I’m listening to Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals
The long list of cases from which Professor Murray was able to draw leads to the following question: Given how many people have run for President this year, why aren’t there any sex scandals? Are politicians behaving differently? Politicians with something to hide not running? The public not caring anymore?
[What does the lecture cover? Professor Murray charts the changing ways in which people profit from sexual encounters with politicians. Carrie Phillips was able to get paid by the Republican Party for keeping quiet about having sex with Warren Harding. Murray points out that Megan Broussard got paid (by the media) for the opposite behavior: disclosing details about Twitter exchanges with Anthony Weiner. Rielle Hunter got an initial $1 million for keeping quiet about having sex with and getting pregnant by John Edwards, then an additional stream of child support payments. (Murray doesn’t cover this, but it seems that having a baby with a politician is more profitable than choosing a sex partner from among the high-income masses. Hunter got paid $500,000 per year initially. She could have gotten that by having sex with a man earning roughly $4 million per year in Massachusetts. However, though Edwards and his wife were pretty rich, they lived in North Carolina. Hunter also lived in North Carolina and presumably had sex with Edwards mostly in North Carolina. According to our interviewee for that state, it is tough for a plaintiff to get more than about $60,000 per year in child support revenue under North Carolina family law. And due to the fact that both the sexual intercourse and the residence were in North Carolina, it would have been tough for Hunter to obtain the jurisdiction of a state where children are more lucrative.) Murray reminds us that the FBI got a blood sample from President Clinton (“Clinton I”?) and used that to do DNA testing on Monica Lewinsky‘s dress… all paid for by us! (see also “Monica Lewinsky’s lost child support profits”) She expresses astonishment that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s dalliance with the nanny was covered up for so many years (note that, according to Professor Murray, Arnold didn’t do anything discreditable other than having the affair).]
It’s early days. Trump is going to face accusations of harassment as well as cheating, and Rubio is going to be criticized for his association with a gay porn producer. Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders don’t have to worry about sex scandal, though.
Hillary’s own sexual past has been luridly speculated about by wackos, but her complicity in covering up her husband’s sex scandals and attacking his accusers is the real “sex scandal” for her.
Trump IS a sex scandal, won’t hurt him. Rubio is a typical Florida Republican pol, owned by a big car dealer before he hit the funding lottery. Ted Cruz I don’t know; my impression is he’s terribly bent if not stone crazy.
Oh, come on, there are limits, who’d want to make whoopee with The Donald? (but then I’m neither a woman, nor one of a budding starlet type… I remember an account of some reporter’s going up to interview The Donald in his penthouse in the Trump Tower, and having the door opened by his-then second wife Marla Maples wearing a bikini. It was a hot day in New York, and maybe they were saving on the A/C, but in any case, I applaud The Donald’s sticking to his principles even at home. Obviously, what The Donald wants, The Donald gets).