Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, Gary Hart, Mark Sanford, and Wilbur Mills: all politicians, all connected by the dubious distinction of career-changing sex scandals.
Though America hasn’t really cornered the market on political sex scandals — it was recently revealed Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has had quite an appetite for prostitutes — the vast American news cycle often puts American politicians’ indiscretions into the forefront.
Laura Stephenson, a professor with Western’s department of political science, felt the nature of the American people also has a lot to do with the attention given to political sex scandals.
“I think the difference [between America and the rest of the world] is likely to do with the culture in America,” Stephenson said. “We’d look at Hollywood or New York and say it’s sexually permissive, but the average American is a lot more conservative in their views, which makes a lot of these scandals far more scintillating.”
But things weren’t always this way. In the past, sexual indiscretions were often overlooked by the media. Over the years, stories have surfaced about sex scandals involving presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
“Clearly journalists following Kennedy knew exactly what was going on,” Don Abelson, chair of the political science department at Western, said. “[The media] certainly knew he was a womanizer and that he was involved in several extra-marital affairs.
“But there was a code that this just wasn’t newsworthy.”
Of course, things have changed since JFK’s days. Events like Watergate spurred a growing distrust of government among citizens, and the 24-hour news cycle has made media look for content wherever possible.
“I think there’s certainly more media now,” Stephenson said. “But there’s also this idea that citizens have the right to know.”
Abelson agreed: “The culture has changed a great deal. By the time we enter the late 60s and early 70s, this was fair game.
“In today’s world, it wouldn’t have taken an assassin to end Kennedy’s career — it would have taken a post on the Internet.”
Abelson felt part of it came down to the American public’s perception of celebrity.
“As much as American people like to put people up on pedestals, they also love to tear them down,” he said. “It speaks to a desire to not only humanize these people, but also point out they’re not perfect.”
One of the tipping points for this change in media attention was Hart — a senator from Florida who sought the Democratic party’s nomination for presidential candidate in the 1988 election. Soon after he announced his candidacy, rumours of marital infidelity started to surface.
Hart responded to these allegations by daring the media to follow him around, claiming he had nothing to hide. Photos then surfaced of a young woman sitting on Hart’s lap on a yacht called Monkey Business. The scandal effectively ended Hart’s political career.
“The Gary Hart thing was stupid,” Abelson said. “He’s not stupid, but the sense of arrogance and entitlement was what did him in.”
But a sex scandal doesn’t necessarily mean the end of a political career. Though the Monica Lewinsky affair dominated the news cycle for most of the end of his presidency, Clinton’s political cachet seems not to have suffered.
“Clinton was the type of politician who comes around once every hundred years or so,” said Abelson. “He had the capacity to combine a strong intellect and reach out to millions of people.”
Abelson recounted how Clinton delivered the State of the Union address at the height of the Lewinsky scandal.
“Clinton walks in and delivers a speech that will likely go down in history as one of his best,” he recalled. “He walked out of that chamber like he was a rock star.”
Like their celebrity counterparts, often the willingness of a politician to atone for their mistakes improves the chances of a career rehabilitation.
As Abelson put it, “the interesting thing about American popular culture is that so long as people come clean and acknowledge their mistakes, the American people have an unbelievable ability to maybe not forgive, but certainly overlook.”