Three stories:
o "Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously, using a secret Battery Park City apartment for the passionate liaisons, the New York Daily News has learned."
That story ran in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal.
Kerik said questions regarding his employment of a former nanny would make the confirmation process messy when he declined President Bush’s nomination as Homeland Security chief in a Friday call to the White House.
o Elsewhere, columnist David Broder wrote about increasing polarization of politics, in the course of which he mentioned Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston, former House Republican leaders.
o Finally, the New York Times said that Rudolph Guliani, who pushed Kerik’s nomination, may have lost some White House influence because Kerik crashed and burned.
Test: What do Kerik, Gingrich, Livingston and Guliani have in common, besides being Republican?
You got it – if the Daily News is accurate, they are all GOP adulterers.
To that list, please add Rep. Henry Hyde, the anti-abortion activist. (Remember when Hyde excused his long-term affair – he was in his 40s - as a "youthful indiscretion?")
But here is my point – why is Republican adultery not as serious as the Democrats’ version?
Bill Clinton’s trespasses are everywhere, all the time, in newspapers and on "TV news." (Admittedly, he was Prez.) Not so Guliani’s or Gingrich’s or Hyde’s. (Livingston lives in relative obscurity these days as a lobbyist.)
Why don’t Democrats attack Republican immorality the way Republicans go after Democrats?
And why doesn’t the press find GOP adultery as fascinating as it does the Democratic kind?
PS I think the world is off its axis. Kerik, a Republican? Once upon a time, his Falstaffian appetite for life would have identified him as a Democrat.