Time | When her husband Dominique Strauss-Kahn was preparing to run for President of France five years ago, Anne Sinclair told a Paris newspaper that she was "rather proud" of his reputation as a ladies' man, a chaud lapin (hot rabbit) nicknamed the Great Seducer."It's important," she said, "for a man in politics to be able to seduce."
Maybe it was pride that inspired French politicians and International Monetary Fund officials to look the other way as the rumors about "DSK" piled up, from the young journalist who says Strauss-Kahn tried to rip off her clothes when she went to interview him, to the female lawmaker who describes being groped and pawed and vowed never to be in a room alone with him again, to the economist who argued in a letter to IMF investigators that "I fear that this man has a problem that, perhaps, made him unfit to lead an institution where women work under his command." Maybe it was the moral laziness and social coziness that impel elites to protect their own. Maybe it was a belief that he alone could save the global economy. Maybe nothing short of jail is disqualifying for certain men in certain circles.
But in any event, the arrest of Strauss-Kahn in New York City for allegedly trying to rape a hotel maid has ignited a fierce debate over sex, law, power and privilege. And it is only just beginning. The night of Strauss-Kahn's arraignment, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted that the reason his wife Maria Shriver walked out earlier this year was the discovery that he had fathered a child more than a decade ago with a former member of the household staff. The two cases are far apart: only one man was hauled off to jail. But both suggest an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust. And both involve men whose long-standing reputations for behaving badly toward women did not derail their rise to power. Which raises the question: How can it be, in this ostensibly enlightened age, when men and women live and work as peers and are schooled regularly in what conduct is acceptable and what is actionable, that anyone with so little judgment, so little honor, could rise to such heights?
3 comments:
The ability to always 'get the girl' is one of the earliest ways a guy gains status.
(Being able to fight probably comes first)
Being good in sports, doing well in school (but not TOO well), wearing the right clothes and having the right things become important a little later.
The same rules seem to work later in life as well.
Celebrities are celebrities and popular people are popular because they seem to have conquered many of the challenges set forth back in pre-school.
Uncle John, I gather (and don't doubt for a heartbeat) that you are an immensely popular man. I think you came to the game naturally, and that you studied and mastered it - on your own - so as to maximize your outcomes. Furthermore, I consider you self-made man and uncompromising. I respect that. (not like your boy larouche noir whose daddy founded a fraternity and trained his little seed to rustle feeble-minded two-legged cattle)
That said, not only are you NOT a celebrity, but you wouldn't want to be a celebrity if TPTB were to begin collectively rushing up and attempting to thrust it upon you.
Seriously brah, no way a short-statured, and exceptionally large-headed freak like Tom Cruise - with the taint of taint all over him - becomes naturally popular, though as we can all see - his celebrity is beyond dispute. Somebody decided to elevate this fool because he's an immoral and infinitely compromised and compromise-able specimen.
Same for Dominique Strauss Cohen......, now that DS"K" been busted out as nothing more than a low-life rape man - I think we can safely conclude that psychopathic absence of impulse control DOES NOT either celebrity or popularity make. Though arguably it may be the stuff of an IMF beauracrat or a politician selected, protected, and elected at arms length by a celebrity crazed public.
A celebrity? Dude, I can hardly deal with simple popularity.
But maybe my reply was a bit clumsy.
Poor people think that if they had a lot of money then they would gain status.
Dudes with no game think that if they get women then they will also gain status.
People who were picked on at the playground start wars.
I think what one feels he lacked as a kid he then seeks (and over-values) as an adult.
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