Which major economic power, the United States of America or the European Union, has the sleaziest politicians? The field is crowded, the competition intense, and some potential top-sleazers aren’t even permitted in the match because their behavior is so utterly despicable it’s more suitable for medical intervention than comparative sleaze recognition.
Here are my own remaining choices for public sleaze honors. Before doing so, however, I must offer an apology. No women made the cut.
What’s wrong with this gender, you may ask? Do they think that given the chance to serve the public, they are then obliged to behave in ways that do not undermine the policies they advocate, or shame the people who have honored them with their trust? What kind of public servants are these anyway?
I’m optimistic, however, that as more women gain political power in more places, they will catch up with their male counterparts on the sleaze front. And with that hope made clear, on with the present sleaze-off.
On the American side. We have a candidate for mayor of an East Coast city, married, who goes sexting on line using a nom de sleaze taken from a bodice ripper romance novel. A guy running to control a huge public budget who paid unseemly amounts to a prostitute, thereby undermining his creds to handle any level of money appropriately. A governor, married, who took a secret vacation to Argentina to do the hanky-panky with his mistress, then got re-elected. And a West Coast mayor who not only gropes his female staffers, but puts them in headlocks.
Yes, I know. I’m only skimming the surface of potential American pols whose sexual behavior qualifies as sleaze. But do you really want to go much below this surface? I think not. So let’s move on to this contest’s other team.
On The E.U. side. We have a former head of the Italian government, in his seventies, dyes his hair, and was just convicted of having sex with an underage prostitute, a pol who almost certainly believed her when she told him he was the best lover she’d ever had. And of course there’s the French economist and Socialist Party heavy (and I do mean heavy) who did a perp walk in the Apple on a hotel rape charge, and is currently being investigated in France for pimping.
Cast your vote with me at [email protected].
(Now available from Amazon in print and ebook formats — Michael Silverstein’s The Devil’s Dictionary Of Wall Street.)