How Republican serial monogamists seek to make us their accessories

Clark Coleman writes:

Still catching up on recent posts, like the Limbaugh 4th wedding.

I was reminded of your earlier posts about Giuliani and Gingrich. As you described it, both of them had to parade their nth wives in front of our faces, and force us to accept them, even though we had accepted their previous wives and thus were implicitly being asked to divorce ourselves mentally from their previous wives. Wickedness loves company. We all have to divorce their ex-wives and embrace their new wives, in order to grant these men the public approval that they obviously seek for their “private” decisions.

UPDATE: Here is the comment of mine that Mr. Coleman is referencing, from an August 2007 entry, “The Third Wife Question”:

Well this really comes out in Giuliani’s case and Newt Gingrich’s. In the 1990s when Gingrich was the effective leader of the House Repubicans and then House Speaker, so often when he was speaking to some group, he would say, “Marianne this,” and “Marianne that,” referring to his then (second) wife. Even at the time, I thought it was a bit excessive. Why was he telling us about his wife? And now, without any embarassment, he constantly mentions “Callista this,” and “Callista that,” referring to his present (third) wife with whom he began an adulterous relationship in 1999 leading to his divorce from his second wife the same year. When he makes his continual references to “Callista,” does he think that we’ve all forgotten the formerly constantly mentioned Marianne? Couldn’t he at least have the decency not to be mentioning his third wife to us all the time, thus implicitly requiring us to approve of his marital history? But people like Gingrich and Giuliani are without shame.

In former times, political leaders did not speak publicly about their families, or did so only rarely. That would have been considered an intrusion of the personal into the public. That’s the way it ought to be. But now politicians not only keep proudly telling us about their wives, they keep proudly telling us about their third wives, who caused their divorce from their second wives.

First, I have to say: that’s not bad. Second, have we ever seen a mainstream or establishment conservative even notice this behavior on Gingrich’s part, let alone criticize it? Further evidence of how today’s “conservatives” inhabit the liberal/libertarian culture as the fish inhabit the sea.

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Laura Wood writes:

You called Limbaugh “a serial monogamist.” I think it’s better to think of someone like that as a serial polygamist.

LA replies:

I don’t understand. What do you mean by “serial polygamist,” in, say, the case of Limbaugh?

Laura replies:

You’re always married to the people you were married to, whatever the legal finepoints.

LA replies:

A good answer. Very interesting.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 21, 2010 12:27 AM | Send