If these politicians were not lead vocals in a chorus of moral crusaders, I would not give their sexual escapades a moment’s thought. For the unadulterated pleasure of afflicting these hypocrites, however, I don’t even mind being bedfellows with a publicity-seeking hustler like Larry Flynt.
(D.C. Madam outs Sen. David Vitter as a faithful “John”, The iPINIONS Journal, July 17, 2007)
The above states the rule that has guided my commentaries on sex scandals. I have made exceptions, however, when the hypocrisy or arrogance involved was so egregious as to shock the conscience of even a reprobate like me. Such was the case, for instance, with former Senator John Edwards – who, though not a moral crusader, posed in public as the devoted husband of a cancer-stricken wife while creeping around in private with a mistress he eventually impregnated.
Well, where exceptional behavior in this respect is concerned, that of former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger takes the cake. For it was revealed this week that he had an affair with his housekeeper, got her pregnant, and then kept their lovechild a secret from his wife for 14 years while keeping this housekeeper, mistress and mother of his lovechild (HMM) dutifully employed in his marital home.
Nevertheless, some context is required here. Specifically, it might be helpful to know that it was an open secret that Arnold was an incorrigible and unapologetic womanizer. Frankly, until now, the only thing noteworthy about his marriage was the way his spouse Maria broke with the tradition of Kennedy women by publicly defending him like a Mama Grizzly instead of just stoically standing by her man like a stepford wife.
Perhaps you recall the evasive yet indignant and self-righteous way she dismissed his alleged mistresses, as well as victims of his unwanted sexual advances, as liars when reports about Arnold’s indiscretions were threatening to derail his gubernatorial campaign.
Here, for example, is what she said during a highly publicized address before the Republican Women’s Group in Orange County, California just days before he was elected in 2003:
You can listen to all the negativity, and you can listen to people who have never met Arnold, or who met him for five seconds 30 years ago. Or you can listen to me…I wouldn’t be standing here if this man weren’t an A-plus human being. I wouldn’t be taking my time, I wouldn’t have left my job that I love, I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t believe in this man…
I have met thousands and thousands of women who have come up to me and said they have worked with him, they have worked for him, alongside (him) and he has been an extraordinary gentleman.
(CNN, May 16, 2011)
This is why I feel little sympathy for Maria. After all, she was behaving more like his chief political hack than his devoted wife when she uttered these plainly disingenuous, but fateful, words, which have now come back to slap her in the face. At least when Hillary was defending her husband she never called his accusers liars. Instead she opted for more tactful, though equally disingenuous and fateful, words about his accusers being used by a vast right-wing conspiracy to destroy her philandering husband.
But it is also worth noting that, unlike Bill, Arnold never denied having a zipper problem. In fact he admitted that, insofar as the allegations of sexual misconduct against him are concerned, “where there’s smoke there’s fire“.
Admittedly, this revelation must have been more like a nuclear bomb going off in their marriage. For it’s one thing to be just another skirt-chasing politician. But it takes infidelity to an unconscionable extreme for a politician to go out of his way to deceive and humiliate his wife the way Arnold did.
Specifically, reports are that at the very time Maria was pregnant with their youngest child, her (then-married) housekeeper was also pregnant with her and Arnold’s child. Clearly, if he had any respect for his wife, Arnold would have devised a way to get that other woman out of his marital home. (He clearly had the resources and contacts to find her another job.)
Instead, he compounded this cardinal transgression by retaining this HMM, which made an even bigger fool of Maria than she became by prostituting her good name and reputation to defend his character.
In fact, all indications are that Arnold only ended this scandalous domestic arrangement earlier this year because a spat with this HMM threatened to blow the lid off their remarkably well-kept secret. This led to her retiring (or being fired) after 20 years of “service”.
More significantly, though, Maria apparently felt that her marital home had become so defiled by this sordid affair that, instead of kicking him out, she moved out….
By the way, don’t bother trying to figure out why a rich and powerful celebrity like Arnold would risk losing everything by going after his homely housekeeper. Because I suspect he did it for the same banal and carnal reason Thomas Jefferson went after his comely slave: she was there … and he could.
Also, reports are that Arnold has provided generous child support as well as baby-mama support from day one. I just hope he does the right thing now by giving his son the Schwarzenegger name to which he is entitled – with all of the good and bad that would now come with it.There’s no gainsaying after all that “Schwarzenegger” will open many more doors in life for him than “Baena” – his mother’s name.
Anyway, there’s no question about Arnold’s betrayal being utterly reprehensible. But I suspect Maria feels as embarrassed by the way she once enabled his behavior as she does by the way he has now humiliated her.
Meanwhile, it’s rather ironic that his foray back into the movies is a starring role in one called Cry Macho that is scheduled for release this summer. Because crying is probably what macho man Arnold is doing a lot of these days in a desperate attempt to win Maria back.
The jury is still out, but I wouldn’t bet against them reconciling. After all, given the shameless way she defied reason to save his political career, it would not surprise me if she does the same to save her marriage. But, like Mel Gibson, Arnold may find that his movie fans are not quite so forgiving….
Finally, it’s an indication of how Twitter and Facebook induces users to betray their own privacy that, on the one hand, Maria reacted to this unfolding scandal by pleading for the media to leave her children alone to cope with it in private; while, on the other hand, her children reacted by spilling their guts about it online.
NOTE: Rumors abound that Arnold may have more than just this one lovechild. Sadly, given the facts surrounding this one, it would not surprise me if he’s forced to publicly acknowledge fathering more in due course.
Related commentaries:
Sen. John Edwards…
Rep. Mark Foley
Sen. Craig…
Sen. Vitter…
Gov. Eliot Spitzer…
Bishop Eddie Long…