Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards — all powerful men. All cheated on their wives. The unfolding of former CIA chief David Petraeus’ illustrious career made Chris Jansing ask the question yet again, ” What’s up with these guys?”
Constance White, editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, noted that despite a piling up of scandals, they just keep coming. “They never learn and that’s why we care,” she said. “It seems to be part and parcel of lives these days. Guys misbehaving.”
But the involvement of the top spy of the country takes this scandal to another level. More magazine editor Lesley Seymour agreed that it was “time to grow up guys.”
“Al Qaeda didn’t need a dirty bomb, it needed a sex bomb,” she added. “What was to stop one of our enemies to send in some cute little cutie pie.”
It is worth noting why relatively few powerful women get caught up in scandals like this. Huffington Post columnist Lisa Belkin wrote:
“Is sex so fundamentally different for each gender that men see it as exerting their influence, while women somehow succumb to it? Have we simply not reached the point where there are enough women in positions of power, a critical mass that will make cheating an equal opportunity perk of office — men do this because they can, and women don’t because they can’t…yet?”
“When you talk to the male politicians, they got into the business because it was going to get the girls,” Seymour added. “When you talk to women politicians they are usually in there to change the world.”
Aparna Zalani