Hypocrisy, Lies and Videotape

When I worked at LA Weekly in the early '80s, our demographic research showed that not only did most of our readers not have kids, they didn't even like kids. Ten years later, when we started OC Weekly, we were advised by "community leaders" that it would never fly because Orange County was much too suburban, conservative and "family values"-oriented.

But we didn't need a demographic survey to know that the suburban naysayers had their heads up their crabgrass. The massive responses to LA Weekly's phone sex advertisers from Orange County residents confirmed that Newton's law -- to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction -- applies not just to stuff like space travel, but also to human sexuality. Where there's repression, there will be an equal measure of licentiousness.

Turned out that both LA and OC Weekly did okay by endeavoring to stand for things -- like social justice and looking out for the less fortunate -- that applied whether you had 12 kids in a Costa Mesa tract home or lived like a hermit in Echo Park. (Okay, okay; we also, not necessarily proudly, made a lot of money from those phone sex ads.)

I haven't worked for either paper in years but it came as no surprise last week that OC Weekly helped break the story that led to the resignation of Orange County Republican Assemblyman Mike Duvall just hours after a videotape surfaced of him bragging in graphic detail -- during a legislative hearing! -- of his sexual encounters with female lobbyists.

Duvall is a married man with two adult children and a 100 percent voting rating from the Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative organization that calls itself a "pro-family" -- read "pro Christian" -- organization.

His innovative defense set him apart from such admitted adulterers as South Carolina Governor/space cadet Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign (who'd earlier called for the resignations of both Bill "I did not have sex with that woman" Clinton and Larry "wide stance" Craig). Duvall claimed he never did any of the things he was boasting about -- his only mistake "was engaging in inappropriate story-telling." So he's not just a sexist pig, he's a lying sexist pig.

And so the parade continues of self-righteous conservatives telling us "inappropriate stories" about their picture-perfect wives, kids and golden retrievers while sleeping around and voting for war, school prayer and censorship and against gay rights, sex education and humanity towards undocumented workers, who, the last time I checked, have families too.

Republican politicians are often caught between unbridled lust and marketing campaigns that pitch the GOP as the party of God and family. So they've had practice in developing a rationalization: Democrats -- like Clinton and John Edwards -- have illicit sex, too! In a discussion of l'affair Duvall on KOCE TV's Inside OC last week, U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore, a "pro-family" Republican from Orange County, tried to make that case. Republicans only seem to get caught more frequently because they have higher standards, he said; Democrats have no standards where sex and family loyalty are concerned, so they can't appear hypocritical. http://www.cbjonline.com/shows/InsideOC_607_ConsiderThis.wmv

When a family-values politician has sex with someone other than his presumably family-values wife, he usually starts with the notion that the world revolves around him. Thus, Mark Sanford -- who lied repeatedly about his extra-marital affair before getting caught -- thought it necessary for the public to know about his efforts to "fall back in love" with his wife even though his Argentinean mistress was his "true love."

But the pathology at work here goes beyond garden-variety narcissism. "The effect of excessive public virtue (italics mine) is an obvious psychological cover for discomfort with aspects of one's own behavior and character," George Mason University assistant professor Solon Simmons told the Christian Science Monitor. "By controlling others, the true believer attempts to heal himself and often does terrible violence along the way."

Instead of going out to have sex with women not their wives and half their ages, these guys -- and they are always guys -- might consider visiting a shrink, or at least spending some time at grandiosity.org, which bills itself as "Your Complete Narcissistic Personality Disorder Resource" and offers information and advice for ego-trippers.

There's a long tradition of skepticism where suburban morality is concerned. One of the best critiques may be David Lynch's 1986 film, Blue Velvet. It opens with an aerial view of a perfect Norman Rockwell-esque small town, and zeroes in on a homeowner watering his garden. The man collapses, and as the camera closes in, his immaculate front lawn is revealed to be a mini-jungle teeming with revolting, cannibalistic insects.

The closer we look at the self-righteous leaders of the Right, the more we see the ugliness of -- well, let's use Mike Duvall's euphemism -- inappropriate story telling.

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Comments

[AZIndependant]

Let's be honest, though. A hypocrite is a hypocrite. Unless Edwards are Clinton are vocal proponents of infidelity within marriage (which to date they have not been), then they are just as hypocritical as any other married person who is unfaithful.

The outstpoken family value politicians perhaps have some "aggravating circumstances" given all of their bluster, but the real crime is the infidelity itself. That always seems to get lost in these discussions. Everything else is a distraction from the real issue.

[Aaror]

Actually, it seems to me that there are far more stories of Republicans having illicit affairs than Dems. From McCain (cheated on his first wife with his second), Guilliani (moved his mistress into the governors mansion before his divorce was final or something...), Gingritch, et.al to the ones you actually hear about (Craig, Mark Penn, etc.).
The thing is, a Democrat having a consentual affair with one woman is big news, because Republican "family values," types scream it from the rooftops and because the News Media has a conservitive bias. When a Republican does it, there is no news because Dems play softball ("lets stick to issues") and the media buries it.
The only time a Republican affair becomes news is if it is a gay affair, or a particularly nutty and newsworthy story (Stanford). Even Stanford was given a certain amount of leeway since at least his affair was with a woman.
If republicans were held to the same standards as Democrats, there would be about 10 Republican Senators...

[JailNeoconVicts]

"They are always guys..."

Hello? Sarah Palin?

[Michael Sigman - Huffpost Blogger]

I was referring to guys preaching family values while having extra-marital affairs -- usually with much younger women -- and lying about them. You're right about Sarah Palin being a family values phony, but I haven't seen evidence that she's had any affairs.

[JailNeoconVicts]

I seem to recall reports about a lover named Brad Hanson.

[wildedge]

Republican politicians enjoyed control of a one-party government for six years, and strategic dominance in Washington for 30 years. That gave them an amount of power - and wealth - that might corrupt a saint. valueless frauds, most of them. Keep voting them out.

[TRex86]

On the left we have the luxury of not caring what consenting adults do privately with each other. It doesn't mean that we don't stray from the fold and have kids outside marriage or have homosexual lovers or whatever. It means we don't have a lot of cognitive dissonance to close. Clijnton and Edwards in fact only had to admit their philandering and they would have suffered no consequences. In the case of Clinton we would be seeing how Obama (or Hillary) continues the good work after Al Gore's second term had ended.
I can't imagine the emotional burden of ostentatious moralizing (excessive public virtue) regarding other people's personal lives. The term "family values" in fact is classic empty rhetoric, manufactured by the Republican propaganda machine. If it has any meaning we've seen it fine tuned in the case of Ass. Duvall: Family values mean it's ok to be a tasteless, boorish, boastful liar but not to have sex outside marriage. Of course, we know that said legislator was really lying about lying. Now that's a really tangled web, if not a logical paradox. It's tough to be a Republican and still have hormones.

[SirOtter]

Nicely said.

[stick458]

On the other hand, perhaps one of the greatest causes for the struggle of blacks in America has been the broken family syndrome, which perpetuates. An intact family seems to me to be a worthy "family value". If you make a kid, raise the kid.

[TRex86]

The black experience is deeply troubling. Black slaves were kidnapped in West Africa from areas that had matrilineal culture, ie, women were the source of inheritance. Men had a lesser role in those societies. Under slavery families were shattered and women were more prized than men. I suspect this is an element of family instability to this very day, however the most important issue now is the horrendous lack of employment in predonminately black communities. A 20 year old black man has the same chances of being murdered as graduating from college--and is twice as likely to do prison time. Until we change the drug laws this won't change. Let's face it, the War on Drugs and the death penalty are our the backbone of our war on minorities..

[AZIndependant]

Agree.

[been2there]

Those who cannot live up to high standards should not live in highly publicized glass houses. I grew up in Orange County and the hypocrites are thick on the ground. I would rather deal with an honest libertine--who is likelier, by the way, to listen when I say no, than a sneaking "virtuous man." There are, undoubtedly, women who behave just as badly, but since they are not loudly proclaiming their moral superiority, they don't fit the lying, cheating mold quite the same way.