Europe claims better sex scandals
Theodore Dalrymple:
I have been meaning to say this for a few days now and this is as good a place as any to do so. I want to thank Elliot Spitzer for have the good graces and gumption to just go away. It is too bad Bill Clinton lacked those qualities. Spitzer's resignation was like a breath of fresh air in a polluted environment.
...He provides other examples in a competition I would just as soon avoid.
We in Britain are certainly familiar with political scandals of a sexual nature. In 1994, for instance, a Tory member of Parliament, the brother of a clergyman, was found hanged dressed only in women's underwear. This is the kind of thing that we expect of our politicians in Britain.
It used to be that scandals involving the Labor Party mainly concerned financial irregularities and those involving the Conservative Party were predominantly sexual. Labor politicians, being socialists who detested the rich, were avid for money, however ill-gotten. Conservatives, being moralists who lamented the passing of the old order of personal restraint, were deeply attracted to sexual vice. Now that the two parties are virtually indistinguishable, from a policy perspective, they are each financially corrupt and sexually incontinent. I suppose a Hegelian would call this a dialectical synthesis that overcame contradictions.
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I have been meaning to say this for a few days now and this is as good a place as any to do so. I want to thank Elliot Spitzer for have the good graces and gumption to just go away. It is too bad Bill Clinton lacked those qualities. Spitzer's resignation was like a breath of fresh air in a polluted environment.
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