The Top 10 Political Sex Scandals of All Time

By Steve Almond, Nerve.com. Posted April 6, 2008.

If it were up to me, there'd be a law -- make it a constitutional amendment -- forbidding the press from covering those acts performed by politicians in private and not directly related to the governance of those who elected them. This would include receiving hummers from someone other than your spouse or groping Chippendale dancers or waltzing in diapers while being sploshed by a dominatrix. For years, in fact, the media showed the good sense to ignore this stuff, which is why you never heard about the fact that JFK was fucking everything in sight. Reporters believed there were more pressing matters. Civil rights, for instance, not getting nuked -- that sort of thing.

Today, thanks to the profit lust of our media outlets, the prevailing motive in the coverage of government affairs is to fluff the reader. Which is why we're reading more about the sex lives of our political leaders than their policy. Here at Nerve, we can't help feeling disenfranchised. If everyone's in the business of smut, where does that leave us? Thankfully, we can avail ourselves of the same gimmick CNN dusts off every time they don't know what else to do: a Top 10 list. As you peruse the ensuing scandal sheet, please try to imagine a rolling TV banner reading Peen, Poon & Politix! and trimmed in patriotic colors.

10. If You Can't Beat Them, Lick a Hooker

Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia is a terrific example of just how much Republicans respect the institution of marriage. Barr doesn't just respect marriage. He defends marriage. That's why he introduced the Defense of Marriage Act: to protect marriage from homosexuals who seek to destroy it by, um, getting married. "The flames of hedonism," he warned, "the flames of narcissism, the flames of self-centered morality are licking at the very foundation of our society, the family unit." Trust Barr on the licking thing. He's an expert. He was photographed licking whipped cream off strippers at his inaugural party. His current wife was no doubt upset. But probably not as upset as his first two wives, to whom he failed to pay child support. (To his credit, Barr did pay for his second wife's abortion, though she still suspects he was cheating on her.)

9. Baby, You Make Me So Harding

Warren G. Harding (a.k.a. Warren G Unit) is the only president whose affairs led to the extortion of a major political party. To wit: his fifteen-year romance with Carrie Fulton Phillips, the wife of a friend, who the Republican National Committee reportedly paid on a monthly basis not to erupt, bimbo-style. Once in office, Harding allegedly took up with one Nan Britton, thirty years his junior. According to Britton, Harding introduced her to a small closet in the White House, where they exchanged kisses and made sweet presidential love. Britton claimed to have had an illegitimate child by Harding as well. In 1923, Harding died unexpectedly from ptomaine poisoning. Rumors ran rampant that his wife, Florence, had poisoned him.

8. Jungle Fever Down in Dixie

It was always good to know where Strom Thurmond stood on race relations. The South Carolina Republican, who died in 2003 at the age of 100, was a strict segregationist from head to toe, with the exception of his penis. His penis, it turns out, was more enlightened. When Thurmond was twenty-two, he impregnated Carrie Butler, his family's African-American maid. She was either fifteen or sixteen at the time. It remains unclear whether their liaison was consensual, but let's assume it was, because, hey, Thurmond seems like a good guy. How good? Well, he ran for President as a segregationist candidate in 1948, vociferously opposed civil-rights legislation, and remained an avowed racist throughout his forty-seven years in the Senate.

7. Spitzing the Magic Pussy

We all know the story now, chapter and verse. New York's crusading Democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, gets caught in a big-ticket prostitution sting, in part owing to laws he helped push through as attorney general. Numerous tabloid money shots ensue. According to a pimp in the prostitution ring -- and really, if you can't believe a pimp, who can you believe? -- the woman Spitzer hired out had a "magic pussy." Abracadabra! You're out of office, dude!

6. Long Dong Justice

It's not just the executive and legislative branches that get their freak on. Don't count out those horny judicial cats. Especially Clarence Thomas. As a reminder, Thomas is the only African-American Supreme Court Justice more conservative than the Ku Klux Klan. He was also, according to a law professor named Anita Hill, the kind of guy who liked to make unwanted advances toward his hot subordinates by talking up his endowment. These accusations of sexual harassment -- revealed in his 1991 confirmation hearings -- were never proven. After all, what possible motive would Thomas have to lie? Clearly, Hill was clearly a fame-hungry opportunist gunning for a slot on reality TV.

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