Politicians are increasingly seving up their most intimate relationships for public inspection, either for money or the spin value: the ins and outs, so to speak, of the Sarkozy-Brunis’ married lubriciousness are regular fare in the print media, David Cameron is laying his family life bare-ish in online video (did those poor bloody kids get any say in the matter?) and this week, noted Catholic hypocrite Cherie Blair has been rubbing her contraceptive arrangements in our faces. Enough.
I really don’t need to think about those those two rictus-grinned hypocrites copulating in the dark or even in the feeble light of a thrifty royal 40 watt bulb. I really don’t need to think about it at all. No.
But exposing all to the media is a growing trend and now a Minnesota governor has joined the throng by using his his marriage to a sports-fan as radio comedy material:
“I have a wife who genuinely loves to fish. I mean, she will take the lead and ask me to go out fishing, and joyfully comes here,” he told radio station WCCO. “She loves football, she’ll go to hockey games and, I jokingly say, ‘Now, if I could only get her to have sex with me.’”
Cue mortified dead air. I wouldn’t want to have been him when he finally summoned up the courage to go home.
But really, how far are politicians willing to go with this? How much further can you go than into your contraceptive arrangements? When we will see the first webcam over the marital bed?
It’s one thing having your private life exposed by a prying media, but what if you invite them in for the purposes of advancing your own career? The Blairs and Sarkozys I submit are special cases, being as both halves of each couple are equally voraciously publicicity-hungry, so no harm done there except to themselves.
I suppose too there’s something to be said for the argument that a public person should be completely public and their life an open book. But there are other people in these relationships besides politicians – and I should think that they may feel somewhat less positive about the exposure of the inner workings of their marriages.
