Political Sex Scandals

After the recent news that a lawsuit is being filed against Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, and former chief of staff Christine Beatty for lying under oath and having a sexual relationship, it seems that there is no politician who has not had an affair or some kind of sex scandal. Recently former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced out of office because of his affair with Ashley Dupree, a high-class call girl. Spitzer was replaced by David Paterson who has already admitted to having cheated on his wife and that she cheated on him as well. In addition to these recent scandals, many more political figures were involved in something similar at some point in their careers. Bill Clinton was one of the people who got away with what he did (not having "sexual relations with that woman"), but the majority of the American public believes that he did. Why are all of the politicians involved in sex scandals?

One possible explanation is that affairs are actually common occurrences throughout the country and the reason politicians are the ones who get caught is because they have more people watching what they do and they are thought of, or were in the past thought of, as moral role models for the country. Another explanation would be that the politicians feel they are above the law and will not be caught, which is obviously not true. The job may cause stress and problems with their marriage causing them to seek out others.

It would seem that if you were a politician and your job would be on the line if you did something like this you would have more of a reason not to. Most people will not lose their job if they have an affair, but most politicians would. Why would you risk that much of your life for something so brief? This explains why the price of Mr. Spitzer's "special friend" was so high, she wasn't being paid so much for the act, but more for keeping it a secret. With how many politicians have been caught having been involved in an affair, and how much they seem to do to cover up what they did, it makes you wonder how many politicians have had an affair and just not been caught. With how many have been revealed recently, who knows how many more affairs will be revealed in the next few weeks? Maybe the politicians themselves will come out and tell everyone what they did, it worked for David Paterson. More politicians may follow his lead and inform the public before the public finds out some other way, by doing this they can choose to reveal it at a time that seems good for them, and in the way they want. When they reveal it themselves it will not affect them as negatively because they won't be caught for trying to cover it up as well. We will just have to keep watching the news every day to learn about whom else has had an affair.