Vito joins the no-shame game
26th May 2010
Read it.
Fossella’s swift resurrection is a departure from the old playbook and a template for the new politics of sex scandals, a model coming predictably from New York and California. For all but the grossest sins (see Edwards, John) and weirdest public conduct (see Sanford, Mark), apologies are passé, retirement is for suckers, and chutzpah is the new contrition.
Bill Clinton was the test case for brazen survival, but more recent instances come with less baggage: Arnold Schwarzenegger brushed aside campaign allegations of sexual harassment like so many hostile robots in “Terminator,” Sen. David Vitter stayed in Congress after being caught paying prostitutes, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom weathered the ugly publicity over an affair with a top aide’s wife to emerge as the leading candidate for lieutenant governor, and Eliot Spitzer was rewarded for high-profile sins with a guest-hosting gig on MSNBC.
“We are living in an age when a recluse is just somebody who doesn’t have a sex tape on the Internet,” said Eric Dezenhall, a Washington corporate crisis manager. “Shocking us is an impossibility. Shame is a silly fetish, and chutzpah pays a bigger dividend than discretion.”
And this guy was a Republican, which just goes to show you that you can’t depend on labels.