The more things don’t change, the worse they get.
Governor Sanford’s disappearance followed by revelation of yet another tedious extramarital affair inspires us to regurgitate our positions on Adultery. By the by, in my not at all humble, rather, in my perpetually outraged opinion, Governor and Dad Sanford’s disappearance over Father’s Day weekend either demotes him beneath contempt or raises the specter of coercion.
Anyhoo, howz THIS for some bleedin’ irony? I give you a letter that I drafted to a beloved-alas-now-retired doctor early in this past chart-topper of a presidential campaign, when commiseration about the pathetic Republican line-up revealed his identification of Rudy Giuliani as the lesser of multiple evils. The letter still sums up a position on Infidelity that is inflexibly predicated on first-hand experience.
1 November 07
Dr. XXXXX XXXXX
XXXX Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Dear Dr. XXXXX:
Insofar as I have never written to you in all the years that you have treated and cared for my eyes, it seems fitting first to thank you. And I DO thank you. For more than two decades, you are one of the touchstones by which I can gauge the quality of care I am taking of myself, and one of the few by which I can gauge honor, skill and reliability in other service providers. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how infrequently others measure up to the standards by which you abide. You are a rare, I hope not dying, breed.
It is for this reason that I am compelled, literally compelled, to write to ask you to re-visit the notion that Rudy Giuliani is “tough” or otherwise well suited to the presidency. More elementally, I ask you to re-visit the notion that how a man comports himself in his personal life has no bearing on his professional life. How a man comports himself in his personal life may not bear directly on a man’s ability to do a job, but it assuredly bears on HOW he may exercise that ability.
Let us set aside the Weirdo Factors of his marrying his cousin, and his cross-dressing for merriment. Let us set aside my mighty objection to having to set aside Weirdo Factors in discussing candidates for the office of the Presidency of the United States.
You are an honorable man with a marriage of long and responsible standing…affectionate and devoted as well, it has always seemed to me. I draw your attention strictly to the Mechanics and Implications of Infidelity.
Irrespective of widely recognized social mores disfavoring marital union with a cousin, Rudolph Giuliani identifies and commits to Wife Number One. I have never been married but I do GO to the occasional wedding, and to the movies…I have certainly watched wedding ceremonies…it’s pretty clear that the headliner is a solemn vow to love and honor one mate, not to mention a few other responsibility-laden verbs, forsaking all others until death do they part.
Fourteen years later, Rudolph Giuliani has a moment of clarity about the Weirdo Factor of the marriage. Rudolph Giuliani petitions the Catholic Church to annul the marriage on grounds that it ought never to have been permitted. It was an error…not Rudolph Giuliani’s error, observe, but the Church’s error…therefore it is erased, poof, like it never happened. I suggest that contriving to catapult Wife Number One into Non-Existence, in addition to civil divorce, constituted purposeful and heartless degradation of Wife Number One for no reason beyond unmitigated service to self. For Rudolph Giuliani had already begun an affair with another woman who he would shortly marry, ever so correctly, in the Catholic Church. Shame on both of them, Giuliani AND the Church.
The affair with the next wife is begun before the divorce from the first wife. The Mechanics: they have made promises to one another; he is lured by what he perceives to be better for him; he goes for it, unilaterally changing the terms of a lifetime partnership without telling the partner. The inescapable implication is that Rudy Giuliani is a man who simply disregards previously agreed upon terms of engagement if it suits his own purpose or pleasure.
Once crossed, lines are easier to cross, don’t you find? Someone who screws over one person is, I really think it is safe to say, more likely to screw over other people.
Still, we do not tar and feather people for this. I did not think we seriously contemplated elevating them to the Presidency of the United States, but neither do we banish them to Siberia. Rudolph Giuliani and his Truer Love get married; they have two kids; he becomes Mayor of New York; he has a an indiscreet affair with a staff member; he moves out from his wife and into a high-profile relationship with yet another Even Truer Love; he announces AT A PRESS CONFERENCE that he’s filing for divorce. That’s how Wife Number Two And Mother Of His Children learned that she was getting the heave ho.
I read an article recently wherein Rudolph Giuliani said that only Jesus could have avoided the pitfalls into which Rudolph Giuliani fell. Twice. Do you think that’s true? Do you think Rudolph Giuliani is right that you, for instance, would have done the same in his shoes? I think Rudolph Giuliani is lenient with himself and harsh on others, and I know that it is a terrible combination.
Tough? Again and again, the man can’t resist the most basic temptation of lust…how tough is that? The only way to twist it into an argument for tough is to embrace some notion of a hot-blooded Italian hunka man…think Sonny Corleone… which, frankly, raises the reported history of organized crime connections in Rudolph Giuliani’s family.
People establish patterns. It is reasonable and prudent to suppose they will repeat them. Rudolph Giuliani, it seems very clear, is always open to a better offer.
Oath of office, vow of marriage…what makes it clear that one is sacred to Rudolph Giuliani in a way that the other clearly is not? Because Rudy Giuliani says so? Rudolph Giuliani has already established himself not to be a man of his Word.
I apologize if I have gone about this the wrong way and, as always, for going on so long, a matter over which there is seldom uncertainty. I have never involved myself in, as They say, the national diaglogue before so, if I have gone about this oddly, I apologize and, as ever, for going wordiness. I must say, though, and, I must say, the need to shorten my ranting is altogether about sparing readers, not sparing politicians. I am incredulous, really, at what is passing for governance of this country. More than any other single thing that I could point to as cause for the sorry state of our politics and our government is lack, sometimes complete absence, of character. I cannot think of a single ill that plagues our society in which inferior character does not feature.
I submit that Rudolph Giuliani lacks character. Tough without character, thy name is Bully.
I wonder if you will remember this so well as I do. A few years ago, I passed along what I thought was a sufficiently intriguing philosophical question that I had not then and still have not myself answered.
What is the one thing you would do if you knew you could not fail?
After the short pause of a thoughtful but decisive man you said, “I would run for President of the United States…and do you know what my first act as President would be?” I forget, exactly, whether you said “any kid who wants to go to Harvard goes to Harvard” or whether you said “all kids go to Harvard” but I remember you said you would accomplish the Godsend by re-naming all the colleges and universities Harvard.
You were also the one who really explained to me about brand vs. generic prescriptions. THAT was an eye opener, pardon the pun, and has saved me considerable money over the years.
You’re a Good Guy. It’s obvious. To be honest with you, YOU’D make a better presidential candidate than Rudolph Giuliani, and I feel certain that your wife, unlike Mrs. Giuliani the First and Mrs. Giuliani the Second, would agree.
We can do better than this. Likewise, we can do better than the ridiculousness of a Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton tag team relay. Let us at least try. Let us at least stay open minded awhile yet. It is very much harder for an alternative to manifest if we dismiss from the outset the possibility of its existence.
I shall be in touch at once if I spot, with my keen eyesight, a knight on a white horse! In the meantime, I would be very interested to learn your thoughts on John Edwards.
Best regards,
As for my attempt to steer the good doctor from Giuliani to John Edwards, you gotta laugh and laugh in an unfunny kinda way . . . otherwise you might start crying and never stop. Zipper problems, the whole fucking lot of ‘em.