We question the denouncement of Weiner, speculate about the nature of the "arrangement" or "understanding" between Huma and Anthony (and Bill and Hillary), and compare the wrongness of sexting to pornography, adultery, and prostitution:
Showing posts with label adultery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adultery. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Earlier this month, many of my readers objected to my lack of sympathy for men who, unlike women who have the right to get an abortion, find themselves dragged into fatherhood by the women they've impregnated when those women exercise their right to choose and go ahead and have those babies. I doubled down on my opinion here, on July 7th, and the comments thread there was a huge freakout, much of which you can't see now, because we did a ton of deletions. It was so bad that we ultimately had to turn off comments to stop the gush of repetitive abuse.
I hope you remember enough of that discussion to apply it to the specific context of a case in today's news:
ADDED: The above-linked article has a claim that Cowell and Lauren were trying for pregnancy, but here's an article quoting someone "close to Cowell" saying: "The pregnancy has taken him by surprise. He assumed she was using birth control... Simon thought this was a casual relationship — friends with benefits. The pregnancy was not planned. He is feeling tricked." If that's true, it makes Cowell's case exactly what we were talking about last month.
I hope you remember enough of that discussion to apply it to the specific context of a case in today's news:
Simon Cowell has been pictured for the first time following news that his married lover Lauren Silverman is expecting his baby.So here's a man who has used his great wealth and fame to acquire what is openly called a harem. All of these women were in a position to use their powers of reproduction against him, either deliberately, accidentally on purpose, or through pure oopsiness. They were playing and playing and playing with Nature's great life force, and Nature dropped a consequence.
The 53-year-old music mogul... is said to be 'freaked out' by the news he is to become a father for the first time... Cowell... has been named as a co-respondent in the divorce papers Lauren's estranged husband Andrew filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court two weeks ago, citing adultery as the reason for ending the marriage.... Cowell is likely to be called to the witness stand to reveal not only details of the alleged affair with Lauren but also details of his personal finances, estimated to be in the region of $350million....
While Cowell is said to accept that the baby, due next February, is his, the news of 36-year-old Lauren's pregnancy came as a huge shock to both Simon and his closest female friends including Sinitta and ex fiancée Mezhgan Hussainy - otherwise known as his 'harem.'...
‘In the harem hierarchy, Lauren is regarded as the fun, party girl. The other girls have all met her, they know who she is and they have been reduced to tears by this.'It's fun until it's not. And why are the other "girls" crying? Because they didn't make the big move and bind him and/or his money to them with a baby? Because he was handing out enough cash and good times that they all understood the arrangement, and Lauren broke the rules? How many abortions and attendant payoffs have there been in the harem over the years?
It is as yet unclear whether or not Cowell and Lauren will attempt to make their relationship work for the sake of their unborn child.There's a reality show for you. Divorce cranking away. The harem in tears. Cranky old bastard who said he couldn't tolerate a kid.
ADDED: The above-linked article has a claim that Cowell and Lauren were trying for pregnancy, but here's an article quoting someone "close to Cowell" saying: "The pregnancy has taken him by surprise. He assumed she was using birth control... Simon thought this was a casual relationship — friends with benefits. The pregnancy was not planned. He is feeling tricked." If that's true, it makes Cowell's case exactly what we were talking about last month.
Monday, 29 July 2013
"... that Huma is 'standing by her man' the way Hillary did with Bill, which is not what she in fact did," according to an unnamed "top state Democrat."
If Hillary is pissed off, I would think it's because she doesn't want people reminded of her old stand-by-your-man routine:
I encourage you to watch the whole thing. Watch Bill bullshit to avoid telling an outright lie, and watch Hillary nod as her man wriggles through — lip bite at 6:15 — and marvel at her delight in his equivocations — her smug smile at 6:38! At 7:02, Hillary does a little "zone of privacy" riff that should feel irksome to women's rights advocates, since it's the key phrase in the law relating to women's bodily autonomy and Hillary is using it to say don't look at the selfish, women-exploiting things my husband has done.
After that, Bill is very animated and smiley, waving his hands about, theorizing about privacy, and at some point we see his big hand resting on and weighing down Hillary's demurely clasped hands. When did his hand get there? I ask out loud and scroll back to see how he managed to plunk it there. It's just suddenly there at 8:01 after a cut to Steve Kroft's face. CBS made that cut! We weren't allowed to see him segue from expansive explaining gesture to holding the woman down. At 9:03, after another cut, Hillary says they will not say anything more, no matter how much they are pushed.
And Kroft pushes, suggesting that they have reached — to use the classic adultery-tolerating buzzwords — "an understanding" and "an arrangement." Bill's all "Wait a minute, wait a minute" — and his big mitt is back on top of Hillary's hands — "You're looking at 2 people who love each other. This is not 'an arrangement' or 'an understanding.'" And then, in a very sincere, whispery tone: "This is a marriage. That's a very different thing."
Here's where Hillary jumps in (9:38) — with a harsh, Southern-accented twang and waggling her head around — "You know, I'm not sittin' here like some little woman standin' by her man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sittin' here because I love him and I respect him... and if that's not enough for people then, heck, don't vote for him."
The soft gentle man, and the sharp modern-but-not-modern woman. That moment was the triumph of a lifetime for Hillary. It made everything happen. It got her man elected President. That's so much more than anything Huma accomplished in her balky wan press conference with Weiner. Hillary is rightly pissed.
ADDED: Meade — who's sittin' by me right now — reads the post out loud and says "Bring in the comments... I think it will be great." So go ahead. Do comments. I have to moderate them, so there may be a delay and comments must relate to the text of the post to be approved.
“The Clintons are pissed off that Weiner’s campaign is saying that Huma is just like Hillary,’’ said the source. “How dare they compare Huma with Hillary? Hillary was the first lady. Hillary was a senator. She was secretary of state.”She wasn't any of those things in 1992 when she sat by her man on "60 Minutes" and claimed to be doing something more than whatever it was Tammy Wynette was singing about in "Stand By Your Man." And what Bill had done was worse than what Weiner seems to have done. Bill had sex with other women. Weiner merely sexted. And Bill was sitting there lying about it and Hillary backed him up big time, whereas in the recent Huma-and-Anthony TV stunt, the misdeeds are admitted.
If Hillary is pissed off, I would think it's because she doesn't want people reminded of her old stand-by-your-man routine:
“Hillary didn’t know Huma would do this whole stand-by-your-man routine, and that’s one of the reasons the Clintons are distancing themselves from all this nonsense,’’ the source said.I put up the old 1992 interview in my post about Weiner yesterday, and we watched the whole 10 minutes and laughed a lot. I scoffed: "This is the first female President of the United States?!"
I encourage you to watch the whole thing. Watch Bill bullshit to avoid telling an outright lie, and watch Hillary nod as her man wriggles through — lip bite at 6:15 — and marvel at her delight in his equivocations — her smug smile at 6:38! At 7:02, Hillary does a little "zone of privacy" riff that should feel irksome to women's rights advocates, since it's the key phrase in the law relating to women's bodily autonomy and Hillary is using it to say don't look at the selfish, women-exploiting things my husband has done.
After that, Bill is very animated and smiley, waving his hands about, theorizing about privacy, and at some point we see his big hand resting on and weighing down Hillary's demurely clasped hands. When did his hand get there? I ask out loud and scroll back to see how he managed to plunk it there. It's just suddenly there at 8:01 after a cut to Steve Kroft's face. CBS made that cut! We weren't allowed to see him segue from expansive explaining gesture to holding the woman down. At 9:03, after another cut, Hillary says they will not say anything more, no matter how much they are pushed.
And Kroft pushes, suggesting that they have reached — to use the classic adultery-tolerating buzzwords — "an understanding" and "an arrangement." Bill's all "Wait a minute, wait a minute" — and his big mitt is back on top of Hillary's hands — "You're looking at 2 people who love each other. This is not 'an arrangement' or 'an understanding.'" And then, in a very sincere, whispery tone: "This is a marriage. That's a very different thing."
Here's where Hillary jumps in (9:38) — with a harsh, Southern-accented twang and waggling her head around — "You know, I'm not sittin' here like some little woman standin' by her man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sittin' here because I love him and I respect him... and if that's not enough for people then, heck, don't vote for him."
The soft gentle man, and the sharp modern-but-not-modern woman. That moment was the triumph of a lifetime for Hillary. It made everything happen. It got her man elected President. That's so much more than anything Huma accomplished in her balky wan press conference with Weiner. Hillary is rightly pissed.
ADDED: Meade — who's sittin' by me right now — reads the post out loud and says "Bring in the comments... I think it will be great." So go ahead. Do comments. I have to moderate them, so there may be a delay and comments must relate to the text of the post to be approved.
Sunday, 28 July 2013
"According to two people told of the decision, the campaign manager, Danny Kedem, no longer wished to oversee Mr. Weiner’s bid for New York mayor after a week of bruising revelations about the candidate’s latest online conduct...."
What kind of campaign manager bugs out on you right when you need him? He should be your trusty champion! So inappropriate. Defend your guy! What? Are you trying to save your career? Your career is in campaign managing, and you dropped your guy when he was down.
Unacceptable. I don't really care that what Weiner did is is also unacceptable. This is a campaign. Did James Carville and George Stephanopoulos abandon Bill Clinton in 1992 when the Gennifer Flowers story hit?
What kind of campaign manager bugs out on you right when you need him? He should be your trusty champion! So inappropriate. Defend your guy! What? Are you trying to save your career? Your career is in campaign managing, and you dropped your guy when he was down.
Unacceptable. I don't really care that what Weiner did is is also unacceptable. This is a campaign. Did James Carville and George Stephanopoulos abandon Bill Clinton in 1992 when the Gennifer Flowers story hit?
Friday, 26 July 2013
That's the question Barbara Walters asked Monica Lewinsky in 1999, I'm reading this morning as I belatedly catch up on the news that Lewinsky — once famously young — has passed through the portal into middle age and is 40.
I don't remember what her answer was, but here's something she could have said: My self-esteem was sky high. I was having sex — yes, sex, sex, sex, it sure as hell was sex — with the President of the fucking United States. How about you, Babs?
In 2008, Walters would tattle on herself in a memoir:
Self-esteem. It's a highly nuanced topic, but I will nevertheless reduce it to this simple poll.
I don't remember what her answer was, but here's something she could have said: My self-esteem was sky high. I was having sex — yes, sex, sex, sex, it sure as hell was sex — with the President of the fucking United States. How about you, Babs?
In 2008, Walters would tattle on herself in a memoir:
["Audition: A Memoir"] includes all the affairs she had – when she was married, when she was single with married men, and when she was single with men you might consider fug who happened to be powerful. Walters promoted the book by confessing to Oprah of an affair 30 years ago with married US senator Edward Brooke. Brooke’s wife passed away 13 years ago, and... an insider claims “she hated Barbara Walters till the day she died” and blamed her for their divorce.So Senator for Walters. Lewinsky had the President. But then Walters also had Alan Greenspan. She spanned Greenspan:
Self-esteem. It's a highly nuanced topic, but I will nevertheless reduce it to this simple poll.
Monday, 8 July 2013
“You betrayed your constituents. You abandoned your wife. You betrayed everybody!”
“This is about power. You just want power, man. If you want public service go volunteer somewhere!”
“Did you leave your black socks on?”
“This is what I look forward to — dealing with the public,” said Spitzer. “This is New York. You know when we go to a ballpark we heckle the pitcher who throws one bad pitch. We have a little bit of the heckler in each one of us. At a certain point it passes the line of decorum, but this is New York. This is politics. I’m game for it. I have skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”
A rhinoceros in black socks?
“This is about power. You just want power, man. If you want public service go volunteer somewhere!”
“Did you leave your black socks on?”
“This is what I look forward to — dealing with the public,” said Spitzer. “This is New York. You know when we go to a ballpark we heckle the pitcher who throws one bad pitch. We have a little bit of the heckler in each one of us. At a certain point it passes the line of decorum, but this is New York. This is politics. I’m game for it. I have skin as thick as a rhinoceros.”
A rhinoceros in black socks?
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Says the real estate broker, claiming that moving downtown in NYC is "a very sexy thing to do, especially for those people living a sedate Park Avenue lifestyle."
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