Conservative Babylon

Claims to fame: OB/GYN; former researcher of sexually transmitted diseases at the Centers for Disease Control; Bush II appointee to FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee; former president of Infectious Disease Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology; member, Physician Resource Council, Focus on the Family; member, Physician Resource Council, Christian Medical and Dental Society; hardcore evangelist, social conservative, stem cell research opponent; “abstinence-only” nut; anti-choice “extremist to the point of being delusional“; adulterer; divorcé; alleged rapist

Moral apex: Women across America would probably say it’s his crusade to drag women’s health choices back into the Dark Ages; one particular woman — his ex-wife, Linda — says it was his habit of repeatedly raping her anally while she slept.

But first…

• He is called by God to… do whatever it is he wants to do.

• There is a War on Christianity — and he — a victim of religious persecution himself — will save you from it.

• Birth control is verboten.

• You can pray the pain away.

See:

“Dr. Hager’s Family Values“
Ayelish McGarvey, The Nation, May 11, 2005

“Memo May Have Swayed Plan B Ruling“
Washington Post, May 12, 2005

“Dr. David Hager: Lunatic, Extremist, Rapist, Bush’s Favorite Gynecologist, and the Man Who Killed ‘Plan B’“
Lean Left, May 12, 2005

“Linda Carruth Davis/”Dr.” Hager Fallout“
Liberal Serving, May 23, 2005

“Women’s panel at FDA may be getting religion“
Maureen Dowd, October 12, 2002

• Women simply are not equal to men.

• But a wife who prostitutes herself isn’t a whore:

By the 1980s, according to Davis [his ex-wife], Hager was pressuring her to let him videotape and photograph them having sex. She consented, and eventually she even let Hager pay her for sex that she wouldn’t have otherwise engaged in–for example, $2,000 for oral sex…

The Nation

• All you need to do to stop an extramarital affair in its tracks is just visualize Jesus.

However…

Eventually, reports The Nation, Hager had an affair (”with a Bible-study classmate who was a friend of Davis’s”), and Davis had a one-night stand of her own.

Why Hager’s appointment to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee matters: Time explained why at length — while Liberal Serving summed it up in a single sentence:

Remember, Hager’s an ob-gyn specialist… influencing national women’s health policy.”

Or, as Davis told The Nation:

Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. “He would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to have anal sex with you; I can’t feel the difference,’” Davis recalls incredulously. “And I would say, ‘Well then, you’re in the wrong business.’”

Or, as Mitch Connor muses:

[H]ow did the man get and keep a medical license? … Hager’s response was, “I missed,” defacto claiming that he had raped her, but his penis missed the vagina and instead entered her anally. …

[L]et’s not forget that Dr. Hager is a gynecologist, which begs the question, how often does he miss? “I’m sorry. It seems your fetus has been replaced by a piece of poop. Oh, wait. I’m sorry. I missed. Your fetus is fine.”

How this troglodyte won a spot on the FDA advisory panel: First, this is one of those appointments Congress doesn’t have to confirm; Little George can appoint anybody he wants. Second — and to no one’s surprise:

Hager was chosen for the post by FDA senior associate commissioner Linda Arey Skladany, a former drug-industry lobbyist with longstanding ties to the Bush family. … Despite pressure from inside the FDA to make the appointment temporary, sources say, Skladany has insisted that Hager get a full four-year term.

Jesus and the FDA
Time, October 5, 2002

About the alleged rapes:

Hager was married to Linda Carruth Davis from 1970 to 2002, when she divorced him, citing “sexual misconduct.”

Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. … “[I]t was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible.”

The Nation

Davis says she wasn’t going to bring up the ugly business out of respect for their three grown children, but when Hager used the pulpit at Asbury College to talk about their divorce, all bets were off.

How a man manages to rape his wife while she’s asleep: Davis suffered from narcolepsy.

Memorable quotes:

“May I begin by telling you that no one who has written about me, my credentials or my beliefs has interviewed me. Any information you have read is rumor or innuendo.”

— W. David Hager
Quoted by Nancy Cain
Confirmed by Snopes

…despite this:

As for David Hager, after repeated attempts to interview him for this story, we finally spoke for nearly half an hour in early April. That conversation was off the record. “My official comment is that I decline to comment,” he said.

Ayelish McGarvey
Dr. Hager’s Family Values
The Nation
May 11, 2005

“selfish” and “sinful”

W. David Hager
Pronouncement on men who rape their wives
As Jesus Cared for Women:
Restoring Women Then and Now
(1998)

Memorable observations:

Now, some people will ask, “why did she put up with it?” Some will see the fact that this went on for seven years, that no charges were filed, that it took that long for her to fiile for divorce, as evidence for at least the “possibility” that she is lying. After all, some will say, “women do lie sometimes, you know.”

Yeah. Women do sometimes lie. Linda Davis “lied,” or at least supported her husband’s lies, for years—including during the divorce proceedings. Why did she do so? Well, let’s try to bracket off our automatic tendency to be suspicious of women, especially when they are critical of men, and listen to what she says now.

. . .

According to the Nation, “fears of poverty, isolation and damnation were enough to keep Davis from seeking a divorce.” “She had no money of her own and few marketable skills.”

That’s why women “put up with” abuse. That’s why the “lie.” Because they love their children—even when the children judge them harshly. Because they are economically vulnerable. Because their friends and families tell them, “well, you’ve made your bed, anad now you have to lie in it.” Because strangers read what they say and don’t believe them. Because they believe that divorce is a sin. Because they don’t know that marital rape is rape.

Because men like Hager have power, a lot of it, and use that power to discredit women under the guise of protecting us, and under the guise of religion.

Bitch Ph.D.
May 12, 2005

Augusto Lopez-Claros, [World Economic Forum] Chief Economist said in a recent report, “The education of girls is probably the most important catalyst for change in society.” But the US seems to be doing everything in its power to undermine women and girls. Only the briefest scan of news from south of the border shows abstinence-only programs, to pharmacists refusing to prescribe birth control bills, to the appointment of serial rapist W. David Hager to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.

Dorothy Woodend
The Tyee
May 20, 2005

Further restrictions on mifepristone are constantly being proposed, and birth control technology development in general is perenially slowed by right-wing opposition. David Hager is the linchpin of religious-extremist obstructionism on these issues – he was appointed for that purpose, and has been granted secret and unprecedented influence on them far beyond his authority as a member of an advisory panel. And the results are significant: Plan B is less easily available than it could be for every woman in America, and in practice unavailable for many of them at the time they need it, because of this violent, misogynistic, perverted lunatic.

Dr. David Hager: Lunatic, Extremist, Rapist, Bush’s Favorite Gynecologist, and the Man Who Killed “Plan B”
Lean Left
May 12, 2005

Allowing women greater access to emergency contraception could cut the unintended pregnancy rate in half and drastically reduce the number of abortions performed in this nation. These sound like goals that everyone can agree on, Democrat and Republican alike. Yet the FDA caved to right-wing ideologues and denied women over the counter access to emergency contraception.

Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY)
Heads Should Roll at FDA

…a tragedy for American women and a dark stain on the reputation of an evidence-based agency like the FDA.

— Vivian M. Dickerson
President, American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists
on Hager’s backdoor macchinations
to ban over-the-counter sales of Plan B

Hager’s advice for women to read scripture as a cure for postpartum depression reminds me of how the Christian right wing tries to help homosexuals pray the gay away. Now, I’m not saying Hager is a closeted homosexual. Let me make that clear. Hager is a rapist, not a homosexual. (God forbid.) I imagine that if he was accused of being gay he would vehemently deny the charge. In Hager’s book, gays are an abomination unto God. (So say-ith the Lord) But, for the record, Hager has yet to contradict his wife’s account of their marriage.

I also find it remarkable that Christians like Dr. Hager turn to prayer in an effort to fix a problem with their own behavior. Free-will be damned! I can’t help but wonder how often this kind of thing goes on in the Christian community. It’s obvious that many Christians use Jesus to subjugate women, but how many good Christian wives are repeatedly raped by their husbands? What would Jesus do? According to Dr. Hager, Jesus would rape is wife. And why not? According to Dr. Hager, women are the basis for all sin and they must be punished accordingly.

— Mitch Connor
The king is dead, long live the king!
Basket of Puppies
August 8, 2007

Many will see this as an example of hypocrisy — that Hager preached one thing publicly and practiced another — but I believe that this would be an error. Hager’s private and public behavior strike me as completely consistent and it only seems hypocritical because people don’t fully appreciate the horrible implications of his public positions.

. . .

In Hager’s world, women are to be subordinate to men. His opposition to contraception is part of his public stance on this — women who can control their reproductive processes can be independent of men. His treatment of his wife was a private expression of this — she, being the woman, was morally obliged to service him in whatever way he saw fit and when she refused, he apparently thought he had the authority to force her. Both the public and private expressions of this attitude are consistent with each other and they are the logical outgrowth of the Christian Right’s attitude towards women. …

Denying a women’s right to say “no” to sex is entirely consistent with denying a women’s right to say “no” to pregnancy or childbirth. Both stem from the attitude that women, women’s bodies, and in particular women’s sexuality, must be controlled by men rather than by women themselves. This is an attitude prevalent throughout the Christian Right and is thus one of the reasons why the Christian Right must be opposed as an enemy of morality, modernity, and civilization.

— Austin Cline
Dr. Hager’s Family Values &
the Christian Right’s War on Women

Suggested Bible reading for Dr. Hager:

But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:

For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

— Deuteronomy 22: 26-27

Claims to fame: U.S. Senator, 1978 – ; Senate Armed Services Committee chairman; adulterer; damned fool

Moral apex: Dumped first wife Catherine Mellon (she of the ultra-right-wing and obscenely wealthy Mellon-Scaife clan) — from whom he won a $7 million divorce settlement — for Elizabeth Taylor. Married Liz in ‘76; separated in ‘81; divorced in ‘82.

No fool like an old fool: Any moron knows that marrying Liz means a quick induction into the Hall of Ex-Mr. Taylors. (Warner was husband number 7 out of 8… so far.)

What Liz said about Warner on the Larry King show: “I adore him.” Of course, she’s also on record as saying she “adores” wearing gems, and Michael Jackson, among other hobbies, so you can take it to mean she at least thinks more highly of Warner than she does of spawn-of-Satan Eddie Fisher. (Still, she told Larry, the two great loves of her life were Richard Burton and Michael Todd.)

Memorable quote:

“Bob, I knew what to do, I just didn’t know how to make it interesting.”

— In response to Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), who asked:
“What was it like to be married to Elizabeth Taylor?”

It figures: If super-pro-gay Liz had any influence on Warner, it was marginal at best; while he’s been known to meet with Log Cabin Republicans (the gay Uncle Toms of the GOP), his record on all civil-rights issues (from LGBT rights to women’s to other minorities’) has been positively abysmal. He’s so anti-gay, he’s even against prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

Stacked odds & double standards: The “family values” party has no quibble with a twice-divorced Hollywood husband (remember how Peter LaBarbera used Jack Ryan’s marriage to actress Jeri as an example of Ryan’s “immorality”?).

BUT: If you’re a woman with a clean record, and you’ve accused a man of sexually inappropriate behavior, you haven’t got a chance: In 2001, The Southern Political Report called 73-year-old Warner “a solid favorite for reelection” in 2002. Noted SPR: “So far, his only potential opponent is retired General Claudia Kennedy. But Kennedy — who made the front pages when she accused a fellow Army officer of sexual harassment — has not made it official. If she runs, she would be a long shot.”

That’s three-star Lieutenant-General Claudia Kennedy — until her retirement, the U.S. Army’s highest-ranking female officer, who filed charges against Major-General Larry Smith over a 1996 incident in which Smith made unwanted sexual advances toward her.

Note that SPC and other RW sources conveniently omitted the fact that Kennedy won the suit in 2000. Noooooo, can’t let readers know there was any merit to her charges; gotta make the folks believe she’s just another one of these damned hysterical feminazis!

Guess a three-times-married old Republican beats a three-star Democratic general (and a female, unmarried one! gasp!) any day.

Memorable observation:

“…Sen. John Warner, of Virginia, has been married and divorced twice and now is going to marry for the third time. He has already ruined the lives of two families and now he is going to ruin the life of a third wife. Yet he is going to protect the institution of marriage so that he can continue his serial polygamy with the blessing of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the other states of the country.

“The U.S. Senate is chock full of white rich old men who have enjoyed the benefits of serial polygamy under the marriage laws of the United States not to mention their extra-marital affairs where they have occurred. For a group of men in the Senate to protect the institution of marriage and family values is a primary example of hypocrisy and fraud perpetuated on the citizens of the United States by a group of elected representatives who cannot and do not set a example of protection the institution of marriage in their own personal lives. They want the rest of us to do as they say and not as they do. Give me a break.”

— Dr. Joseph H. Quintano
Letter to Cavalier Daily, October 17, 2003

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Warner:

This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

— 1 Timothy 3:1-2

Claims to fame: New York State Chief Judge; high-profile Republican with big political aspirations; adulterer; stalker

Moral apex: Had longterm affair while he was married. She broke up with him. He started stalking her, threatening her, and once even sent a condom inside a greeting card to her 14-year-old daughter. When he threatened to kidnap the girl, Mom called the FBI; they tapped her phone, and nailed him.

The twist: She didn’t realize her stalker was Wachtler until he was arrested; he had been using a device to mask his voice over the phone.

Twinkie defense: Depression, addiction to amphetamines, and “causal toxicity.”

The end: He pleaded guilty to a number of different charges, including extortion, and was sentenced to 11 months, which he started serving in 1993.

Aftermath: Wrote a book, After the Madness: A Judge’s Own Prison Memoir. Critics said it was amazing how a book about life on the inside could be so dull.

Fun fact: Wachtler and his mistress were step-cousins by marriage.

Memorable quote:

“There will always be those who will refuse to accept the fact that a person can function in what appears to be a normal fashion in his or her job, and still suffer from a mental disorder.”

— After the Madness: A Judge’s Own Prison Memoir

Suggested New Testament reading for Mr. Wachtler:

Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.

— Matthew 17:15

Claims to fame: Former chief of staff for virulently anti-gay (and racist) Virginia Sen. George Allen; former executive director, National Republican Senatorial Committee; former head, Republican Presidential Task Force; former lots-of-things deeply involved with setting party policy; closet homo

Moral apex: Was instrumental in getting Republicans re-elected across the country — at a time when the party was making the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (later renamed the Marriage Protection Act) its number-one wedge issue.

Outed: By Mike Rogers in 2004.

What happened next: Timmons “declined comment.”

Where he is now: Last we heard, he was a “senior vice president” and “spokesman” for the National Association of Manufacturers — in other words, a corporate lobbyist. (And you didn’t think he could sink any lower!)

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Timmons:

Frowardness* is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.

— Proverbs 6:14

Claims to fame: U.S. Senator; anti-gay, segregationist paleocon; adulterer; philanderer

Moral apex: No one moment stands out; too many to count. Nickname says all.

Nickname: The Sperminator.

Fun factoid: Long rumored to have fathered a child out of wedlock. A black child — which wouldn’t make a bit of difference, were Thurmond not a segregationist.

Fun fact: The rumor was true. Her name is Essie Mae Washington, who, at age 78, came out of the closet only after Thurmond died in 2003, explaining: “I was sensitive about his well-being, his career and his family. I never wanted to do anything to harm him. But my children deserved to know where they came from.”

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Thurmond:

For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; they flatter with their tongue.

— Psalm 5:9

Claims to fame: United States Supreme Court Justice; Bush I’s Token nominee to replace retiring SCJ Thurgood Marshall

Bottom line: We still believe Anita.

Sage advice: If Justice Thomas offers you a Coke, tell him you’re not thirsty.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Thomas:

A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.

— Proverbs 19:5

Claims to fame: High-profile televangelist; Muslim-basher; potential gay-killer; masochist; john; crybaby

Pinnacle of righteousness: In 1986, exposed extramarital affair of fellow Assemblies of God preacher Marvin Gorman; Gorman was subsequently defrocked.

Tongues-O’-Fire Moment: Fueled by his success at destroying Gorman, Swaggart then turned his attention to Jim Bakker of the PTL (a.k.a. Praise the Lord, a.k.a. People That Love) TV ministry, telling Assemblies of God stories (which were true) about Bakker cheating on his heavily-made-up wife Tammy Faye. Bakker was, Swaggart told Larry King in 1987, a “cancer that needed to be excised from the body of Christ.”

Karmic Comeback: With nothing to lose, Marvin Gorman sent a private dick to trail Swaggart…

Punch line: …who was nailing hookers in cheap motels.

Moral apex: When confronted by Assemblies of God and suspended from the ministry for one year, Swaggart went on TV and bawled his eyes out, begging his flock for forgiveness — without specifying exactly what sort of “moral failure” he was guilty of.

Divine justice: Swaggart’s viewership — and donations — plummeted, and his ministry never recovered.

Sealing the deal: In 1989, in two separate issues of Penthouse magazine, two different hookers detailed their encounters with Swaggart; one said he wanted to be whipped with a riding crop, and the other said he wanted to have sex with her nine-year-old daughter.

No Fool Like an Old Fool moment: In 1991, Swaggart was arrested by police in Indio, California, after picking up a local streetwalker.

Takes One to Know One moment: In 2002, Swaggart called the Prophet Muhammad a “sex deviant” and “pervert.” (And, for the record, he called for the deportation of all foreign-born Muslim students from the U.S., as well as profiling of all airline passengers “with a diaper on their head and a fan belt around their waist.”)

Memorable quotes:

I get amazed. I can’t look at it but about ten seconds, at these politicians dancing around this, dancing around this — I’m trying to find a correct name for it — this utter, absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry.

[Laughs.]

And I’m gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died.

Case anybody doesn’t know, God calls it an abomination. It’s an abomination. It’s an abomination! These ridiculous, utterly absurd district attorneys and judges and state congress. “Well, we don’t know.” They oughta — they oughta — they oughta have to marry a pig and live with them forever.

I’m not knocking the poor homosexual, I’m not. They need salvation just like anybody else. I’m knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers. And I thank God that President Bush has stated we need a Constitutional amendment that says that marriage is between a man and a woman. All right!

— September 12, 2004

It’s a humorous statement that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t lie to God — it’s ridiculous. If it’s an insult, I certainly didn’t think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology.

— Back-handed “apology” for the previous remark
September 22, 2004

Fun fact: Swaggart is a first cousin to wildly-successful singing hellraisers Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Swaggart:

Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.

— Deuteronomy 9:8

Claims to fame: 2006 Republican candidate for Wisconsin secretary of state; football groupie

Moral apex: We can’t decide between her shagging the Green Bay Packers, or bragging about her sexual exploits in her 2004 memoir, Green Bay Love Stories and Other Affairs.

Not, mind you, that we actually care who this big-haired, blonde, ex-cocktail waitress bedded — but we find it highly ironic that she received such a warm welcome (and even endorsements) from Republican leaders all across the Cheese State.

It’s amazing how the party of “moral values” is so quick to dismiss sexual promiscuity in one of its own. Typical is this comment to CNN by Rick Wiley, executive director of the state Republican Party: “Everyone has a past out there.”

What we think: We think the “lady” doth protest too much when it comes to denying — and denying and denying — that her campaign is nothing more than a promotional gimmick for her book.

“Someone accused me once of using the political campaign to promote my book. Not hardly!” she writes (perhaps ignorant of the irony in the phrase “not hardly”) in her blog — and just a few sentences later, urges supporters to buy her book.

One clue: Her resumé lists her as the current owner of S.M.S. Corporation, which “Develops and implements ongoing sales/marketing promotions of self-published book, including statewide public speaking.”

Uh-huh.

Honestly, this woman cannot be for real. But we give her credit for being one hell of a marketeer!

Memorable quotes:

The football players of the 1950s and ’60s were every bit as “HOT” as the men of the present day, if not more so. Remember, the ’60s was the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius” and some women … were thrilled to experience this brave, new freedom, and celebrate our sexuality … and the football players loved it!

. . .

[T]here are two things football players think about all the time … FOOTBALL AND SEX … and seldom in that order.

— Green Bay Love Stories and Other Affairs

Life-long passion for, and friendship with, Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers

— Bio/resumé

So I’ve had a busy week, my friends! I guess it’s called 15 minutes of fame.

— Blog, October 16, 2006

Memorable observations:

If the book is to be believed, the Packers did a lot of their scoring off the field, and Sullivan got her share of playing time.

— Candidate touts sex with Packers in campaign
CNN, October 10, 2006

In football terms, one might say this is either a case of illegal procedure or too many men on the field.

— BuzzFlash, October 11, 2006

Suggested Bible reading for Ms. Sullivan’s Republican supporters (because Ms. Sullivan, while a sly self-promoter, can’t be accused of hypocrisy):

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

— Matthew 15:7-8

Claims to fame: Multimillionaire; 2004 Republican candidate for Illinois U.S. Senate race; divorcé; pervert

Punishment in this life: He doesn’t get to sleep with ex-wife anymore — blonde hottie Jeri Ryan (”Star Trek: Voyager”; “Boston Public”), who now lives alone with their young son.

Saving grace: Ryan isn’t the worst of the lot, by far; he’s more progressive than most, particularly on gay rights. “If you are taking care of your family, being nice to your neighbors and working hard, I’m for you. Under our constitution, under our God, everybody should be treated the same way,” he told Eriz Zorn in the Chicago Tribune. (Jeri is even more pro-gay; she made her first appearance at the GLAAD Awards not long before she and Ryan split.) Thus, we have hope that one day Mr. Ryan may see the light and abandon the Greedy Old Party.

Why we could almost actually like him: Anybody who gets slammed by the Radical Religious Right for the most vacuous reason is okay in our book. And Jack got slammed, big-time, by “family values” zealots “waiting for a full explanation” about his financial backing of Jeri’s 1997 movie Men Cry Bullets, decried as “racy” by detractors (even though Jeri doesn’t do anything even remotely “racy” in the flick). Family Institute head Peter LaBarbera told the Chicago Daily Herald, “This is a spousal nightmare … He had a Hollywood wife. And we all know where Hollywood is today.” (Yeah, Pete, we all know where Hollywood is today — in the 21st century, while you and your ilk are stuck in the 1600s, still burning witches.)

Why we could never really like him: Jeri says Jack forced her to go to sex parties and “perform.”

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Ryan:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

— Song of Solomon 8:6

Claim to fame: Damned fool

Moral apex: Married father of seven swore that the several hundred long-distance phonecalls made to female aide in 1986-87 — and charged to his House credit card — were not evidence of a romantic relationship.

Consequence: Voters rolled eyes, clucked tongues, voted Democratic.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Stangeland:

Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.

— Proverbs 6:25

Claims to fame: Republican lobbyist; Washington socialite; closet homosexual; rent-boy john; pimp

Moral apex: See Franklin Credit Union Child-Sex Ring Scandal, then go read the fascinating story in Ms. Magazine:

Consider the case of Craig Spence, a behind-the-scenes Republican powerbroker in Washington. In June 1989, the Washington Times published a story that sent shockwaves rippling across Capitol Hill. It seemed that Spence had been deeply involved with a callboy ring that supplied young boys, some of them very young boys, to the elite of both political parties, as well as to visiting dignitaries. …

Ms. Magazine
December, 1988

Claims to fame: Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure

Moral apex: Shacked up with a transportation-industry lobbyist, put her on his payroll, and voted any way she wanted him to.

Or, as the Congressional Accountability Project put it in 2000: “Shuster is Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. Ann Eppard is a top transportation lobbyist in Washington. She has built a lucrative and successful lobbying practice lobbying Chairman Shuster on matters pending before his Committee. Chairman Shuster employs Eppard as his campaign fundraiser, apparently raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds that have been diverted to personal use by both Shuster and Eppard. Shuster has paid Eppard a $3,000 monthly fee for these fundraising and campaign services. Shuster has regularly lodged with Eppard at her Virginia home, according to a report by the CBS News program 60 Minutes. The Congressional Accountability Project’s 1996 complaint showed that several of Eppard’s clients received generous favors and benefits from Chairman Shuster and the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. Since then, mounting evidence strongly suggests that the Shuster-Eppard partnership is an influence-peddling scheme that is readily exploited by corporations and special interests to gain influence in Congress. Many news reports show that Eppard has been remarkably successful in obtaining legislative favors and benefits from Chairman Shuster on behalf of her clients.”

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Shuster:

Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

— Proverbs 1:31-32

Claims to fame: Conservative “family values” Republican; Bushbot; adulterer; accused batterer

Moral apex: Could be his five-year extramarital affair with a woman 35 years his junior — or could be the time (in 2004) he was giving her a backrub in his apartment and allegedly started choking her.

What happened next: Well, the affair ended. Oh, and 29-year-old bit-o’-fluff Cynthia Ore called 911 on her 64-year-old sugar daddy.

Twinkie defense: Sherwood says the whole story was a “political smear.”

Which doesn’t explain why: Sherwood gave her $5.5 million in a “confidential settlement.”

Fun fact: At the time of the “backrub” incident, Sherwood had been married 33 years; he and his wife have three daughters.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Sherwood:

Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.

— Matthew 15:7-8

Claims to fame: Republican Governor of California; alleged adulterer; alleged statutory rapist; fornicator; serial groper; misogynist; pot smoker; steroid abuser; Nazi apologist; megalomaniac; bad actor

Moral apex: There isn’t just one. So let’s start with the minor offenses, and work our way up to the big ones…

Drugs:

There’s the pot-smoking…

“Yes, grass and hash — no hard drugs. But the point is that I do what I feel like doing. I’m not on a health kick.”

— Arnold to Oui magazine, 1977

And there’s the anabolic-steroid abuse…

“I will not speak for my colleagues, but I will write of my experience with tissue-building drugs. Yes, I have used them, but no, they didn’t make me what I am. Anabolic steroids were helpful to me in maintaining muscle size while on a strict diet in preparation for a contest. I did not use them for muscle growth, but rather for muscle maintenance when cutting up.”

— “Arnold: Developing a Mr Universe Physique,” 1977

Groping: As of late 2003, 15 women (Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2003)

And then there’s Anna Richardson, and Joy Browne, and Rhonda Miller, and Colette Brooks, and… Oh, heavens, we could write a book on Arnold’s unwelcome advances. But you get the idea.

Gang orgies:

“Bodybuilders party a lot, and once in Gold’s — the gym in Venice, California, where all the top guys train — there was a black girl who came out naked. Everybody jumped on her and took her upstairs, where we all got together… but not everybody, just the guys who can fuck in front of other guys. Not everybody can do that. Some think that they don’t have a big-enough cock, so they can’t get a hard-on.”

— Arnold to Oui magazine, 1977

Alleged adultery and alleged statutory rape:

We don’t want to get sued, so go Google Arnold along with “Gigi Goyette,” and make up your own mind.

Posing nude in gay men’s (and other) magazines:

“It all went well until I asked a question that obviously upset him. It was about a nude picture of him a colleague said she had seen in a German magazine. Arnold, his smile now gone, said he was devoted to making bodybuilding a legitimate sport and would never cheapen its, or his, image by posing in the nude. Chastened, I asked a few more quick questions, then ended the interview. …

“Back at the paper, I told my colleague that Schwarzenegger denied the nude photo story. To prove she was telling the truth, she brought the magazine to work the next day. There he was, smiling that gap-toothed smile, full-frontally naked as a jaybird. It wasn’t a snapshot, but what looked like a studio pose. It was later published in America in Spy Magazine — along with Arnold’s jokey explanation of it.”

— Patrick MacDonald, recalling a
1976 interview with Schwarzenegger
Seattle Union Record, November 22, 2000

What’s worse than drug use, sexual assault, and general misogyny:

Being a Nazi apologist. One of Arnold’s close, personal friends was the late Kurt Waldheim — and Arnold doesn’t deny the fact, nor apologize for it.

Not only did Schwarzenegger invite Waldheim to his wedding (to Kennedy-turncoat Maria Shriver), but, according to Wendy Leigh’s biography, toasted Waldheim at the event, expressing nothing less than love for the notorious Jew-killer (who had the sense not to attend, but who did send a wedding gift):

“My friends don’t want me to mention Kurt’s name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt.”

Partial redemption: Schwarzenegger is not an anti-Semite; he’s made substantial donations and raised funds for various Holocaust memorials and projects.

But: That doesn’t excuse his relationship with Waldheim.

But: Rabbi Marvin Hier (in the Jerusalem Post) absolved Arnold: “He probably did not have any clue as to the seriousness of the allegations against Waldheim at that time.”

But: We don’t buy that, because 1) Ignorance is no excuse; and 2) a native Austrian whose own father was a Nazi stormtrooper can’t be that ignorant.

Oh, guess we forgot to mention: Arnold’s father, Gustav, was a Nazi stormtrooper… and voluntarily, at that (AP, August 24, 2003)

What’s worse than being friends with Kurt Waldheim:

Admiring Adolf Hitler. Arnold may abhor everything Hitler stood for, but he did express “admiration” for the man, according to Pumping Iron director George Butler, in 1975 outtakes from the documentary:

“I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power.

“I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it. … The feeling like Kennedy had, you know, to speak to maybe 50,000 people at one time and having them cheer, or like Hitler in the Nuremberg Stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being in total agreement with whatever you say.”

We’re not saying any of this makes Arnold a Nazi — by all accounts, he is quite anti-Hitler, and deeply embarrassed by his father’s Nazism. We’re saying that he can’t possibly be so stupid as to have never understood the gravity of his friend Kurt Waldheim’s war crimes, nor the consequences of expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler… nor his own unequivocable desire for Hitler-like control over the masses:

“I didn’t think about money. I thought about the fame, about just being the greatest. I was dreaming about being some dictator of a country or some savior like Jesus…”

— To Rolling Stone, June 3, 1976

“I was always dreaming about very powerful people, dictators and things like that. I was just always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years, or even, like Jesus, be for thousands of years remembered.”

— In the documentary Pumping Iron (1977)

“My relationship to power and authority is that I’m all for it. … People need somebody to watch over them… Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.”

— To US News and World Report, 1990

As European historian Martin Lee said to Amy Goodman in 2003, “For Schwarzenegger to have made [the wedding toast to Kurt Waldheim] at that time after these revelations surfaced is really quite shocking. It shows, at the very least, insensitivity to the victims of Nazism and anti-Semitism. … One way or another the point is not that Schwarzenegger is a Nazi, the point is that it raises character issues that he’s not qualified to be in public office.”

Perverse injustice: He was still elected governor of California in 2003.

What’s even more perverse: Exit polls indicate that 44% of Arnold’s supporters were women.

Other memorable quotes from Arnold:

“I can look at a chick who’s a little out of shape and if she turns me on, I won’t hesitate to date her. If she’s a good fuck, she can weigh 150 pounds, I don’t care.”

— To Oui magazine, 1977

“At the Mr. Olympia contest in 1972, we had girls backstage giving head, then all of us went out and I won.”

— ibid.

“Men shouldn’t feel like fags just because they want to have nice-looking bodies…. Recently I posed for a gay magazine, which caused much comment. But it doesn’t bother me. Gay people are fighting the same kind of stereotyping that bodybuilders are: People have certain misconceptions about them just as they do about us. Well, I have absolutely no hang-ups about the fag business…”

— ibid.

“I like them with black hair, with brown hair, with red hair, with big breasts, with little breasts, with a big ass, with a little ass.”

— In the documentary Pumping Iron (1977)

“Neither my mother nor Maria is allowed to go out with me in pants.”

— To Playboy, 1988

“Eating isn’t cheating.”

— On the subject of oral sex,
to Premiere magazine, 2001

“No one that has been around me would believe that a woman would be complaining about me holding her.”

— To the Weekly Standard, 2002

“As we were rehearsing, I saw this toilet bowl. How many times do you get away with this — to take a woman, grab her upside down and bury her face in a toilet bowl? I wanted to have something floating in there.”

— Referring to a scene in Terminator 3,
to Entertainment Weekly, 2003

“Obviously, I’ve made statements that were ludicrous and crazy and outrageous and all those things, because that’s the way I always was.”

— August, 2003

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no memory of any of the articles I did 20 or 30 years ago.”

— The following day, at a press conference

“When you see a blonde with great tits and a great ass, you say to yourself, ‘Hey, she must be stupid or must have nothing else to offer’, which maybe is the case many times. But then again there is the one that is as smart as her breasts look, great as her face looks, beautiful as her whole body looks gorgeous, you know, so people are shocked.”

— To Esquire Magazine, 2003

“Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets, and I have done things that were not right, which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I have offended people. And to those people that I have offended I want to say to them, I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize because this is not what I’m trying to do.”

— October 2, 2003

Memorable observations:

“All his liabilities won’t matter if he needs just 21 percent of the vote. There are going to be enough Californians who don’t care about the dope and the women.”

— Political analyst Bruce Cain, August, 2003

“Arnold has acknowledged that at times his behavior, while good-natured, could be rowdy and bawdy. He has apologized to those who felt offended. Arnold has stated, when he began his campaign, that he did not live his life under the expectation that he would someday be governor.”

— Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh, October 5, 2003

“What a world. Voters have elected a serial groper to be governor of California. And women helped put him there. …

“Whatever were they thinking? That the devil made him do it? That all men are dogs and can’t help themselves?”

— Mary Jo Melone, St. Petersburg Times, October 12, 2003

Divine justice: None yet, but we’re sure it’s on its way. Unless he becomes President.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Schwarzenegger:

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but t
o be spiritually minded is life and peace.

— Romans 8:5-6

Claims to fame: Former President of House Republican Freshman Class; founder & ex-co-chair of House Navy/Marine Corps Caucus and House Special Operations Forces Caucus; ex-U.S. Navy captain; Vietnam veteran; married “moral values” family man; practicing Baptist; anti-gay closet queer

Moral apex: Outed in 2004 by Mike Rogers, who dug up a recording of a personals-ad message Schrock left on a gay sex phone line.

Sad, sick evidence of self-loathing, internalized homophobia #1: He co-sponsored the misnamed Marriage Protection Act (formerly the Federal Marriage Amendment), which would amend the United States Constitution to deny the right of marriage to same-sex couples.

Sadder, sicker evidence of self-loathing, internalized homophobia #2: He was against protecting gay and lesbian Americans from employment discrimination.

Saddest, sickest evidence of self-loathing, internalized homophobia #3: Former Navy man Schrock favored “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” — i.e., opposed gays in the military, of which he was one.

What happened after he was outed: He pulled out of his 2004 bid for a third term in Congress. But he still wouldn’t come out, and won’t even acknowledge his outing.

Fun fact: Schrock received a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition.

Memorable quotes:

Uh… hi… I weigh 200 pounds, I’m 6′4″… blond hair…. very muscular, very buffed up… very tanned… Uh, I just like to get together a guy from time to time, just to… just to play. I’d like him to be in very good shape, flat stomach, good chest, good arms, well hung, cut… uh… just get naked, play, and see what happens. Nothing real heavy duty, just a fun time… go down on him… he can go down on me, and just take it from there. Hope to hear from you. Bye.

— Schrock’s sex ad (neglecting to mention his
age, which was pushing 60 at the time)

In recent weeks, allegations have surfaced that have called into question my ability to represent the citizens of Virginia’s Second Congressional District.

— Schrock, upon his resignation
August, 2004

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Schrock:

But ye should say, Why persecute we him, seeing the root of the matter is found in me?

— Job 19:28

Claims to fame: Failed presidential candidate; prominent “family values” promoter; right-wing extremist extraordinaire; misogynist; adulterer; bad father

Career highlights: Fought to abolish sex education in American schools. Tried to outlaw intrauterine contraceptiion (IUDs). Almost made primary rival Bob Dornan look liberal.

“Feminazi” moment: After a confrontation with high-profile lawyer Gloria Allred, Schmitz OK’d publication of an aide’s press release, “Attack of the Bulldykes,” which called Allred a “slick butch lawyeress” and (according to Wall Street Journal editorialist John Fund, whose own ugly little story you’ll find here too) “described her supporters as ‘a sea of hard, Jewish and (arguably) female faces.’”

Divine retribution: Allred sued; Schmitz had to pony up $20,000 in damages. Was reprimanded by California legislature & lost chairmanship of state Constitutional Amendments Committee.

Believe it or not moment: He got kicked off the national council of the John Birch Society for being too “extreme” — even by their standards!

Punch line: Fathered two out-of-wedlock children with a student.

Punch line of the century: Daughter is Mary Kay LeTourneau, ex-schoolteacher who served prison time (and got a lot of coverage on CNN) for having sex with 13-year-old student, who fathered two children by her.

Final reward: He’s dead now. (Schmitz, not Mary Kay’s boy toy.)

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Schmitz:

And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.

— Numbers 14:33

Suggested Bible reading for Ms. LeTourneau:

Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations?

— Ezekiel 20:30

Claims to fame: Former Florida rep; host of right-wing Fox talk show “Scarborough Country”; “conservative family values” proponent; divorcé

Why he’s here: Divorced wife in 1999. But that’s the least interesting thing about Joe Scarborough. We’re not accusing him of anything — just using a very strange and familiar-sounding story to illustrate the very real right-wing media bias that shields Scarborough and his friends from the type of scrutiny visited upon every Democrat from Bill Clinton on down.

Now, let’s play a game…

Fill in the blank #1: Gary Condit and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?

You probably said “Chandra Levy.” If you didn’t: Levy was an intern to California Rep. Gary Condit. One day, she disappeared. The media went crazy covering rumors of a romantic dalliance with Condit, and hinted wildly that Condit had killed her. He didn’t. But his career was destroyed. Condit, of course, is a Democrat.

Fill in the blank #2: Joe Scarborough and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _?

Did you say “Lori Klausutis”? Probably not.

Just the facts: Scarborough got a divorce. Then he suddenly resigned from Congress, just six months after re-election. (Invoked old fallback excuse of wanting to “spend more time” with children.) Then he suddenly resigned as publisher of the Independent Florida Sun. Then, just as suddenly, Lori Klausutis, 28-year-old staffer to Scarborough, was found dead in Scarborough’s district office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Date was July 20, 2001. Cause of death: Blow to the head. Conclusion: Heart condition caused her to collapse, fall, hit head on a desk, and die. Story barely a blip on the radar. Lots of people left with lots of questions.

Final questions: Was Lori Klausutis among Scarborough’s rumored dalliances? (Scarborough, noted the Pensacola News Journal in 2001, “was pursued by rumors over the cause of the divorce [and] a growing body of criticism that Scarborough’s personal life didn’t match the moralistic conservative stance he campaigned on”).

What does Joe know, if anything, about her death?

Conclusion: We’ll never find out.

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Scarborough:

Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.

— Isaiah 42:18

Claims to fame: Faux shrink; hate-radio personality; vitriolic gay-basher to the max; hypocrite to the extreme; self-loathing misogynist; adulteress; divorcée; exhibitionist; bad daughter; generally nasty piece of work (more…)

Claims to fame: Attorney; special impeachment counsel to the House Judiciary Committee; leading anti-Clinton moralizer; “devout Catholic”; adulterer; liar; hypocrite in the extreme

Moral apex: While blasting President Clinton for the Lewinsky affair, was still carrying on 25-year affair with secretary Nancy Ruggero — which ended only when Ruggero, finally sick of waiting for him to follow through on promise to leave wife, married somebody else.

What’s more: Schippers was not only married, but married some 45 years, and had 10 children (and 25 grandchildren). Continued affair even after wife Jackie found out (she had him followed).

What’s more: In lawsuit filed by business partner, Schippers lied under oath that he was not romantically involved with Ruggero. (What was it everybody was saying about Clinton again?)

Height of hypocrisy: On “60 Minutes,” called wife Jackie “his one and only sweetheart.”

No, wait — this is the height of hypocrisy: Actually brought mistress to the Clinton impeachment proceedings as an observer… while his wife was there too.

Amazing fact: Had the temerity to be jealous of Ruggero’s new marriage — yet not only attended her wedding, but walked her down the aisle.

Fun fact #1: Once studied for the priesthood.

Fun fact #2: He’s a Papal Knight — one of a Catholic order of only a few hundred men in the world.

Memorable quote:

“There should be a moral overtone to every profession. The rules are the rules are the rules.”

— In The New Republic, 1998

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Schippers:

A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.

— Proverbs 13:5

Moral apex: Gee, it’s hard to choose! You decide, based on the charges against him in the October 12, 2006, divorce complaint and request for a temporary restraining order filed by Sara Evans:

“Husband told Wife that [one of their children] broke out in hives because he saw the costume designer who is a ’sodomite’…”

Well, it figures: Schelske is the executive director for American Destiny, accurately described by BuzzFlash as “a right-wing organization committed to abolishing the separation between church and state ‘to see America shake off her lesser self and become the nation of God’s intent and our Founders’ hopes.’”

Where everything stands right now: As of this writing (late October, 2006), the divorce is pending. No doubt there will be updates!

Addendum: We had no idea who Sara Evans was before this dicey scandal (and didn’t care; we’re into politics, not big-boobed TV personalities) — but “Dancing With the Stars” did ring a bell: Evans was the “DWTS” performer Tom DeLay got all giddy over in June, 2006. The disgraced former House Majority Leader actually solicited supporters to vote for Evans! (The show is like an “American Idol” sort of competition.) Again, Republicans prove that there is no such thing as putting politics aside, even when it comes to something so trivial as a silly little TV show (bold emphasis ours):

Sara Evans has been a strong supporter of the Republican Party and represents good American values in the media. From singing at the 2004 Republican Convention to appearing with candidates in the last several election cycles, we have always been able to count on Sara for her support of the things we all believe in. Let’s show Sara that same support by watching and voting for her each week to help her win this competition. One of her opponents on the show is ultra liberal talk show host Jerry Springer. We need to send a message to Hollywood and the media that smut has no place on television by supporting good people like Sara Evans.

Memorable quotes:

Our President is a man of great character and I hope to support him from Congress one day.

— Schelske on George W. Bush
November 28, 2001

Family is my highest priority.

— From defunct campaign site, 2002

Sara and our three children are the most important people in my life. I have made the decision to forgive Sara for the unfortunate campaign that she and her publicity advisors are currently waging.

I adamantly deny the allegations that are being made.

As distressing as it is to have to communicate about this matter publicly, Sara has unfortunately become a dramatically different person over the last year and it is something we have struggled to deal with. Sadly, it appears we have failed.

The best I can do at this difficult time is ask that people of faith would pray for her and for my family.

My greatest concern is for my children and the irreparable harm they are at risk of facing. As such, I will have no further comment on this matter outside of a courtroom.

— Schelske press release
October 13, 2006

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Schelske:

Every vow, and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband may make it void.

But if her husband altogether hold his peace at her from day to day; then he establisheth all her vows, or all her bonds, which are upon her: he confirmeth them, because he held his peace at her in the day that he heard them.

But if he shall any ways make them void after that he hath heard them; then he shall bear her iniquity.

— Numbers 30:13-15

Filed under: Schelske, Craig 1 Comment

Claims to fame: Prominent South Carolina Republican Party leader; Christian Coalition coordinator; child molester; bad father

Moral apex: Sexually abused his stepdaughter from the time was she was 15, and continued longterm incestuous (yet “consensual”) relationship with her until she was about 24 — and married, and the mother of two children.

The shocker: His stepdaughter is Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her two baby sons (after fabricating a story about a black carjacker who took off with the kids) in a lake, in her car.

Sidebar: Newt Gingrich stated at the time of the Smith child murders: “I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things. … The only way to change is to vote Republican.”

Punch line: “Vote Republican”? And put more men like über-GOPer Beverly Russell in charge of the country?

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Russell:

Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.

The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

— Lamentations 5:7, 15

Claims to fame: Publishing magnate, ReganBooks; TV reality-show producer; Vassar scholar; ex-National Enquirer reporter; filthy-rich Republican; divorceé; “other woman”; very scary person

Moral apex: Take your pick — but we like her year-long affair with NYPD Police Commissioner (and disgraced Bush nominee for head of Homeland Security) Bernie Kerik. Like, she didn’t know he was married?

Karmic comeuppance: She left a love note for Kerik in the secret apartment he kept for extramarital trysts — and it was discovered by another other woman.

Translation: Kerik wasn’t only cheating on his wife with Regan; he was cheating on Regan with a second mistress. (Actually, the woman who discovered the note had been shacking up with Kerik for nearly a decade before Regan came along.)

What happened next: The two pissed-off lovers compared notes, and they both dumped Kerik.

Also worth noting: She’s a divorceé — which seems pretty minor, until you get a load of the ugly story and the protracted divorce process: In a nutshell, she married super-rich financier Robert Kleinschmidt — for his money, some say, when she didn’t even like him all that much.

“Regan almost broke up with Kleinschmidt three months before their wedding,” wrote Judith Newman (”The Devil and Miss Regan,” Vanity Fair), “when she discovered his affair with a 15-year-old babysitter. They married in 1987, had their daughter, Lara, in 1991, and separated in 1992 when Regan discovered that — surprise! — he was having another affair. … Three trials, at least six lawyers, and more than a million dollars later they were divorced. Regan held on to everything, with the possible exception of her sanity.”

Fun facts:

• She hired a bodyguard to stop Kerik from “hounding” her after she dumped him.

• She likes to hedge her bets, donating a modicum sum to Democratic candidates while the lion’s share of her political contributions go to Republican candidates, Republican PACs, and the Republican National Committee.

• Her younger sister Maureen (not to be confused with Ronnie Raygun offspring Maureen Reagan) once recorded a song called “A Good Man Is Hard to Find; A Hard Man Is Good.”

• Had a son out of wedlock in 1981.

• According to Vanity Fair’s Newman, “Few employees have lasted more than a year.” And, in 2003, three staffers who quit threatened a sexual-harassment lawsuit against HarperCollins; “an undisclosed sum of money upon signing a confidentiality agreement” took care of that little matter.

Enemies include high-profile females whose names are synonymous with “sex,” and start with the letter M: Madonna, Monica Lewinsky, and Marla Maples.

Memorable quotes:

ReganBooks! Every fucking time we do something prestigious, they overlook us. But God forbid we do a piece of shit…

— When ReganBooks was misidentified as its parent
company, HarperCollins, at a 2004 book-awards banquet
Quoted by Judith Newman, Vanity Fair

Snobs.

— A favorite word for book reviewers

I don’t publish pornography. I publish smart books about sex. A lot of people try to imitate what I do but they don’t do it well.

— Quoted by Edward Wyatt
Sex, Sex, Sex: Up Front in Bookstores Near You
New York Times
August 24, 2004

Memorable quotes, from “various Fox News appearances,” courtesy of Atrios (who notes, “Sadly no transcripts exist of the Fox show [Judith Reagan Tonight] she hosted for awhile”):

REGAN: Absolutely. I don’t think there’s any question. I mean, here’s Hillary who’s been standing by her man all these years and allowing him to behave in this reprehensible fashion.

REGAN: You know, look at Monica Lewinsky talking about being suicidal, being on antidepressants, you know, gaining this huge amount of weight. This is clearly a woman who has suffered and is suffering inside because she has no depth of feeling and no morality whatsoever. And so, I decided, after being involved in this ugly negotiation, which I found morally reprehensible, that we should make fun of the whole thing, and we should make a comment about the amorality of everybody.

REGAN: I would never tell. Unlike Monica Lewinsky, I keep my secrets and take them to the grave.

REGAN: I don’t know. I mean, I think that they’re going to move forward here, and I think it’s alarming to me that the country is not concerned about having an amoral man in the White House.

REGAN: I said, “You know what? There’s a really great morality tale here with a great, great moral lesson,” and nobody’s really said that.

REGAN: Well, partially, but it’s also an “amorality tale” because the one thing that’s missing from “Monica’s Story” is, you know, deep thinking about her own amorality, which we saw — was in ample evidence during the Barbara Walters love fest the other night. I mean, here’s a woman who clearly knows a lot about sex, but knows nothing about right and wrong.

REGAN: You know, the amorality tale, “Monica’s Untold Story,” is about her amorality, and the amorality of all of the people in this ugly story. But one of the things that was remarkable about her two hours is her utter lack of sincere remorse. And in that case, I would say she is a true soulmate of Bill Clinton because the two of them — she learned a lot about spinning. She learned a lot about publicity. You know, she learned a lot about changing her image. And she tried to do another Barbara Walters show, but I don’t know if America’s buying it. I’m sure not.

Ms. REGAN: Well, I think that the social fabric of this country has become completely unraveled. I think the sexual revolution had a lot to do with that. I think that we are in terrible shape. I think we have a country where half the kids are being raised by single mothers. A lot of that has to do with male behavior. We look at the men in this country who do not want to be accountable to their wives, do not want to be accountable to their children and we have as
a president a man who could be a symbol of everything that is good; he could be a wonderful husband, he could be a wonderful father. He is in a position of great authority to show this country and to lead this country in a way that is much more important than economically.

Ms. REGAN: …to this kind of fame, don’t grow up thinking, You know, what I really want to do is to be a good citizen, to be loyal to my friends, to care about my neighbors, to get married, to be faithful to my husband, to have a family.’ These are not the things that we’re teaching.

Ms. REGAN: We can conquer others with force but to conquer ourselves we need strength.’ And this is really what we need in America today. We need to conquer our own impulses. We need to understand that we can’t act on them all the time because it feels good for us. We have to care about the other.

Ms. REGAN: Let me tell you something, my father has never cheated on my mother, my brothers have never treated cheated on their wives. I come from a big Italian Irish Catholic family and I have to say that for the most part, they have not cheated on each other. My brothers were virile…

Memorable observations:

[Jenna Jameson's book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale] is about a porn star describing explicit sex acts, and it bulges with her nude photos, but it’s not about porn. It must be a challenge for [Judith] Regan to sell books to people she considers nitwits. Why not subtitle it, “Nudity for Dummies” and reserve the panache for the nonfat, half-decaf latte crowd? …

Porn “stars” don’t “make love,” they exploit sex in any and every perverse manner that sells. In the porn world, “love and marriage” don’t “go together like a horse and carriage,” and dad isn’t “told by mother, ‘you can’t have one without the other.’” Porn “love-making” is about lust-driven self-gratification enhanced by devices that will eventually make it impossible for the person to have a love-giving sexual relationship with a human being because humans aren’t battery-operated. …

— The usual hysterical condemnation by
Concerned Women of America
CWA Web site, August 27, 2004

Hear about the newest thing? The movie about the movie “Deep Throat”? At the recent opening in New York, lotsa luminaries from Hollywood showed up and some from the local area too, like Judith Regan. Who was there as an “expert” of sorts. Dear Judith, former paramour of Bernie “Falling faster than an rock into the sun” Kerik, who has just published a book by Jenna Jameson on being a porn star had this to say:

As a young woman, she said, she was not one of the thousands of sensation-seekers who dutifully lined up at the World Theater, on West 49th Street, where “Deep Throat” was first shown. She added that she learned about Ms. Jameson from her son, who dropped out of his M.I.T. fraternity because Ms. Jameson’s videos were all the fraternity brothers were interested in watching.

So, having mommy allegedly boinking a married guy was within the realm of “family values”, but watching Jenna Jameson at the frat house was too much for gentle Regan the Younger. Learning that mommy published her book will certainly have him in therapy until he’s 60.

So the bottom line here, and I say that with a straight face, is that our Judith never watched porn, she just lives on selling it. Truly a Family Values republican.

— Democratic Veteran
February 10, 2005

Suggested Bible reading for Ms. Regan:

How weak is thine heart, saith the LORD GOD, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;

— Ezekiel 16:30

Claims to fame: 80-year-old pastor of Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) Trinity Baptist Church (Jacksonville, Florida) for 38 years; co-founder and president, Trinity Baptist College; gay-hater; accused molester of little girls (more…)