Quote of the Day, Jr.

"Every time a male politician acts like a rooster there's a spate of commentary celebrating the moral superiority of women. The New York Times reacted to Weiner's humiliation with a classic of the genre, opining that 'busy working women don't have time to cheat,' and quoting a feminist professor saying, 'women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody.' Look, ladies, it's a zero sum game. Takes two, you know."

-- Gene Lyons in a Salon piece called "Anthony Weiner's Willing Partners"

As with the quote from "Thinker Mom" Vicki Larson a couple of days ago, this one is offered without commentary, the interjection of relevant recent personal experience, or any other statement that might contain an often derogatory word that describes a female dog. Only this time that derogatory word would be directed at someone besides the author of the article, if you get my drift.

Predator

Obviously the Rapture hasn't begun just yet because this vile creature is still walking around in her present form. I figure that once the shit starts to go down, she'll reveal her true identity, arise on cloven hooves, spread her wings made entirely of human male foreskin and begin dragging people off to hell, one by one.

Radar: New Alleged Arnold Mistress Retains Gloria Allred/5.18.11

If you picked, what, 72 hours in the over-under on how long it would take Gloria Allred to find an excuse to muscle her way into the Arnold Schwarzenegger mistress scandal, congrats, you win.

There's no reason to spend much time shredding Allred's latest shameless and desperate bid for face-time because you can pretty much just take the following piece and adjust the name and a couple of other minor details. At this point, it reads like a Mad Libs for every new Allred case.

"Burn the Witch" (Originally Published, 4.15.08)

I'll make this quick.

I may spew a little venom here and there on this site, but believe it or not, there are scant few people in this world I truly despise. I'm not talking about the kind of people who annoy or mildly irritate; I'm talking about the ones whose mere existence just infuriates the shit out of me; whose lack of any discernible contribution to humanity makes me want to take a fucking hostage; whose voice alone can shatter my spine like glass.

Among this highly specialized group of horrid, worthless shitbags -- I'm not sure anyone is more thoroughly contemptible or patently offensive than Gloria Allred.

Cut from the same cloth as Nancy Grace, another feckless troll who treats the legal profession like her own personal litter-box-cum-slot-machine, Allred can typically be found wherever TV cameras are present. She's the alien queen of the ambulance-chasing high-profile lawyer set -- the sort of loathsome caricature that could only thrive in a place as morally bankrupt as Los Angeles. Over the course of her diabolically lengthy career, she's represented such celebs-via-circumstance as Amber Frey, Paula Jones, Nicole Brown Simpson, Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown and Britney Spears's bodyguard -- all the while representing, in reality, only one person: Gloria Fucking Allred. She's inserted herself into the surreal debacle that was the Michael Jackson trial. She's manipulated an all-too-willing media into doing her bidding, which always involves beaming her gruesome, opportunistic ass into every home in America in what would seem to be a concerted effort to turn us all to stone.

What Al Sharpton is to race relations in this country, Gloria Allred is to both sexual politics and its legal system.

And now -- of course -- she's representing Rob Lowe's nanny.

This morning, Allred appeared with 24 year old Jessica Gibson on NBC's Today show to do her copyrighted "Angry Mom Whose Innocent Daughter has Just Been Victimized" routine. For those of you lucky enough to have not heard a fucking peep about this case, Rob Lowe says Gibson is a trash-talker who exploited his family's goodwill; Gibson says Lowe sexually harassed her while she was caring for his kids. Honestly, who gives a crap either way?

Gloria Allred, of course.

Her performance this morning was pure theater -- pure Gloria: She held Gibson's hand like a supportive best friend; contorted her face into a steely grimace while shrilly heaping irresponsible invective at Lowe; wouldn't let anyone else get a word in that might counter her carefully rehearsed indignation; looked like she was always one involuntary impulse away from digging into Gibson's neck to drink her sweet, young blood. The only thing missing was a fucking trapeze act.

The good news is that by allowing herself to be preyed on by this wicked witch -- by accepting the shiny red apple of a big money settlement that was no doubt offered so seductively -- Jessica Gibson has all but ensured that she'll lose in court. Sure, she'll get a lot of free press, but in the end, thanks to Allred's unholy puppetry, she'll get a few bucks from posing for Playboy and eventually be known as 2008's Darva Conger.

Remember her?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Good fucking job there, Gloria.

Human Shield

A pretty fascinating piece in the Huffington Post written by the close friend of Rielle Hunter's who eventually handed up her and John Edwards to the media.

The Huffington Post: How the Edwards Affair Ended Up in the Enquirer/3.3.11

All Fall Down

Stop me if you've heard this one before: A popular and highly respected political leader is watching his career go up in flames after being caught in a scandalous affair that went on for months behind his wife's back.

It's just about the oldest story in politics. I don't need to tell you that you could substitute any one of about a dozen names in place of John Edwards -- Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Gary Hart, Jim McGreevey, Rudy Giuliani, even Gary Condit to some extent -- and the details and end result would basically be the same. In fact, it's the lack of any real sense of shock that's likely at least partially to blame for the mainstream media's reluctance to pursue the story of Edwards's philandering until he came right out and confessed on national television. Although there's little doubt that many "respectable" news organizations were uncomfortable sifting through a field plowed by the National Enquirer, at least a few journalists must have looked at even the hint of another political sex scandal and thought to themselves, "Dear God, not again." Especially not when there are so many consequential issues to be reported on this election season (which isn't meant to imply that these issues actually are being reported on).

But now, once again, the machinery winds up, the shame and humiliation are piled on, the suspiciously contrived contrition is dispensed and, most of all, the pundits and experts line up to debate the supposedly elusive and incomprehensible question of why.

Why would a person like John Edwards, who seemed to have it all, blow everything he'd worked so hard for in the pursuit of quick sex? What made him think he could get away with it?

The answer to the first question is in the question itself: Edwards wanted to get laid because he's a person, and that's what people do. Where we ever got the idea that anyone is above his or her most basic impulses -- particularly the desire to have sex -- is beyond me. What made Edwards think he could get away with it? Nothing. He wasn't thinking at all, and any attempt to rationalize his behavior -- from some bullshit about how the attention lavished on him made him egotistical and narcissistic, to the lamentation of weakness in the face of temptation -- is essentially folly. John Edwards had been married for 31 years to the same woman, and no matter how attractive, intelligent, loyal or universally admired that woman is, there's one thing she can't possibly ever be: somebody else. And somebody else, even for a short time, is what most men and women -- most human beings -- want after three decades of marriage. It's human nature, and only our absurdly puritanical views on sex, coupled with the social mores and stigmas that are the inevitable products of such beliefs, would render it so unspeakably immoral.

What's immoral, actually, is that the bizarre culturally ingrained sentiment which equates marital fidelity with unassailable integrity put John Edwards in a position where he couldn't admit to his urges and was forced to truly betray both his loved ones and constituents by lying to them all. It's the unrealistic expectation of absolute purity and righteousness that will eventually doom almost every person in authority -- man or woman -- to fail us entirely, and that makes the belief system itself wrong. If I'm not mistaken, the religious -- who bear so much of the blame for these antiquated philosophies -- would call this "hating the sin, not the sinner."

John Edwards cheated on his wife. In chasing down that most enticing of hedonistic thrills, he betrayed her -- and for that painful mistake he has to answer to her and no one else. Although hardly anyone would suggest that putting your marriage at risk in the name of a quick affair is the right thing to do, almost everyone should know by now that it's understandable. Even forgivable. This is true whether the person involved in the affair is a politician or a postal worker. Both are driven by the same desires and either can fall victim to them. The people we elect to office are, at their core, still just people.

There can and will be plenty of debate over whether Edwards used campaign money to further his affair -- a revelation that would in fact be unethical if not outright illegal. And there's plenty of cause for finger wagging at the sheer stupidity of his actions, given that, as a man under intense scrutiny 24/7, there was zero chance of his affair not being discovered at some point. But once again, John Edwards wasn't thinking about that. He wasn't thinking at all.

He was just doing what human beings sometimes do -- what none of us is above.

Related: (Eliot Mess/3.12.08)

Eliot Mess

Back when I was first starting out in TV news, I worked closely with a male reporter who had a reputation for being an insatiable office lothario. A considerable portion of his spare time while on the clock was spent trying to seduce one impressionable, post-collegiate hire or another; these seek-and-destroy missions were usually undertaken in the same sickeningly cavalier manner -- with an almost comical lack of regard both for the wreckage of past relationships that he'd left strewn all over the newsroom and for the wife and young child he returned home to every night. Throw in a frat-boyish tendency toward male-bonding-through-conquest-comparison and you had a personal catastrophe waiting to happen.

While I was certainly no angel and had done my fair share of screwing around, cheating on women who cared for me and generally behaving atrociously, I always kept this reporter and his exploits in the back of my mind during my early 20s -- as a sort of object lesson.

I looked at him and told myself, "I don't ever want to become that."

He was in his late 30s, married, a father, and a fucking narcissist who just couldn't resist whatever ego-stroking power trip came from getting a 21-year-old to sleep with him. He was a walking hard-on who was constantly one lipstick smudge away from destroying his life, his job, his family -- everything.

I always wondered what he would tell himself if and when it all fell apart -- how he would even begin to justify not simply what he'd done but quite possibly who he was.

Needless to say, this little memory has pushed its way back into my consciousness in the last 48-hours, thanks to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's gargantuan indiscretion.

But while psychologists, self-help gurus and humiliated wives of news-cycles past now jockey for position in front of this camera or that -- with rubbernecking audiences gleefully joining in the obligatory pile-on and armchair analysis of "why men cheat" -- it's worth noting just how far off-point the whole debate seems to be.

Sure, we've witnessed the fall from grace of dozens of powerful men before the whole Spitzer debacle, but to imply -- even for a moment -- that deceit, betrayal and arrogance belong strictly within the realm of the masculine sex is both obscene and offensive. Eliot Spitzer's actions were indeed selfish and stupid, but to view them in such simple yet strangely accepted terms -- as indicative of some great anthropological mystery about men in general -- renders the entire argument worthless. The truth is that an inexplicable willingness to compartmentalize all that you've worked so hard for -- to bury the thoughts of your loved ones, your future, any potentially negative consequence -- in order to chase down a cheap thrill isn't a male trait any more than it's a female trait; in reality, it's a human trait.

People make mistakes. They screw up -- sometimes horribly. They do things without thinking.

And while Eliot Spitzer will now pay the price for what he's done, neither his crime nor his punishment will answer any larger questions about the nature of men let alone human nature. No matter how many scorned women might understand the hurt that Spitzer's wife is feeling, and as such want to beat the disgraced governor until he gives up the answer they believe any betrayed spouse is entitled to -- why? -- it won't ever come. Eliot Spitzer can only speak for Eliot Spitzer, and chances are even he doesn't fully understand what led him do something so shockingly dumb.

I've cheated on people who loved me. I never purposely set out to hurt anyone, but that excuses nothing. I'm now sorry for the pain I caused.

I've been cheated on by people I loved. The pain is unimaginable, but I found that beyond some healthy analysis, looking for an ironclad reason as to why it happened -- what might explain or even excuse the betrayal -- only made it worse.

Destroying those you love is beyond justification, and any attempt made to do so -- particularly one which falls back on tired sexual stereotypes -- is an insult to those from whom you may find yourself asking forgiveness.

It's that simple -- or maybe that complicated.

Just before I moved out to L.A. to begin a new chapter in my career and my life, that Casanova reporter started dating a co-worker of ours with whom I was good friends. Whereas his past conquests had been passive, compliant and staggeringly respectful of his need for discretion, I understood something that his insurgent lust had apparently blinded him to: His new paramour would be nothing of the sort. She wouldn't behave; she wouldn't romanticize his immaturity; she wouldn't give a damn if the whole thing exploded and took an innocent wife and kid with it. She wasn't looking for love or an emotional connection and she wasn't trying to fill some hole left unattended by the lover she'd kiss when she got home.

She was doing it just to do it -- and neither she nor anyone else could tell you why.