As Seen On The Bathroom Wall

We've all heard the saying right? Politics makes for strange bedfellows?

Well, what if we WANT those strange bedfellows?

Why is it that only politicians are allowed them?

Why is it that a Senator can have a wide stance in a public restroom? A governor can have an $80k hooker habit? A Speaker of the House can have a mistress mentality? A President can have a little fellatio in the Oral Oval Office?

Of course, I know that when Mr. Warner made that saying, he didn't exactly mean the aforementioned situations, but the question does beg to be answered, doesn't it?

I wonder if any of these individuals had been women, would the public have been so quick to forgive and forget? If it were Nancy Pelosi, rather than Newt Gingrich, who had cheated on not one wife, but two, would she be speaking on behalf of the Senate right now? What if it were Hillary Clinton, rather than John McCain, who had dumped her husband after a severe accident, and then married her lover a month after the divorce was final? Would she be able to have gotten away with that?

Politics is a very lopsided game of teeter totter. While we would like both sides to weight the same, go up and down equally, there's additional weight holding female politicians down. For example, it's hailed by conservatives when a female politician is a married mother. However, once her back is turned, the snide comments about how her place should be in the home, how she's taking jobs away from MEN, how she's the cause for the economy crashing, joblessness growing start to stream out in endless ribbons of misogynistic psychobabble. If she were single, then it'd would be a question about her sexuality, her ability to even bear children, and so on. This weighs down on the woman, more so than any physical entity could. Then you add on the weight of how other women view her. Some will hate her for being able to seemingly do it all. Others will hate her for not making a decision between motherhood and a career like they did. Her clothes, her hair, her makeup, even her jewelry will be criticized. We women can be just as harsh, just as cruel, if not more than men can in our criticism.

The sexual aspect of politics is very complicated. Male politicians are handsome, debonair, distinguished. Female politicians are usually called names rhyming with Yarpy, Witch, and Bike. Male politicians are excused for their rash decisions, the stress of the decision making process being one generic reason tossed out to fill that obligatory blank space. Female politicians are automatically "hormonal" and "emotional", incapable of any "rational" decision. Male politicians are given passes on their peccadilloes because the power can sometimes confuse them. Women politicans had better not even think about anything of the sort, because that will just prove she's the slut everyone thinks she is.

It's a double standard, to say the least, but it is the way that things currently are in this country. One day, we will see a female president in office. She might even be a mother when it happens. But, what most will want to know is if she still has sex with her husband, and she will have a husband. No lesbians in office unless she lets us watch. Her politics won't matter once she enters that big White House. Her foreign policies won't matter, her economic strategy, her concern for the GDP, or her interest in national welfare; She's only got to do one thing and one thing only to make the men in this country happy. Bring the men some beer and the remote control.

Election is over.

Time for football.