Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm recently tweeted:
"Another guy guv admits 2 cheating on his wife. Maybe we need more women governors. Guys: keep ur pants zipped, for Pete's sake. #Arnold"
Of course Governor Granholm was referring to scandal news plaguing the house of Schwarzenegger wherein he admitted having fathered a child some thirteen or more years ago by a woman other than his wife of twenty-five years, Maria Shriver. And to add insult to injury he’s apparently kept it from Maria and all others since. In other words, he’s lived a lie for more than a decade in front of his wife, four children, and the California citizenry.
Some have suggested former Governor Granholm would not have made this comment relative to a Democrat. But I think this is unfair and sells her short. Plenty of people are fed up with male politicians’ blatant sexual infidelities demonstrating their lack of character if not also lack of wisdom, and to feel this way isn’t about partisanship.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is just the latest secret sex saga. We’ve been subjected to a running tally of these stories: Dominique Strauss-Kahn—the former IMF chief recently accused of rape, Eliot Spitzer—the former New York Governor now turned CNN anchor (I still don’t know what CNN is thinking)—cross-state-lines prostitute scandal, Mark Sanford—the former South Carolina Governor with an Argentine “soulmate,” David Patterson, John Ensign, David Vitter, James McGreevey, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, or way back, Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy. Even John McCain and Newt Gingrich get into the act if you check their record. And there are many more both present and past if you reach back even further, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, FDR.
So it may be that former Governor Granholm is correct. Maybe we do need to elect more women political leaders.
It's not to say that women are invulnerable to infidelity or so-called philandering. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in birds-n-bees to recognize that women were involved in nearly all these stories (McGreevey being one exception). But still, I'm with Governor Granholm on this one.
I’m ready to give women with character an opportunity to lead.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011
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