Betrayed: Antonio, Mirthala & Me
I feel so hurt and betrayed. I believed him. He gazed into my eyes, held my right hand in his strong two-handed embrace and in that moment, I was the only person in his view, nay, in his world. It was clear to me that I meant everything to him. “We” and our magical moment lasted only a nanosecond. I should have known Antonio would find another—or rather others, lots of others. I feel so foolish, so used, so betrayed.
I go away on vacation and look at what happens, we find out the Paris Hilton has become mayor (or the mayor has become Paris Hilton) and the scandal du jours has moved on to politics. Fair enough I guess, politics is, after all, known as show biz for ugly people.
My moment with the mayor and his magical charisma took place a few weeks ago at the Los Angeles Press Club awards banquet. It was really something to watch the mayor work the room. What a pro, I thought, until I caught sight of Arianna Huffinton working the other side of the room. Talk about two powerhouses of energy, charisma and compressed charm. This is a talent, a gift to be able to make someone feel that they alone are important and to have that feeling endure for a time after the actual encounter has passed—usually in the blink of an eye. They however, never blink. This is part of their talent.
Now much was made by our fabulous op-ed team of the various sins involved in the mayor’s moral mess. Me, I’m confused by the fuss. This seems to me to be a win-win situation.
The most recent trend in covering wars—and war is politics by other means—is embedded reporters. Well, clearly Miss Mirthala has achieved the ultimate embed. If reporters can sleep in the trenches with Army and Marines in combat situations, why not political situations?
Further, if embed is a journalistic goal, sticking it to journalists is the aim of every politician I’ve ever known. Antonio just got to do it to a reporter a lot better looking than most of us. I can’t blame him for dropping me and going for her.
The moral ambiguities are pretty interesting here, and my first instinct was that the journalistic sin is more important to me, as a citizen, than Antonio’s personal (im)morality. My deep suspicion is that if all adulterers were driven out of politics we’d have no politicians. Not necessarily a bad thing. But it’s like anti-gun control argument that only law-abiding citizens would turn in weapons and the crooks would keep theirs. Only adulterers with consciences would turn themselves in; the rest would just lie. Something that most men are fairly practiced at.
As with Clinton there is a kind of men’s code that makes it understood that if a guy is talking about sex, he’s lying. Guys lie about it at every stage of life. When young about doing it when we’re not. In the middle about not doing it when we are where we shouldn’t be. And in later life, we lie again about doing it when we’re not. At no point are we credible. The thing is, guys know this. Thus, we don’t believe each other’s stories.
The other thing with Antonio’s pack of peccadilloes is that he could parse this whole business just like Clinton. I truly believe that he could pass a lie detector test saying, “I never slept with that woman, Miss Mirthala.” Having followed the mayor, (not physically or literally stalking him, just in the news and some personal appearances) I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t actually sleep. It is what he does during his waking hours that is of concern and may limit his political future.
To some extent this transcends the moral issues. He can claim a kind of sexual Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. He just can’t stay focused—and his female partners are only a symptom. While he might make claims to escape moral scrutiny under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the voters are not bound to hire someone with his scattered loyalties. His energy in all things seems better than his ability to focus on any one thing.
I believe the greater professional transgression was made by the now mirthless Mirthala Salinas. We really should not do any kind of business with the people we cover, and certainly not funny business. Though today, no one is laughing. Okay, that’s not true. Everyone is laughing except the stars of this tawdry show.
This does raise another moral/ethical dilemma that I invite you to comment on: Since Arianna is both is the news business and has run for office and since Bloomberg is both in the news business and in office, are they being unprofessional when they sleep alone?
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