{"id":8192,"date":"2011-05-20T13:09:37","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T20:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2011-05-20T13:14:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T20:14:00","slug":"larry-flynts-history-of-the-sex-lives-of-the-political-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2011\/05\/20\/larry-flynts-history-of-the-sex-lives-of-the-political-class\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Flynt’s history of the sex lives of the political class"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Flynt has a new book, his name over the person who probably wrote more of it, about political sex lives throughout American history.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s on a book tour<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t know how Larry Flynt and his actual writer have it all pegged in terms of hypothetical alternate histories — had Gary Hart not been exposed on Monkey Business, would he have ushered in a different era than George HW Bush?\u00c2\u00a0 The mind reels<\/em> — , but it is worth saying that on the grandest level, the Presidential rung, the salaciousness is kind of weak.<\/p>\n

The book appears to have decided that all rumor and innuendo are true, which probably is the way to go in terms of salaciousness.\u00c2\u00a0 By now everyone assumes that Thomas Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemings.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait a few years and we’ll see if the pendulum swings back on public perception — we really do want to believe that one.\u00c2\u00a0 James Buchanan was certainly gay — was that why he let his Southern Sympathies run wild leading up to the Civil War?\u00c2\u00a0 Really? Lincoln is cited as gay even though — I doubt it.<\/p>\n

Salaciousness drags in details for Warren Harding and of course Kennedy and Grover Cleveland (elected with the facts known). Franklin Roosevelt developed a loveless marriage and strong partnership with Eleanor after his affair — was that a history changer?<\/p>\n

For history changers — I doubt Flynt goes in this direction — his role in this particular scandal of exposing the next would be Speaker after Gingrich –\u00c2\u00a0 but Monica Lewinsky saved Social Security.\u00c2\u00a0 No.\u00c2\u00a0 Really<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the problem comes in this idea that these sexual liasons become the corridors of the Powerful.\u00c2\u00a0 On the presidential level we have too many Harry Trumans<\/a> — or, perhaps a shade or two off from that level of prudence– and not that many Kennedys.\u00c2\u00a0 But I suppose fly afield and show J Edgar Hoover’s cross-dressing, and we have enough material for a book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larry Flynt has a new book, his name over the person who probably wrote more of it, about political sex lives throughout American history.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s on a book tour. I don’t know how Larry Flynt and his actual writer have it all pegged in terms of hypothetical alternate histories — had Gary Hart not been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8192"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8194,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8192\/revisions\/8194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}