters.
Democrats need to start beating this drum now. Republicans a lying cheating shitheads. Say it to every camera, on every talk show, in every editorial, over and over and over. Eventually, it will just be conventional wisdom. The point is, you need to invest a decade in the narrative.
Then, you can get caught fucking goats, it won’t matter. You are kryptonite. Your fuckups are not the narrative, you will get a pass.
It is a long game, and there is no point in not starting it right now. The Dems have never been cleaner or more sparkling. Every radio spot, every ad, every dog whistle, every talk show, every debate, slide it in. Republicans are hypocrites, closet cases, deviants, they’re hiding their dirty laundry.
Calouste
@Suffern ACE:
There were some rumors that Chris Lee was looking for transsexuals/crossdressers on craigslist.
Roger Moore
@Jewish Steel:
Now look. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. It’s not just contradiction.
Danny
Republicans are very practical people. They care only what a politician will deliver for them in terms of policy and advocacy. As long as the politician is an effective vehicle for conservatism they’ll stick by him; if he defects they’ll drop him like a stone.
Calouste
DSK has offered his resignation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
Yes it is.
AxelFoley
@JonF:
As long as there’s video when it does go down, I’m good. Like some of her fellow female GOP members, Haley’s not bad on the eyes. Hey, I don’t live in SC, so she ain’t my guvnah.
Btw, why are the cute GOP women some of the most vile?
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: No, it isn’t. You’re a sillyhead.
Villago Delenda Est
@Caz:
My god. The boy gives us classic projection, every single time.
Perhaps someone at Psychology Today should look into this?
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
An argument is an intellectual process. It’s not just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
Villago Delenda Est
What pissed me off about the entire Stanford scandal in SC wasn’t so much that the guy was cheating on his wife, but that he left the fucking country for a weekend without telling anyone. Like his staff, his lieutenant governor, no one. He was AWOL. If he had made arrangements for someone to cover for his legal duties while he was out hiking the trail or schtupping the babe, or whatever the hell he was doing, that would have been one thing. But he went incommunicado leaving his state in a lurch. He was derelict in his duty as governor.
What do the pinheads of the media focus on? The sex scandal part of it, not the dereliction of duty part, which is the actual official crime here. I don’t fucking care that he’s chasing some in Argentina. I do care that he takes off and tells no one he’s gone out of the fucking country for any reason at all, not just chasing tail.
The media was all “sex sex sex”. They only marginally cared that he might have used official funds to buy his ticket to Buenos Aires…too busy focusing exclusively on the sex.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
No it isn’t.
DW
@JPL: Arnold’s pattern was always to be nice to women at his own level and screw (in all senses of that word) his social inferiors. The women he harassed were always lower on the totem pole. The women who vouched for him were at or near his level, class once again trumping gender solidarity. So screwing the hired help is perfectly in character. It’s not like they’re people.
While we’re talking about Clinton, I’d just like to remind everyone what an asshole Christopher Hitchens was during the impeachment betraying a friend’s confidences and casting himself as a noble hero for doing so. He still insists that Clinton purely exploited Lewinsky, never mind that Lewinsky made the first move by her own account. Not that that excuses Clinton. Anyway, just in case the cancer made you feel kindly toward Hitchens, just remember he helped make DC what it is today.
AxelFoley
@Caz:
Thou furious? Is thine arse sore?
AxelFoley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bingo. I didn’t give a damn that Sanford was getting some pussy on the side. Ain’t my business. That’s between him and his wife.
But the dereliction of duty part. Yeah.
His ass should have been impeached and kicked out of office for that shit.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
I’m going to believe Cornel West.
.
.
Jewish Steel
@Roger Moore, Villago D: If I want to make an argument I must take up a contrary position.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jewish Steel:
Sorry, your five minutes are up. Thank you!
kdaug
@AxelFoley: Bingo.
cat48
Wow! Si Se Puede!
Jewish Steel
Villago Delenda Est: That was never five minutes just now!
Spaghetti Lee
@cat48:
Wow, finally some good news.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
it helps to be a republican, the record shows that.
it also helps a lot, if the conversational morality of the particular scandal is favorable.
this is where spizer failed.
while i would argue, appointments with free-will hookers is probably one of the least damaging ways to go about it, it doesn’t make for great conversation. who wants to answer someone who asks why spizer would go to a hooker when he can get laid elsewhere? why he would pay as much as he did? etc, even if people know the answers, they don’t want to say it, or hear it.
at least with clinton, you could express disgust at the act, the location,cigar, the saved dress, the harpy-confessor, the age, looks and weight. discussing these things doesn’t get to any uncomfortable parallels. its sordid, but it doesn’t hit home.
MikeJ
@cat48: The previous ship in the class, under construciton now, is the Medgar Evers, T-AKE-13.
AxelFoley
@MikeJ and @cat48
Holee–two ships named after minorities? I just may swoon.
Warren Terra
OMG, this video of movie director Lars Von Trier is completely amazing, and not in a good way.
Pull quote:
(Quote taken from the New York Times blog of the clip)
Jebediah
@Caz:
Were you not hugged enough as a child?
Lysana
@Calouste:
Those two words are not interchangeable. I’d also suggest you look up the adjective “transgender” while you’re at it.
Spaghetti Lee
@Warren Terra:
Well, I wouldn’t expect the guy who made Antichrist to draw his inspiration from, say, Fred Rogers.
Valdivia
@Warren Terra:
Apparently Kirsten Dunst who appears in the movie was groaning while he went on this little exposition of his ideas. I loved that he said he was making a film called The Final Solution. Yikes. He later said he was joking.
stuckinred
Remember when we had Early Morning Pet Threads?
MikeJ
@AxelFoley: And they’re still just carrying stuff.
stuckinred
@MikeJ: What did you have in mind, the Fast Attack Frigate Chavez?
WereBear
Because they’ve been getting away with whatever they do their whole lives.
HRA
I ask why would any of this fire up the public when a high percentage of the public is doing the exact same thing?
Sorry I am unable to read all the comments first. I am at work.
PurpleGirl
@burnspbesq: You realize, don’t you, that a number of RG’s Wall Street cases were thrown out by the judges for lack of proper evidence (IIRC). Elliot Spitzer had a better track record. At least, they didn’t proceed to trial. RG was great at self-promotion. I prefer prosecutors who get the evidence they need to hold a trial.
El Cid
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah no shit.
If a Democrat had done that, he’d instantly have been up on impeachment charges (or the equivalent), if not criminal charges.
Xenocrates
@Valdivia: Too late. He has been ‘expelled’ from Cannes. Too bad, I think he really was just being provocative. Guess some people just don’t get the joke. And yet, the French consider Jerry Lewis a comic genius. Chacun a son gout…