This just in. According to the Washington Post, Senator Pete Domenci (R-New Mexico) fathered a child out of wedlock 35 years ago, and the world and his wife are just learning about it.
In typical cheater understatement Domenci said, “I have apologized as best as I can to my wife, and we have worked together to strengthen our relationship.”
Yeah, because nothing strengthens a relationship like 35 years of deceit. Poor woman. I hope she is strengthening her relationship with a very good divorce attorney about now.
Apparently Domenci is not strong in the eloquence or empathy departments. Equally lame is his regret for the existence of his grown son, who has to be thrilled to be publicly derided as a mistake.
“I deeply regret this and am very sorry for my behavior. I hope New Mexicans will view that my accomplishments for my beloved state outweigh my personal transgression.”
Yes, the IMPORTANT thing here is Senator Domenci’s accomplishments, so let’s not tarnish his image with this…THIS. Note his regret is without description. His “transgression” is singular. A one-off.
And New Mexico? He really loves you. It was YOU he was thinking of all along. You’re “beloved” to him. That transgression? She means nothing!
Perhaps we should blame the 70s. Free love, I’m okay, you’re okay. Can you blame a horny married 46 year old senator for boffing a 24 year old hanger on? (Her father was also a senator at the time. Talk about daddy issues…)
You know this was the same Senator Domenci that tried to impeach Clinton. Ugh, the hypocrites. We need a conservative fucktard hall of fame. I would nominate Domenci, but folks, he’s really an amateur at this hide-the-love-child thing when compared with segregationist Strom Thurmond. He managed to hide his love child (with the family’s black maid! How Southern gothic!) for over 70 years.
You’re a fucktard, Domenci. But you only made it half way to fucktard exceptionalism.
As a Philly liberal, it’s quite schadenfreudalicious when the family values conservatives get caught with their pants down, be it with mistresses (Gingrich, Sanford) or male hookers (Larry Craig, Ted Haggard).
Unfortunately, cheating doesn’t have a political party. Bill Clinton, love him as much as I do, is as much of a slimeball cheater as Domenci, except without the illegitimate child. How a woman as strong and independent as Hillary would stick by him for so long is beyond me.
And of course, the most heartbreaking of all, John Edwards and his secret affair/love child…all while Elizabeth Edwards was DYING of cancer!!
Imagine devoting your entire adult life to your husband and kids, only to be stricken with not only cancer, but the revelation that your husband, with his million-dollar smile and religiously-charged, Jimmy Carter-esque demeanor, fooled around, fathered a child, and paid HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS to try to keep it quiet.
Elizabeth isn’t with us anymore, and it pains me to think that the engulfing scandal was her last living memory.
And I voted for Edwards!! (Well, I voted for Kerry…but Edwards was the VP pick…)
It’s a subject I try to avoid altogether, especially considering how many of my liberal heroes were philanderers (FDR, JFK, LBJ, Clinton, etc.)
Of all the Democratic Presidents we’ve had since 1940, seems like Carter and Obama were the only one who kept their pants on!!
Ha ha, “schadenfreudalicious” — I love it!
Me too. Awesome word, Chris!
And I supported Edwards in his presidential campaign!!! I like the whole “2 Americas” thing – the playground for that elementary school is so different from the playground in a different part of town…… OMG and my contributions are forever remembered by the internet – altho…… when he went on and on about Iran being America’s “worst” enemy… I wrote to the campaign and told them I wanted my money back…. and THEY GAVE IT TO ME – they actually sent me a check. Looking back I’m glad my little contribution didn’t pay any part of Ms. Hunter’s expenses. God, and that’s what John Edwards decided to “do”? As CL says, the banality of it all –
Edwards seemed like a nice man but a bit too Jimmy Carter-esque for my tastes. Carter’s a great man but he was a dreadful politician and a wholly ineffective leader.
So I supported Hillary before BarackMania swept through the primaries.
I just did some research and read that Elizabeth Edwards filed for legal separation in January 2010, just 11-months before she died. She lived in NC, which has a mandatory 1-year-law for all divorce filings.
She was less than ONE month from being FREE of that douchebag John, but sadly the cancer and she passed away a few weeks before Christmas.
At the very least she died a partially free woman. She more than likely died of cancer AND a broken heart. An absolutely shattered and spat-upon heart.
May that haunt John Edwards for the rest of his miserable life, especially as he’s shelling out mucho child support bucks to his baby mama.
Hope it was worth it, Senator.
Yes. Poor Elizabeth Edwards. She is fighting cancer and her husband John Edwards is sticking his wick into Realle Hunter.
I think his cheating takes the cake. I mean seriously, how could he cheat on his wife while she was battling cancer. He couldn’t keep his wick dry until the poor woman died. Geez.
CL,
I love you and this blog.
That being said, let’s acknowledge that cheating and political hypocrisy cross party lines. For every Republican hypocrite, there is Democrat and vice versa.
Really, the only one I feel sorry for is the son who didn’t ask nor want to be outed in public. Let’s respect his privacy and leave him alone.
Best,
Walt
Oh Walt, I completely agree with you that douchebaggery crosses party lines. As Chris above rightly points out, some of my most progressive heroes were cheaters (and Chris you left Martin Luther King, Jr. off the list). What distinguishes THEIR douchebaggery from conservative, right-wing Republican douchebaggery is the staggering degree of hypocrisy. The witch hunts. The gay bashing (when you’re in fact, oops, GAY). Being a segregationist when in fact (oops again!) you fathered a child with a black woman (good enough to fuck, but not good enough to sit next to on a bus). Being a “family values” Republican when (oops!) you cheated on your wife and fathered a child with another woman.
As for the son, I wasn’t clear from the article if he wanted to be outed or not. I read it was his desiring of a relationship with Domenci that someone got wind of. Maybe one of his 8 half brothers or sisters. Anyway, I have nothing but sympathy for the guy. He served in the Navy, is a lawyer in Las Vegas and other than being a staffer for the GOP (must run in the family), seems like a solid citizen. He doesn’t deserve to be dismissed as a “regrettable” transgression. He’s a person! He didn’t ask to be born.
What is regrettable is Domenci’s cowardice — that he didn’t acknowledge or support the child.
Sorry, I think that trying to determine who is the bigger hypocrite is absurd.
Yes, it is extremely hypocritical for “family values” people to cheat on their families. Is it less hypocritical that JFK (someone who portrayed himself and his family as “all-American) had multiple affairs with barely legal interns? Or that MLK Jr. was as “family values” as they come and he also had multiple affairs? No, it isn’t. Cheaters suck. They all suck. I just don’t believe their degree of “suckiness” comes from their public professions of values.
Gas-lighting is well known in the cheating world. Perhaps their public pronouncements (gas-lighting) of “family” values is to cover their vile acts in their personal life. Just sayin’.
rant over. 🙂
Agreed that all cheaters suck. Disagree that denying the existence of a child and leaving him wihtout a father doesn’t make it worse. In the law, this concept is called an aggravating circumstance, like a bank robbery that (oops!) results in someone getting killed. As far as I know, JFK, Gingrich, Clinton, Gingrich, et al., didn’t indulge in that particularly profound level of betrayal (a betrayal of the CHILD as well as the spouse).
You know, I will return ANY bowl of soup served to me in a restaurant containing a hair. But a short, curly hair? That’s worse.
Well said Walt. All cheaters suck. All of them. And those that promote their “family values” is really just a way to hide who they really are. Void of decency. Character. Empathy. Loyalty. They are soulless. And heartless. I am so sickened by these damn cheaters. No matter what realm they fall. No matter what career path they follow.. They are all disgusting pigs.
It amazes me how many cheaters in the political arena, like Edwards, and Kennedy portrayed themselves as such family men.
It just makes me barf.
Okay, I’ve got one liberal to add to my fucktard hall of fame, whose staggering hypocrisy rivals his closet-case conservative brethren — Elliot Spitzer. He was *prosecuting* prostitution rings while he was a preferred client of… prostitution rings.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a narcissist! The rules don’t apply to him.
That is sick. I believe Spitzer’s wacko crusade is called “reaction formation” by psychologists.
Still, I think John Edwards cheating while his wife is suffering from terminal cancer really took the cake.
I do remember seeing on the news a reporter asking about his wife’s cancer relapse, and at the time, I thought Edwards seemed remarkably euphoric for a guy whose wife was likely terminal with a relapse of cancer.
I now realize that euphorically feverish look in his eyes was the affair high.
Cheating crosses party lines, to be sure, and some cheaters make damn fine politicians, heart surgeons, car mechanics, etc.
But the hypocrisy of “family values” folks getting caught cheating ***on their families*** adds an extra layer of loathesomeness to what they’ve done. Remember, these are the folks telling the rest of us how to live our lives, what what God wants a family to look like, why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to marry or adopt children, etc., etc., etc.
To say that the cheating of well-known-hound-dog Bill Clinton as indistinguishable from the cheating of self-appointed family moralists is a false equivalency. Similar? Yes. The same? No. And any effort to minimize the wrong committed by a cheater skates alarmingly close to gas-lighting in my book (CL’s cartoon about folks being too “Pollyannish” about cheating comes to mind).
As for the pain this causes his son? First, don’t blame that on folks who express opinions about his father’s infidelity. The pain is caused by his father. 100 pecent. Plus, the “kid” in question is 35 years old, a former U.S. Navy officer and lawyer who served in Iraq, worked for Sen John Warner (R-VA), and as a special assistant to an undersecretary of state. He’s a big boy. Plus, compared to being ignored by your father for 35 years? Nothing we say on this site can mean a thing to him.
Vent over.
Well said, Nomar.
I think this may have been written on the occasion of Sen. Thurmond disclosure of his “mistake”/indiscretion/out-of-wedlock child, but it bears revisiting:
“TO MY BIOLOGICAL FATHER ON HIS SPECIAL DAY”
You weren’t there to clean my scrapes,
And various childhood bruises,
While passing laws in Washington,
And hiding your abuses.
Three decades passed and now I know,
T’was you knocked up my momma.
Forgive me if I don’t equate,
You with the Dalai Lama.
So while you act so humbled as,
You mumble your baloney,
Please take these special words to heart:
F#ck you, Pops, and bl@w me.
Why is it always the ones with the dirtiest pasts that point the fingers at others first?
It must be for the distraction from themselves. That’s all I can figure.
What a colossal dick. The last things kids should be is secret and shameful. The only person Domenci was protecting with his lies was himself.
Wow, I must admit this cuts kind of close to home for me and has been on my mind alot.
You see, my X has 2 kids (that he knows of or admits to) and he was never ever ever in their lives after the 1st couple of years and now only occasionally because child support caught up to him and I convinced him he should “be there” for them. His own Mother doesn’t even know he has a 14 year old son. He didn’t even speak to her for 20 years, till we go together…and his kids Mom’s? Crazy bitches (both of them of course, sound familiar? I’m a CB too!}
I thought this was just bad luck in his life all along, and tried to help him “heal”.
How STUPID STUPID STUPID am I? I even payed his child support when he “didn’t have the money” and made sure he wouldn’t go back to jail for it…….STUPID!!! Thank God for your posts CL, I think I am finally getting angry. He woke me up at 5:30 AM by accidently dialing me, again today. Showed up to get a pair of shoes at 7:30 because he doesn’t have a place yet. So now I’m going to have to block his number, I can’t change mine for business reasons, but it just keeps getting deeper and harder. I know from this website that he is only darting in to stab at me, keep me off balance and confused and I thank you for that.
I realize I’ve gone off topic but what I wanted to say concerns my Father. Out of many kids that he had with many different women I was his favorite. I knew them all and loved them all and they loved me. I loved him with all of my heart and he was my greatest support in all things. He was quite well known in his long life and yet the first thing people say to me about him is “How many kids did he have???…like it was some wonderful accomplishment. A couple of weeks ago I called my Stepmother, sobbing (my Dad had passsed away several years ago) and asked her how she dealt with the pain of his infidelity and she said it was her choice, he never lied and that is the life she chose. Well, they all can have it. I’d rather be alone. But it’s one more thing I am trying to figure out.
Dear Toni – I totally had to block numbers, emails – its so hard, I know but it was the only way I could create a predictable environment for myself…… that being one where I didn’t sit by the phone or the computer WAITING!!! Once the reality shifts to the right, and you can’t get your bearings any longer (certainly how I felt it happened to me) – god, try and take control of your environment. I just couldn’t see waiting for another shoe…… you can do this. You can.
“A couple of weeks ago I called my Stepmother, sobbing (my Dad had passsed away several years ago) and asked her how she dealt with the pain of his infidelity and she said it was her choice, he never lied and that is the life she chose.”
The important part? He never lied. I have no problems with open relationships. It’s when you start to hide the truth and thus deny the other person their choice it becomes a problem.
Green girl:
I agree. I have no problem with an open marriage either. I would have had more respect for my ex had he asked for one. At least then I could have made an informed choice to either ditch him, or have some fun of my own, while staying married.
It seems to be very common though that cheaters hate to be cheated on.
So, I am thinking it’s about eating cake as well as getting one over on someone and having control.
Also, some professionals claim that cheaters have weak egos and I do think the fact that they want to cheat but would hate to be cheated on supports that notion.
That is why they do not simply ask for an open marriage. They Know they are not all that, and that if their spouse were to date other people, too, they might realize that, too. LOL
Let’s put the Sen Thurmond thing in context because I do believe it is in a class by itself….. back then, there is no way a black maid could have refused the sexual advances of a white employer – even the SON of a white employer – in the Jim Crow South. I knew those kinds of southerners and they were mean. The disparity in power made any “relationship”, well, not a relationship. White people perhaps like to characterize it as “love” to avoid calling it what it was, and the offspring of such unions a “love child” but – for anyone who’s from that part of the country and had half a brain, you knew, there was (and in many ways still is) tolerance for things that’s hard to wrap your brain around – especially with our current president. It just wasn’t something anybody talked about in polite company, at least not after the Civil War and Reconstruction – but, in so many ways, in our lifetime, the Old South did indeed rise again….. and not in a good way.
Sen Thurmond’s household was NOT, back when, a good place to be a black maid. And I’m guessing, that this child of said union, well, very very difficult to see that story and fail to see that things were much much more complicated that anybody in Sen Thurmond’s family would probably ever care to admit publicly. Perhaps I’m wrong, people did fall in love, but, there is no way it would have been anything remotely resembling equals – it just wasn’t possible.
Cheaters suck!!!! But I’m sorry, Sen. Thurmond’s transgression has a whole other, slimy, unthinkable layer to it.
Hell, when I first moved to NY in the early seventies I worked in a restaurant where the manager made me sit on his lap before he would give me my paycheck – and, I needed the job or I didn’t eat, so, I sat on his lap….. and to this day, I’m sure he would have looked back on that and swore up and down that I “enjoyed” it – at the very least characterize it all as just “good fun”. I couldn’t even tell my parents about it.
And it wasn’t the Jim Crow South. And, to this day, I remember EXACTLY what it felt like.
Just sayin…..
Erika:
I think that type of thing was still going on in the 80s and 90s. I know I was subjected to it, simply for being a woman.
Personally, I think it’s still going on. It may be more subtle but I have heard of people still getting promotions for being flirtatious with the boss.
Some women though do invite, it. Maybe more so today than in the 70s 80s or 90s.
I actually met one woman in the 90s who had dated a married man, married him and then cheated on him to get a promotion.
Unfortunately women who do those types of thing, make it bad for other women who want to get a job on their own merit.
Oh yes, and said manager was married.
Cheaters are ghe ones who are the most vocal about family and family values.
I have more or less concluded that any person who talks volubly in company ,which you think is more than what a normal person would do,is definitely someone who has a lot to hide.
My X did this so much, as how he hated cheaters, how he was mentoring younger guys who were cheating, how he would never ever look at other women blah blah blah.To what effect, one may ask. Well, because of their constant brainwashing you tend to ignore all the red flags or even if you do consider them you never associate cheating with all the anamolies that creep up.
Another reason I think is they don’t want to face up who they are.This verbose talk about them being honorable men makes them feel they are honorable.They believe their own lies.They think they are good men who made mistakes.
It is only we chumps who are self introspective and self critical.
When I found out about the total deceit it was I who was so harsh with myself.Not that I caused the cheating but what was in me that made me ignore all the red flags.That was the Change I had to bring in myself.But the cheater..no way.No introspection, no self analysis.
He is yet trying to sell himself to me as someone who made mistakes.
Yeah, right serial cheating, hookers etc are mistakes and not a lifestyle.
So, get a red alert when you hear someone talking a bit too much about family and family values.
Cheaters know no political party, no religion, no race. They know only to glorify themselves.
So true Green Girl.
No expertise on family law. But, it seems to me that the kid may have some right to claim back child support. Not sure, but, maybe he could get some $$ from the old goat.
Today, my STBXH announced that he’d love to see Ahhnold as President. He’s joking, of course, and had just been watching youtube. I asked why. “Because he’s cool.” I shot back, “The guy cheated on his wife, fathered a son by his lover, and only confessed after he was confronted by the evidence–and that’s cool?” Silence. Remember that STBXH doesn’t know that I know about his affair.