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Is cheating on your wife a GOP secret handshake?

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made waves Friday when the Washington Post reported his having lamented his inability to seduce (not his choice of verb) an named married women.

Related: Trump issues video apology, closes with attack on Clinton

The conversation took place in 2005, several months after marrying his third wife, Melania.

While married to first wife Ivana, Trump carried on a public affair with Marla Maples, who would become his second wife.

Trump has made adultery a talking point in this campaign by highlighting claims about former president Bill Clinton.

[#NSFW]

 

From Politico:

The audio represents an extraordinary level of vulgarity — Democrats quickly condemned Trump for casually joking about sexual assault — even for a candidate who seized the Republican nomination through his proud embrace of political incorrectness.

 

1998 impeachment

It’s been almost 20 years since Republicans in the House of Representatives charged Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice related to his relationships with Monica Lewinsky and Paul Jones.

And what’s their track record on keeping zippers zipped?

Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich (R-GA)
The speaker of the House is second in line of succession to the presidency, following the vice president. As speaker, Gingrich led impeachment charges against President Clinton. Gingirch was engaged in his own affair at the time, and it was not his first. Gingirch has admitted to cheating on both his first and second wives. Like Trump, he is on wife number three.

Speaker of the House elect, Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA)
Shortly after the November 1998 elections Gingrich resigned; his heir apparent was Livingston. However, in December, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt reported that Livingston had been involved in four extramarital affairs. “I just wanted to expose hypocrisy,” Flynt said in an interview. Livingston acknowledged the affairs.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Henry Hyde (R-IL)
Impeachment proceedings were managed by the Judiciary Committee. From 1965 to 1969, Hyde had an affair with Cherie Snodgrass. He ended the affair after Mrs. Hyde found out about it from Mr. Snodgrass. Salon published the story in September 1998, and Hyde conceded its truth.

Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-IN)
Burton was one of the Republicans who “grilled” then-President Clinton during the impeachment hearings. Burton confessed to an extramarital affair after it was made public that he had a son out of wedlock. Yet he had a “100-percent rating from the Christian Coalition for voting its positions on key issues.”

U.S Solicitor General and independent counsel Ken Starr (R)
The Starr Report, released in September 1998, “led to an accusation that Clinton had lied under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky and ultimately to a House vote to impeach.”

Earlier this year, Starr resigned his position as president and chancellor of Baylor University in the wake of a sexual assault scandal involving the Baylor football team. He would later resign from the law school. Football coach Art Briles was fired after an investigation “found the university administration and football program failed to” act on sexual assault incidents involving multiple football players. Baylor, located in central Texas, is the nation’s largest Baptist university.

Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA)
Barr, 49, “[led] the charge to impeach” Clinton and “championed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.” Like Gingrich and Trump, in 1998 he was on his third marriage.

Fast forward to the more “modern” GOP

 

Certainly, Republicans have no monopoly on loose zippers, as Anthony Weiner (D-NY), NY Governor Eliot Spitzer, and former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards illustrate.

 
[#ironyAlert]

 

But as a general statement, Democrats don’t run on a platform that preaches morality.

The 2016 GOP platform positions marriage and the “American family” as “the foundation of civil society” and insists that “the loss of faith and family life leads to greater dependence upon government.” The GOP platform extols “traditional marriage” where children are “raised in a two-parent household.” What, then, of adultery and serial monogamy … and children raised with multiple mothers and fathers due to divorce?

Hypocrisy, thy name is the GOP if you don’t follow Rep. Jason Chaffetz:

 

Chaffetz has been joined by U.S Representative Mike Lee (R-UT) as well as Utah Governor Gary Herbert (R).

 

Update: Tweets in response to Trump’s meltdown

 

Related: Trump issues video apology, closes with attack on Clinton

Featured photo: PixaBay.

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