Alexander Cockburn: The Lie of the Party
Alexander Cockburn is a regular contributor to The Nation and New York Press. He is also the author of The Golden Age Is in Us, and the co-author of Washington Babylon (both published by Verso.)
Tracy Quan: When American politicians cheat, does the press care whether they're to the right or left of the spectrum?
Alexander Cockburn: They certainly have in the past. Not to use the word "left" about him, but in 1992, while Bill Clinton was campaigning in New Hampshire, The Star, which is a supermarket tabloid, began publishing reports about Clinton's sex life. Larry Nichols, who had worked in Arkansas politics, said Clinton had slept with four different women while he was Governor -- one of them was DeeDee Myers who was his press secretary. Another was Gennifer Flowers. Most mainstream journalists on the campaign trail wanted Clinton to win and were hostile to Bush, so they dismissed the story in their reports as a rumor that was being "put about in a tabloid." Then Gennifer announced: "I did so have an affair with Bill -- for 12 years. The mainstream press continued referring to "unsubstantiated rumors," even though Gennifer herself had substantiated them. When she gave a press conference, they implied that she was stupid and trashy by making jokes about her hair showing a little black at the roots. Of course, Gennifer had a tape recording of Bill and was obviously telling the truth. But they constantly tried to dismiss her by referring to the "bimbo factor." At the same time, the press went out of its way to insinuate that George Bush had been having an affair. The Washington Post, in a schoolboyish way, reported that the woman in question had served under Bush "in a variety of positions."
TQ: You paint a picture of a rather juvenile press corps...
AC: Why should Gennifer be called a bimbo? Hillary Clinton's not even worthy to lick Gennifer's boot -- let alone any portion of her actual anatomy! I'm sure Gennifer was very nice to Bill. Twelve years is a long time.
TQ: We hear you've "lusted in your heart" for the wife of the vice- president. Guilty?
AC: Tipper's got a pent-up, hot look... I adore her (alas from afar) and I think Al is beastly to her. The poor woman has put on lots of weight. Someone said he had an affair with one of his enviro aides. Maybe that's the reason.
TQ: How about party politics of a more radical stripe? Did you ever feel, during the '60s, that there was something extra-sexy about cheating with a girl from another faction?
AC: You mean, for instance, that a Trotskyist might sleep with a Stalinist? How exciting! But very rare. In some cases, one might have been put up against a wall and shot. But, no, political groups were fairly incestuous. People within a group or faction all slept with each other. I'm talking hetero equations here. The woman with the Number 2 guy might try to sleep her way to a position of higher status, by having an affair with the leader. Not surprising, is it? In some Episcopalian congregations, all the married women want to sleep with the bishop. Journalists are just as bad. In the world of the mainstream, corporate media, journalists are always running off with each other's spouses. Their social circle of betrayal and mating and re-mating is terribly restricted.
TQ: Camille Paglia thinks Prince Charles has mishandled his extra- marital love life. Do you agree?
AC: I like Charles because he's got the world outlook of a '60s hippie. I'm a Carlist. Diana's awfully tacky; I don't have much sympathy for her.
TQ: Do you think the Royals ever suffer from the kind of guilt that the lumpen middle class experiences over its own adulteries?
AC: Charles might feel a twinge of guilt, for a couple of minutes while playing with his children. But, for the most part, no, they don't. Sex, for the English upper classes, is an extension of a children's game called Sardines, where all the players eventually end up squished together in the nursery closet. Lord Portchester -- who is rumored to have fathered one of the Queen's sons -- has (I am told) a pet name for his sexual organ: "Oh, look, Mr. Mouse has escaped!" They've all got these childish names for their organs. It's all Mr. Mouse and Mrs. Mouse, Mr. Monster and so on. Guilt wouldn't even come into it.
