I think it\’s an interesting reflection on politics today when the choice in a major election is between a drunken, possibly alcoholic, philanderer and a philanderer.
I\’ve nothing at all against booze, excessive consumption of such, extra-marital legovers nor even illegitimate children. All add enormously to the gaiety and variety of life and no society with even the slightest claim to being liberal or free would say different.
But it is an interesting insight into the characters of those who rise to the top in politics, isn\’t it?
I suspect that you’re referring to a race, somewhere in the Third World, between The Newt and The Bike. Do we know that The Bike avoids tax while writing hypocritical twaddle about avoiding tax?
Is it possible that The Bike gets genially drunk whereas The Newt gets offensively drunk? I think we should be told.
Is it not obvious? Being a philanderer, they practice screwing as many people personally as they can, so they know how to screw all of us when they get in.
Was it PJ O’Rourke who said that he trusts philanderers and drunks more with the levers of power than the straight and narrow? As I recall, his theory was that people tend to stick to one vice, and so sex hounds weren’t as likely to embezzle, nor drunks succumb to megalomania.
Yeah, Castro and Mao were well known celibates.
Seriously, what? Adultery adds to the gaiety of life? You think everybody is really happy and has a good chuckle when someone is found out? Haha! I knew you must be getting it somewhere else! He didn’t get his blond hair from me!
Seriously, WTF, dude.
Is the percentage of philanderers and drunks higher in politicians than in the population at large? Or are the weaknesses of politicians simply more likely to be exposed? I speak as a discreet adulterer and drunk…
And what does it show about those who do not rise to the top? Something missing?
I have to say my vote would normally be for the drunken philanderer, but if it turned out he was an unreconstructed Stalinist with a penchant for anti-Semitic comments and sucking up to Islamist nut jobs, I might have to support the sober f**ker.
john malpas – “And what does it show about those who do not rise to the top? Something missing?”
Politics requires a certain degree of moral flexibility. It requires you to be able to sell out your previous principles and friends if that is what an opinion poll tells you.
Cheating requires that you are able to read the mood of the room, tell a pretty girl whatever lies she wants to hear, and live a dishonest charade with your wife and family – people who love you.
I would have thought it is obvious why repeat philanderers do so well in politics. And what the majority of the population lacks.
Being able to sustain those lies while trolleyed does evidence a certain je ne sais quoi.
Yeltsin, he was drunk. And possibly the most incompetent democratically elected leader of a major nation in my lifetime.
Aren’t they both pissheads?
Not sure the lives of the Roman emperors support the theory that the powerful stick to one vice…
I don’t know about PJ O’Rourke, but Julian Barnes wrote