re: #36 Targetpractice

That’s where we are as a society, but not where we are in terms of politics. When a Republican man is found to have been screwing around behind his wife’s back, protocol is she stands there on stage with a blank face while he tearfully asks for her forgiveness, which she’s expected to give without fail. Meanwhile, if a Democrat man is found to have cheated on his wife, then his political career is immediately deemed over. She’s expected to leave him and if she chooses to work through it, it’s viewed as being purely politics and she’s somehow failed as a “strong woman” by failing to kick his ass to the curb.

From the GOP side, it’s playing to perceptions… they see themselves as the party of “good christian family values”, so of course they’re going to forgive and work it out. They see Democrats at feminists in the “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” archetype, so of course she’s failed if she doesn’t leave him. Personally, I think making political hay out of anyone’s infidelities (with very few exceptions, like Petraeus possibly divulging classified information to a mistress) is punching below the belt, but I occasionally have a conscious, which is why I’d probably not make a very good politician.