Writes Maureen Dowd in "Trump and the Hart-less Presidency/After 30 years, Gary Hart still wonders what might have been."
I'm blogging this because I love the line "picking at a 'game plate' of elk, buffalo and quail." Somehow Hart and Dowd have found themselves at a table at this restaurant, and Hart orders the "game plate" of elk, buffalo and quail, presumably because that make him look like the guy he wants her to think he is, but then he only picks at it, because even after all these years and at his advanced age, he can't just be the person he really is.
And what a gasbag! "I could see farther ahead than anybody." You couldn't see far enough ahead to the part where the newsfolk you told to follow you around actually followed you around and discovered the tacky sex you were enjoying in contravention of your upstanding family-man image.
Here's the idiotic photograph that destroyed him:
And here's Hugh Jackman dressed up to play Gary Hart in a movie based on his ridiculous debacle:
The movie comes from the 2014 book "All the Truth Is Out" by Matt Bai, which I've read and blogged a couple times. Dowd tracks what Bai has written:
Before Hart, we had F.D.R., L.B.J. and J.F.K., who did not suffer politically for dalliances because the mostly male press corps had a bro-code and a blind eye. After Hart, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump got through frenzies about sexual transgressions by enduring the ridicule, enlisting their wives to defend them on TV, and attacking their accusers.Dowd questions Hart about whether he should have done something different. Should he have fought back, like Clinton and Trump?
But the scratchy Hart wasn’t made that way. The adultery story enhanced the sense that he was an enigma, a story line that developed when the press learned that he had changed his name from Hartpence and fudged his age by a year....
In 1998, in the midst of the Clinton-Lewinsky uproar, Hart told me that he thought America might be getting more European about pols and sex, “growing up, finding out there is not a Santa Claus.” I am not sure that’s true. We have not reached any consensus on the issue, except that most strategists know better than to publicly trash the women at the center of such scandals....Not sure... no consensus... subjective... Dowd is vague. And Hart must have been vague too, since there's no answer from him, other than the idea that "America might be getting more European," which seems laughably tone-deaf about how Americans feel and hopelessly far from understanding why people embrace Trump. Weren't Americans supposed to be prudes — so un-European?
But last year, in the midst of the #Metoo reckoning, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand criticized Al Franken after he was accused of groping and faux-groping for a joke picture, and told The Times that Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Lewinsky matter. The standards remain subjective, inconsistently applied and partisan....
Dowd began the column with an admission that she can't understand her own country:
As we fantasize about a parallel universe, where America is not a joke and our president cares about other human beings, the same questions keep swirling in our heads. What has happened to this country? Can he be stopped? When will it end? How the hell did we get here?As we fantasize... We? "We" must mean We, the People of the more European part of America.
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111 comments:
Two blowhards meet for lunch, and the picking begins.
I don’t know why I’m still surprised by liberals’ inability to do any real soul-searching. You'd think by now, after many hundreds of “how did we get here, why aren’t smart people like me listened to by the stupids?” articles, I’d give up hope that they will ever open their eyes and see what’s right in front of them. But then I remember, I’m a pollyanna. I can’t give up on anybody.
He must mean the women's vote, the cause of all fickleness.
Hart affairs never bothered me but he was an idiot democrat.
And here's Hugh Jackman dressed up to play Gary Hart
Just from the photograph, I'm kind of amazed. He might get some Oscar attention if he can pull that off. The hair, the T-shirt, the look, it's really impressive.
As we fantasize about a parallel universe, where America is not a joke and our president cares about other human beings
It would seem obvious to me that Trump does care about human beings, but not the ones Dowd think he should be caring about. And maybe her friends consider America a joke, and maybe that's why we got were we are. Perhaps her brother will be able to explain it to the "smart set" when she gives over her column to him for Thanksgiving.
1. So Donna Rice was the most expensive - and politically consequential - piece of ass in history.
2. “As we fantasize about a parallel universe, where America is not a joke and our president cares about other human beings ....” America is the greatest country in the history of the world and only an NYT idiot would disagree. And the President does care about human beings; starting with American citizens.
3, Trump has exposed the Left and media for the loons that they are.
"I had only one talent and it wasn’t traditional politics — I could see farther ahead than anybody."
How dumb is it to claim that your only talent is for backwards-looking prognostication?
"There would be no George W. Bush in the alternative-universe that I can see. This is my only talent."
I'll bet that Gary Hart would be a good palm reader.
Watch the trailer for the movie. Jackman, playing Hart, looks like he needs an infusion of antacids the whole time.
Hart's "I am so visionary" thing--he still hasn't given it up--is just like Hillary's belief that all the love and adulation was for her. It never was. No one liked her, when Bill wasn't around. Once he had the power, folks tolerated her and flattered her because that was how you got to be near Bill.
But Hart's thing--"If I had won, no GHWB, etc: Yeah, and if Senator Paul Simon hadn't looked so much like a dork, he might have beaten you. Or Dukakis would have still surged and beaten you, because you are less attractive than you think you are.
Oh, and this "buh buh sacred process shouldn't have to have makeup bullshit" is just that, bullshit. You were McGovern's campaign manager. You were a senator. You know damn good and well what the process involves.
Dowd's perspective is Technocratic. Society needs to be supervised by an educated elite. Democracy is just mob rule that will lead to ruin. But, we have to put on a facade so that the deplorables will accept our edicts. So we do the election thing, but the real rules are set behind the scenes by career bureaucrats. Politicians and the medias' job is to set the agenda and influence popular opinion towards the "correct" attitudes.
Hart orders the "game plate" of elk, buffalo and quail, presumably because that make him look like the guy he wants her to think he is
I think it's Ted Turner who's trying to bring back the buffalo by making buffalo burgers a thing.
I can see into the future, we will all be eating McBuffalo, but I don't want to get too specific in case my vision does not come to pass
he only picks at it, because even after all these years and at his advanced age, he can't just be the person he really is.
I don't actually like eating elk, buffalo, and quail, I'm actually in the mood for a quiche, but I got no quiche-vision, definitely avoid the quiche, that's not going to be a thing, I am Gary Hart.
We are very euro in Boston, thank god.
Dowd was young and fairly hot in 1988 and her panties still get a bit misty over someone like Hart. Why, oh why, did he have that bimbo in his lap? He coulda had me!
Morningstar has soy buffalo chic patties that are pretty good.
"If I was president I totally would not have put a cigar in any interns. This whole thing would have been so different. You can take that to the bank!"
"Why does he get to be the impeached one? Life is so unfair!"
Atari Democrats had one super power. They could see clearly the future that might have been. Random street people in Austin share that super power, and the gift of endlessly discussing it.
Donna Rice is way more interesting.
Make that movie, dummies!
My thoughts exactly Ron Winkleheimer.
Speak for yourself Titus, not all Boston folks are in your 'we' group.
Gary Hart's photo should be in Wikipedia on the Dunning-Kruger Effect page.
Somebody here needs to mention Monkey Business.
Hart got into that pickle because he specifically challenged the press to find something - he hit them in their professional pride. Nowadays, and prideless, they would bury it if he gave the same challenge - fellow Democrats after all.
Interesting - he said that there would have been "no Gulf War" of he were President instead of GHWB. Is that because he would have just left Saddam Hussein annex Kuwait with only a few pro-forma protests and a "you fucked up, you trusted us" towards the deposed Kuwaiti regime? Or because he thinks that Iraq wouldn't have even tried because of his personal awesomeness?
I'm leaning towards the former.
We? "We" must mean We, the People of the more European part of America.
"We" means the brunch-eating NY Female set. The Times' main audience.
Donna Rice is a big Trump supporter.
Ha! A liberal who thinks he is smarter than everybody else?
How absolutely predictable is that?
It must be me. I find nothing interesting or informative here.
I don't know why some pols with a side piece get run out of politics and others survive. Knowing that little secret informs me in no way.
"Baby, if you were just a better politician's wife, we could have made it to the White House. You definitely could have been Secretary of State one day in the future. I see it. And you wouldn't have killed anybody in Benghazi. Because I would have been there to advise you and that was so stupid. I'm not sure you would be President, though. I have this vision of a Sioux man in a wheelchair. I don't know, sometimes my visions get a little cloudy. I see a Sioux man in a wheelchair, speaking Spanish and winning Florida and eating McBuffalo on the campaign trail. Tough guy to beat."
"What I think is obvious is I have way better taste in women than that damn hillbilly. I got at least two talents: seeing into the future and picking beautiful women to share my bed. I just got to keep that second talent under wraps before I campaign in Iowa. You know how it is."
While Gary Hart is picking at his elk, buffalo, and quail, Dowd could have asked him "Where's the Beef?"
What has happened to this country?
What indeed has happened to this country? It seems to me we have record low unemployment among all races, rising wages, and reduction of war involvement around the globe.
The thing about the country being a "joke" happens whenever we have a Republican president. Maybe people need to re-evaluate whether they really are able to tolerate other people having different opinions than them, or whether they cannot.
trcosse wins the thread.
Too bad he didn't win. We would have NOT had the Obama and all the fake racism charges that came with him!!
Here's the trailer
It looks interesting to me. The whole Hart/Clinton idea that sex has nothing to do with character, in conflict with the Me Too movement and liberal abuse of women.
I expect it to be sympathetic to the man but also critical. Maybe a feminist attack on liberal men?
Blue-on-blue fights are always kind of fun to watch. I'll probably buy that ticket.
If Hart is so cosmic, he’ll know what happened to this country.
What has happened to this country? Can he be stopped? When will it end? How the hell did we get here?
If she were really interested in the answers to those questions, she would be interviewing a different set of people, for starters. This is such BS.
Shortly after the Monkey Business hoohaw, I met a couple journalists who had been at an LA political event the year before.
Gary Hart was the star or one of the stars of the evening. He spoke perfunctorily with the men, but whenever he saw a good-looking woman, nearby or across the room, his face lit up. Pretty obvious.
Around the same time, Senate interns were telling attractive newbies never to be alone in a room or an elevator with Bob Packwood, who had held office since 1969. He lasted until the Washington Post, not a paper in his home state of Oregon, broke the story in 1995.
Then we had Monica Lewinsky.
Guys like these can't "see farther ahead" than their -- well, you know.
"The standards remain subjective, inconsistently applied and partisan," says Maureen Dowd. Whose fault is that?
Poor, poor Gary Hart.
We is not them.
You know the unwashed masses that occupy 90+ percent of the area vaguely described as the USA. Those somewhat immune to TDS. Those that think the good old days were NOT about holding the black man down, but were about strong families, fair play, love of country and faith in the future.
I worked with Donna Rice's father. The whole episode was terrible for him and his wife. They published a picture of his home on the front page of the local paper and his daughter became the butt of a thousand jokes. Awful.
They made a movie about Gary Hart??
You need to be at least 40 to have any real personal recollection of who he was. So little to no audience below that age, and above it, how many are really all that motivated to shell out money to see it?
But by all means, let the Dem left promote all these dinosaurs from yesterday -- maybe we'll get the John Edwards movie next -- and emphasize how the present-day bunch are so utterly lightweight.
"we fantasize about a parallel universe, where America is not a joke and our president cares about other human beings ... What has happened to this country? Can he be stopped? When will it end? How the hell did we get here?"
..says the deluded woman, wandering lost in her delusions. You would think that the flurry of questions would be a signal – hmmm, I've completely lost the thread and I have no idea what's going on – which might lead to introspection sufficient to realize that one has no business writing newspaper columns about public affairs, but maybe Dowd's 401k isn't quite up to the task of retirement yet.
You need to be at least 40 to have any real personal recollection of who he was. So little to no audience below that age, and above it, how many are really all that motivated to shell out money to see it?
I disagree, some stories are great because you don't know much about it. I think the best stories are like that, actually.
If you already know the story, why see that movie?
So Donna Rice was the most expensive - and politically consequential - piece of ass in history.
Nope that's still Cleopatra.
Does Dowd really not understand that Trump got through his sex scandals BECAUSE she and her ilk let Bill Clinton get away with his?
Republicans deserve there share of blame for the foolishness and norm-breaking that eventually led to Trump but this one is all on Democrats. Young people may not know this and old people may like to forget but Bill Clinton was caught doing something that was almost universally understood and accepted as disqualifying. It was disqualifying by old fashioned conservative morality and then-modern feminist sexual ethics. And when Republicans caught and PROVED Bill Clinton was guilty, Democrats says "We don't care, you still don't get to win."
You can't understand why the right wing is the way it is unless you understand that they actually won the Bill Clinton argument and then the left just changed the rules.
Mike
"But by all means, let the Dem left promote all these dinosaurs from yesterday -- maybe we'll get the John Edwards movie next -- and emphasize how the present-day bunch are so utterly lightweight."
Compared to John Edwards, nobody is a lightweight.
Well, maybe AOC...
There's something idiosyncratic and utterly unpredictable about who survives and who perishes in a sex scandal. Every time I read about Gary Hart, I'm struck with the fact that Ted Kennedy got away with it,.......I'm glad that Donna Rice has weathered the storm. She seems like a nice person who caught a lot more flack than she deserved for her indiscretion. I agree with Saint Croix that a far more interesting movie could be made of her life than of Gary Hart's. i don't, however, think there's anyone in Hollywood who can understand the dynamics of someone like John Profumo or Donna Rice. They don't even think it's a story.
The flip side of the flawed hero who wants to have sex with all his admirers is…
Sarah Palin
She's the sexually attractive rock star politician who draws stadium crowds, and insane critics. She has no interest in adultery whatsoever. But people get so crazy, she decides to quit politics and be a stay-at-home mom anyway.
If you're going to make a movie about sex-and-politics, why would you continually make it from the male point of view? Weird.
Ann Althouse wins the thread.
The left wants a more European America, but with fewer European-Americans.
Ann Althouse said...
"Dowd began the column with an admission that she can't understand her own country:"
There's Dowd's problem right there. She has never understood those who aren't like her.
Re: parallel universe line.
Wasn't that sentence already used in a column, ...maybe in 2004 or 2006? Then it went into the drawer. Imagine if she tried wheeling it out in 2010 or 2012.
In The Boy who Cried Wolf 2: Electric Boogaloo, the tragedy is not that the villagers have lost a few sheep and have to go a little hungry for awhile. The tragedy is that the goddamned boy goes around not realizing the lesson, and unprepared to accept his unadmirable role in the past, and show moderation & judgement going forward. Might not even be a wolf in the second story - haven't finished watching it.
Why do the same leftists who claim to be horrified by Trump lies - lie.
"enlisting their wives to defend them on TV,"
What is Dowd talking about. HRC may have stood by her man and lead the charge against his victims, Melania did not. In fact when Giuliani claimed MT believed her husband's Stormy denial her spokespeople pushed back and said Giuliani had no idea what she thought on the topic.
As we fantasize about a parallel universe, where America is not a joke and our president cares about other human beings
Evidently Stephen King sent them a copy of The Dark Tower VII and they got ideas. At the end of that novel, Susannah, Eddie and Jake return to an alternative future where Gary Hart shook off the Monkey Business business and won.
someone said...
t there would have been "no Gulf War" of he were President instead of GHWB. Is that because he would have just left Saddam Hussein annex Kuwait with only a few pro-forma protests and a "you fucked up, you trusted us" towards the deposed Kuwaiti regime?
AND, after he let Saddam annex Kuwait, would Saddam's next step be?
annexing Saudi Arabia?
war (nuclear war?) with israel
or just continuing his war with iran, now with MUCH more money on his side?
I guess, if you think that 'peak oil' is a Good Thing, so is Gary Hart's dream
Future past I should say. I'm actually trying to recall whether or not, in the novel, Hart beat GHW Bush, or in fact ran and won against Reagan somehow. After all, it is fiction.
Jebus! Now we are being assaulted with News of Alternative Realities. Not enough, having to filter out biased adjectives in News of Current Events, and bypass News of the Future stories.
Yeah, I know it's Opinion not News, but not much difference these days.
I wonder what role cocaine played in Hart's decision making back then, in the 80's.
What drug does he prefer now? What drug suppresses your appetite and makes you nostalgic and full of yourself? Whiskey?
Probably Saddam would have invaded the kingdom, otoh it would have ended al queda.
I would have cast Kirk Douglas to play Gary Hart today. Michael can play the younger version.
Gary Hart never even got the Democrat nomination, but he still fantasizes about being President. The poor bastard thought the media would cover for him like they did for FDR and the Kennedys.
Maybe there’s a case to be made that America is becoming more European because there’s a similar amount of idealism, but less religion in the social fabric. Fewer frontiers, too. The old establishment has cratered and both parties have split apart.
The Democrat base has always contained socialists, but on the slavery issue, it allowed what I see as faculty lounge Leftist Obama to win and steer his party and the country in the activist direction. Trump is partly a response to that.
No more hawkish, pro-market Democrats like Hilary ignoring that base. Maybe no more old school religious and social conservatives able to form a moral and civic majority with the Republican base?
Could be wrong....but the Democrats will win again, and soon.
America doesn’t seem to be producing elected officials who publicly must stay married and support the troops and grow the pie like before.
Dowd should write all her political thought down. The world as she thought it could have been. I suggest Hell World for the title.
Maureen is still chugging around in the same circle, but it seems she is running out of steam. Is this what acceptance sounds like?
Dowd began the column with an admission that she can't understand her own country:
As we fantasize about a parallel universe, where America is not a joke and our president cares about other human beings, the same questions keep swirling in our heads. What has happened to this country? Can he be stopped? When will it end? How the hell did we get here?
"...and other questions arising from my ruminations on the lint in my navel, which is the source and limit of my knowledge and curiosity about the world..."
Althouse, I read these sorts of posts of yours because I take you seriously (and there's a good chance there'll be something of interest in them despite the utterly tedious subjects). But for the life of me I have never been able to figure out why you take people like Dowd at all seriously.
Before Hart, we had F.D.R., L.B.J. and J.F.K., who did not suffer politically for dalliances because the mostly male press corps had a bro-code and a blind eye.
I call BS. In 2008, the press corps was still giving a blind eye to John Edwards dalliances, while pretending to care about his wife dying of cancer. It took the National Enquire to break that story, and they were initially derided for doing so.
Now today in 2018; the press corps also doesn't care about Keith Ellison abusing women.
There is no bro-code. The is a Democrat Party loyalty code.
Hugh Jackman, seriously mate, first P.T. Barnum and now Gary Hart? You need to find yourself a better historic figure to play. They'll never give you the industry award you deserve when you keep playing people they hate because of the optics.
Gary Hart is the Buckminster Fuller of politics, he's property of the Universe.
The inability of Dowd and her ilk (not to be confused with the elk) to understand their country -- and their built-in assumption that the thing they can't understand is somehow hateful and uncaring -- continues to blow my mind well after it should have stopped doing so.
Reminds me of that British guy from the Guardian in the video Ann posted a day or two ago, interviewing conservative-leaning, Trump-supporting women in Missouri; he found it somehow discordant that they wanted to give him cake and sing when they learned it was his birthday. There was nothing discordant about it whatever. Yet he was shocked to find that they wanted to treat him with simple human kindness.
This is what makes me think this week's election will be more Republican-leaning than these great thinkers think; they just don't get it.
And I'd like to see a Venn diagram of people who think Trump's ego is wildly offensive and disqualifying, but still get hard/moist over Gary Hart's gift/curse of being able to see the future better than anyone else (but not the future where he throws it all away to have a cutie on his lap).
Say, where can a fellas get his hands on that new Maureen Dowd article?
"...if I had been elected, there would have been no gulf war."
I'll assume the lower-case "gulf war" is intentional. Gary Hart is full of himself. Now if Ted Kennedy had been elected President, things would be really sweet.
I once heard a college history professor detail a utopian future if Al Gore has "rightly" won the 2000 election. I think that future excluded 9/11/2001 as well.
[Gary & Donna on Monkey Business... ]
Donna Rice: You know what I'd like to do?
Gary Hart: What?
Donna Rice: See your future.
Gary Hart: Hey, that would be interesting for me. No one has tried to see into MY future.
You see, I can see the future for other people, so it would be sort of a...
Donna Rice: Put your arms up.
Gary Hart: This will give me a whole other perspective on this...
[Donna begins squeezing his backside]
Gary Hart: Hey, you're really trying to be accurate... Is it getting hot in here?... Wait a minute! What's happening to my special purpose?
Donna Rice: What's your special purpose?
Gary Hart: Well, when I was a kid my mom told me THAT was my special purpose! And someday I'd find out what my special purpose was!
Donna Rice: Today's the day!
[Whole boat rocking as Donna "deflowers" Gary]
Gary Hart: Hey, this is like a ride!
Nice with The Jerk, Kevin!
"As we fantasize... We? "We" must mean We, the People of the more European part of America."
Pre-Guiliani, New York elites would dismiss the crime and filth issues of NYC because they viewed NYC as the transition to Europe. A reason they hated Guiliani is because he saw NYC as a gateway to America, and ran NYC like an American city.
Dow shows the NYC elites are still smarting that Guiliani made NYC more American and less European.
"...if I had been elected, there would have been no gulf war."
So, at the time -- and in hindsight too -- he thinks that Saddaam Hussein should be alive and in power, not only in Iraq, but Kuwait as well? That the world would have been better off then and safer now if that was what had happened?
The Fort is a Colorado institution. Younger brother of one of my best friends is nearing 60. He worked there bussing tables in high school. On maybe my 55th, maybe 60th, I went there with parents and kid. That had a stupid Indian headdress that they put on you for them to sing Happy Birthday to You. First place I ever ate a list of game, starting with bison. Have also had there: deer, elk, rattle snake, quail.
The Fort is located on the south end of Morrison, almost to US 285, right where it enters the foothills. Which means that it has enough elevation to have a good view looking east towards Denver. It is kinda modeled like a frontier fur trading fort (supposedly, maybe, Bent's Fort). It is stucco that matches the red rocks of the area (it is several miles south of the Red Rocks natural amphitheater, on the other side of Morrison). You walk through the gates into an interior courtyard, that has an Indian TP set up inside. Guys working there are kinda dressed as fur trappers, or some such. Bear Creek runs from Evergreen down a windy canyon to Morrison. Last I knew, Gary Hartless lived about 3/4 of the way up to Evergreen, up a side canyon towards the north. Probably been there at least since Monkey Buisness. Maybe even to when he was one of our Senators. At least from when he was the saner of our two liberal whack job Senators (which wasn't hard, when his junior Senator was Timmy Wirthless). Until they moved, my kid rode a school bus down Bear Creek Canyon every day, and had friends on the bus who were neighbors of Hartpence. Downtown Morrison, along Bear Creek, used to be filled with biker bars and the like. So, it should be no surprise that he hangs out at the Fort a bit, it being, over the decades, the closest nice restaurant to where he lives to the east.
While Gary Hart is picking at his elk, buffalo, and quail, Dowd could have asked him "Where's the Beef?"
Good one!
I was not a fan of wild game until I visited France - delicious. Sadly my favorite restaurant Le Francais outside Chicago, has gone out of business. Their wild game plate was magnificent.
The only meat the the French don't seem to cook particularly well is beef.
Chris N, 8:39:
"Could be wrong....but the Democrats will win again, and soon."
I'm trying to remember which Tory, asked whether Labour would win soon, said essentially, Of course they will. We live in a multiparty system, political fortunes change quickly. Our job is to hang on until they are sane.
Wise perspective, but what happens when the act of hanging on drives the opposition further around the bend?
One can never overestimate the ego of a politician. Even a failed one.
William,
The profumo/rice comparison does not work for several reasons:
The better analogy would be hart/profumo or rice/keeler.
But that doesn't work either. The scandal was only marginally about sex.
The real scandal was that profumo's squeeze,Christine keeler was working for the kgb.
Profumo had the grace to resign and spend the next 40 years working in a soup kitchen and refusing all interviews.
Mark steun wrote a beautiful obituary.
https://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2013/07/17/mark-steyn-on-the-profumoaffair-fifty-years-ago/
Solid class, both profumo and steyn
John Henry
Gahrie said..."So Donna Rice was the most expensive - and politically consequential - piece of ass in history.
Nope that's still Cleopatra."
I'll see your Cleopatra and raise you a Helen of Troy
I'll see your Cleopatra and raise you a Helen of Troy
I've got Ann Boleyn showing.
(eaglebeak)
Does Dowd really not understand that Trump got through his sex scandals BECAUSE she and her ilk let Bill Clinton get away with his?
Donald Trump got through his sex scandals because they were part of his entertainment value, always had been, back to the late '80s (that is, years before Clinton had his White House contretemps).
Donald and Ivana and Marla Maples and all that were all over the front pages of the New York Post and New York Daily News when the elder Bush was President.
Except for the people actually involved (like the Trump children), it was good old-fashioned salacious fun.
So by the time 2016 rolled around, Trump was to a great extent inoculated against sex scandals.
Plus, he was never a self-righteous, sanctimonious idiot like Hart, telling the press to follow him around ...
AA makes the best point: If Hart had such a fabulous ability to see into the future, why did he make THAT stupid mistake?
I remember reading a short alternate history story about Gary Hart becoming President if the scandal hadn’t happened. It ends with Hillary working in the White House, catching him doing something in the Oval Office and planning to use it against him for Bill’s benefit.
The previous discussion of world historical pieces of ass shows a regrettable sexist bias. To the list of Helen, Cleopatra, and Anne Boleyn, I would add the name of Grigory Potemkin. There was a guy who leveraged his sexual magnetism into a position of power and influence that changed the course of history.......Some credit should be given to Catherine the Great. Throughout her life she shrewdly chose lovers that advanced not only her interests but the interests of Russia. It's no big feat for an absolute ruler to find an illicit sex partner, but to find a sex partner who advances not just your interests but those of your country is something that should be noted and celebrated,
Does Dowd really not understand that Trump got through his sex scandals BECAUSE she and her ilk let Bill Clinton get away with his?
What sex scandals?? I here some accusations, all denied by Trump, and no evidence to corroborate any the gossip.
I haven't thought about Gary Hart in 25+ years- not once. Good to see that he hasn't changed a bit so that I don't have to think about him again. What a twit.
I remember as a teenage coming home really stoned and taking a left-over steak out of the refrigerator to reheat.
As soon as I took the first bite, I detected something was very different about this meat. My fevered, mind-altered imagination took over.
"This must be venison or something!"
I couldn't finish it not knowing for sure exactly what beast's flesh I was consuming.
Mind you, we never had any kind of game in the house, ever. But I convinced myself this had to be some exotic meat because it wasn't the unseasoned, over cooked steak we always had in my home growing up.
Turned out, probably for the first time, somebody had seasoned it with teriyaki sauce.
Dho!
Queen Victoria was committed to respectability.. There's absolutely no reason to believe that she and Disraeli ever consummated their flirtation, except for maybe that one time at Balmoral--and anyway that was oral sex and doesn't really count. Still, it should be noted that Disraeli used his powers of flattery and charm to influence the Queen's decisions. To Anne Boleyn and Walter Raleigh we should add the name of Benjamin Disraeli.
We still haven't found the beef, but at least we've found some Gary Hart Elk meat.
There' no reason to believe Hart would've beaten Bush in 1988. If Hart had been a truly great politician he would've overcome the Rice scandal and won in 1992.
IRC, he challenged the Press to find him in extra-Martial affair and that led to Rice. If he'd just stay'd quiet, it might not have mattered.
And lumping FDR in with JFK in the horndog sweepstakes is a little unfair. FDR has several very discreet extra-martial affairs. Plus, he was married to Eleanor.
Gary Hart--The Great White Dope.
Maureen Dowd writes the saddest words of thought or pen--the world that might have been.
Here's an alternate history:
Hart wins in 1988 - then because of the 1991 recession loses to Bob Bole in 1992.
M. Dowd still alive? Amazing. She seems so 1990s.
Remember Edwards, the wife with cancer, and the mistress?
Now that's European
(eaglebeak)
Iowan2 asked:
What sex scandals?? I here some accusations, all denied by Trump, and no evidence to corroborate any the gossip.
The biggie was the revelation way back when that Trump was cheating on first wife Ivana with girlfriend (mistress) Marla Maples and the wild circumstances of Ivana's discovery of it--all of them on the slopes of Aspen, Donald, Ivana, and Marla--and Trump basically telling at least one interviewer that if he hadn't gotten caught he would've kept on with both of them indefinitely, etc.
And front-page screaming headlines about prowess in bed and who was getting how many zillions in alimony, etc.
As I said, it had a high degree of entertainment value, but in order to enjoy it you had to forget that these were actual human beings caught up in it. Whenever you remembered that they were people, it was sort of wrenching.
Should've stayed with his birth name. Hartpence: that's a Presidential ticket unto itself! My impression is that Hart and Kerry are Western and Eastern versions of the same type: tall, good hair, "Presidential" senators, who speak in pompous generalities, and (from personal experience) have no clue about the complexities of the legislation they sponsor much less the business environment they are attempting to regulate with such legislation.
After my (limited) experience in relating to a few senators on legislation my clients were affected by, I concluded that no Senator of either party should ever be entrusted with Presidential power. Obama did nothing to disabuse me of that conclusion.
Did Dowd question him on what the ramifications and consequences of NOT getting Saddam out of Kuwait would've been?
mockturtle said...
One can never overestimate the ego of a politician. Even a failed one.
So true.
Donna Rice is way more interesting.
Yes. Absolutely.
Donna Rice is a big Trump supporter.
Only the mildest of surprises there.
We’ve come a long way, baby!
In all fairness to Donna Rice - if it hasn't been mentioned yet - both she and Hart have always insisted their relationship was not sexual.
"the mostly male press corps had a bro-code and a blind eye"
Correction: the mostly Dem male press corps had a Dem bro-code and a blind eye.
If I had gone into politics as a young man, and if I'd been successful, and if I'd been a Democrat, and if I'd run for President in 1988 and if I'd won...everything would be different today. So it's my fault the world is what it is. Mea culpa.
Fortunately, I had the foresight to see that, as an introvert, a lifetime spent in public, meeting and greeting strangers all day every day, and sitting in endless, interminable political meetings would have a preview of HELL. So I didn't go into politics.
European elites are supposed to embody aristocratic refinement (with a touch of decadence), while American elites embody republican virtue (with a touch of naiveté). But this hasn't been true for many years. It's idiotic corruption all the way now, among US, French, and British elites.
What’s up with all these films? The baby boomer ode to themselves?
William asserts: Still, it should be noted that Disraeli used his powers of flattery and charm to influence the Queen's decisions.
And what PM did not?
Saddam thought the U.S. had given him a green light to invade Kuwait, according to Wikipedia.
Given those same circumstances, I wonder why Hart thinks the response would have been any different with him in the Oval Office. After all, Bush didn't make the decision, but the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.
Ah, the arrogance of politicians who think they would have one except for that one small thing (and how the press goes along.) The Rice story wasn't the only negative press on Hart. Moreover, Hart had so many ex-mistresses that any Democrat opponent, let alone a Republican one, would have had a field day.
Ultimately, Bush won with 426 to Dukakis's 111 electoral votes. Even if Hart had twice the votes, he would have lost in a landslide. (And Hart would have been pinned down by his debt problem, so I doubt he would have done better than Dukakis.)
Past was prologue, Saddam felt the kingdom as well as Kuwait owed him for fighting Iran. Now he didn't feel any obligation to the US and the incident with the stark proved.
Hart was the anti American naif, don't take my word for it, sid Blumenthal who held his trapper keeper; felt that way. Of course he phrased as speaking truth to power.
Technically hart is a silent generation, just like his idol Warren Beatty, interesting detailbeatty was older than the character he was supposed to play Howard Hughes in the 50s by 20 years.
Gary Hart is a damn fool showing his arrogance trying to make himself out to be more relevant than he really is or ever was. Narcissistic blowhard.
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