Most Awkward Press Conference Announcing an Affair -- South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. The Governor is unavailable -- he's on a hiking trip. Well, actually we don't know where he is and he's missing. Actually, he's in Argentina with his "soul mate" who is not his wife. Whoops. Argentina is pretty close to the Appalachian Trail, right? Did anyone else see this press conference? It was the most rambling, awkward admission of an affair I've ever heard. He starts out talking about hiking trips he took in high school and somehow connects the Appalachian Trail to how he cheated on his wife. What? You almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost. If you didn't see this one live, take a minute and check it out now. It's rambling but really entertaining in a train-wreck sort of way. He makes an effort at the beginning to not talk about the affair but in the end he gets choked up talking about his feelings for the mistress. Wow. Where's a PR firm when you need one?
Quantity Over Quality Award -- Tiger Woods. When the media has to number your flings in the double (and some assert triple) digits, you're probably going for quantity over quality.
I Take Back My Guilty Plea Award -- Idaho Senator Larry Craig. The lawyer in me loves this one. So let's get this straight. You attend college and receive a bachelor's degree. You serve 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. You then serve 16 years as a U.S. Senator. You are arrested for lewd conduct in an airport bathroom and accused of soliciting an undercover policeman. You sign your guilty plea and mail it to the court along with your fine, then later claim that you are not gay and that you should not have pleaded guilty since you were not soliciting anyone. Your attorneys file a motion to withdraw the guilty plea, arguing that it "was not knowing and intelligent and therefore was in violation of his constitutional rights." Thankfully, a judge and later the Minnesota Court of Appeals uphold the initial guilty plea. It blows my mind that an educated U.S. Senator would be so flustered and naive to think that signing a plea and mailing the fine would make the whole thing go away. And then when he realizes that it's not going to go away, to try to argue that basically he was stupid and didn't understand the legal document he was signing and now he wants to take the whole thing back. He wanted a Life Do-Over, I guess. Don't we all. Airport bathroom hijinks aside, I don't think I would want a Senator representing my state and voting on important issues who claims to not understand a legal document that he himself signed. I don't want the two Senators I have now, but that's another issue for another blog.
The Hypocrite Award -- New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Is this a true story or is it a Lifetime made-for-tv movie? A high-profile politician, expensive call girls, $80,000 in payments to prostitutes, federal wiretapping, bribe money, money laundering. This isn't your average garden variety adultery. This guy wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. The kicker is that Gov. Spitzer is a lawyer and was the New York State Attorney General before he become governor and had previously prosecuted several prostitution rings, using the same type of evidence that was used to bring down the prostitution ring that he was involved with.
A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – U.S. Representatives Chris Lee and Anthony Weiner.
Did they send shirtless and/or pantless photos of themselves to various women over the Internet? Yes. Were they married? Yes. Did they get caught? Yes. It’s not that the photos themselves were so racy, it’s just that doing something like that makes you question their intelligence, leading to the question of what kind of judgment are you using when fulfilling your Congressional duties if you don’t know that photos sent on the internet can be forwarded to other people and the media. Did they just want to get caught? I thought sexting was mainly a problem for high school kids, but I guess I was wrong. He says he's classy but somehow I don't think Lee is a classy guy. Possibly fit and fun, but not classy.
Did they send shirtless and/or pantless photos of themselves to various women over the Internet? Yes. Were they married? Yes. Did they get caught? Yes. It’s not that the photos themselves were so racy, it’s just that doing something like that makes you question their intelligence, leading to the question of what kind of judgment are you using when fulfilling your Congressional duties if you don’t know that photos sent on the internet can be forwarded to other people and the media. Did they just want to get caught? I thought sexting was mainly a problem for high school kids, but I guess I was wrong. He says he's classy but somehow I don't think Lee is a classy guy. Possibly fit and fun, but not classy.And my personal favorite . . . Astronauts in Love (with Diapers) – NASA Astronaut Lisa Nowak.
Lisa Nowak was a married mother of three and a NASA astronaut. In 2006, she flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a mission specialist in robotics and operated the robotic arm of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. NASA terminated her assignment in March 2007 and she received an “other than honorable" discharge from the Navy in 2010. Want to know why? Oh, a little incident involving her boyfriend William Oefelein (also a NASA astronaut) and her boyfriend’s new girlfriend (a U.S. Air Force Captain). About six months after her Space Shuttle flight, Nowak packs her car with some key supplies like a wig, trench coat, and other disguise materials, gloves, a knife, pepper spray, and black plastic bags, hops in her car and drives nonstop from Houston to the Orlando Airport to confront/kidnap/murder? her rival. She reportedly used adult diapers so she could drive the 900 miles without stopping to pee. That’s astronaut training for you. Luckily, the Air Force Captain was able to get away and Nowak was caught before completing her plan. Her astronaut boyfriend had tried to break up with her and was seeing the other woman and I guess Nowak just couldn’t accept it. Who is doing the psychological evaluations at NASA? What would have happened if she and the astronaut boyfriend had been flying a mission together in space and she had found out about the other woman while on board the space shuttle? What kind of damage can you do with a giant robotic arm? Come on, Lisa. You were an astronaut. How could you let a doomed love affair with a man make you go from the photo on the left to the one on the right?
I will end this posting with a quote attributed to Robin Williams: "See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." That doesn't explain the whole Astronauts in Love thing, but it would account for the others on my list I guess. Feel free to comment and add more of your favorites to my list.
