Scandal, American Style

Who the heck is Adam Giambrone? Well, according to the news last night, Mr. Giambrone is a young and ambitious Toronto city councilor who just recently joined the mayoralty campaign. By the way, mayoralty is a lot easier to write than say…anyway where was I? Right, Mr. Giabrone, a promising young candidate, was recently caught in what the reporter described as 'an American style political sex scandal.'

First off, since when did Americans corner the market on sex scandals? Politicians have been secretly bed-hopping long before Columbus crashed the Santa Maria into the Bahamas and declared “look everyone, the Indies!” as the natives looked on thinking “this can’t be good.”

Of course when it comes to political sex scandals, Americans are true to their philosophy of go big or go home. The names Kennedy and Clinton come to mind, but the more entertaining ones are guys like Eliot Spitzer. Remember him? The former governor of New York who in his earlier life as a prosecutor crusaded against, among other things, prostitution rings. His career ended with the discovery that he had a certain 'business relationship' with (surprise) a prostitute. And Alanis sings “isn’t it ironic…?”

Who can forget South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford? The politician who mysteriously disappeared for an entire week. When he finally surfaced he claimed he’d gone on some sort of mystical walkabout on the Appalachian Trail. It was later discovered that he’d hopped the redeye to Argentina for some matress-gymnastics with a secret liaison. So, let me get this straight, you leave your wife, kids and STATE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE for a fling in SOUTH AMERICA, and you think no one will notice? Like he couldn't find a Motel 6 anywhere in South Carolina.

These two horn-dogs have nothing on former Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards. Not only did Edwards have an affair, it also produced a “love child” that he resolutely denied being his. Faced with a torrent of allegations and potential DNA evidence he was forced to admit the affair and its resulting spawn. Oh yeah, did I mention that said affair took place while his wife was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. And Satan says “Dude, that’s cold.”

Getting back to Giambrone and his “American style political sex scandal”, or ASPSS. It seems the young candidate, once described as the golden boy of Toronto municipal politics, had been cheating on his partner of many years with a young college student. Apparently some of their “encounters” took place on the sofa in his office in City Hall, no doubt during an intensive study of his political briefs. As you can imagine there was no way this kind of story was going to stay contained.

You have to wonder what is wrong with his brain. After all, if you’re a young, upstart politician with the audacity of running for mayor of the biggest city in Canada, wouldn’t it make sense to clean out the ol’ closet first? Did he honestly think reporters would salivate over his electoral platform and promises of political reform? No, no, no skippy, if you want to get a reporters mojo going, just drop a tiniest hint of indiscretion and watch them feed like ravenous wolves.

To make matters even weirder, once the story broke the ‘other woman’ allegedly started sending photos of herself to the media so that the image used in their reports would make her appear sexier. And Scooby Doo says “ruh-ruh?!”

Personally, I think anyone skulking off behind the back of their spouse or partner for some surreptitious nookie is a selfish and callous cretin, but that’s just me. Even if you lack the intestinal fortitude to keep your overactive libido in check, to have the gall to think you can carry on at will under the glare of the public eye is the pinnacle of arrogance. Even Tiger Woods couldn’t pull it off, and he had the best clean up crew in the galaxy (although in his case, quantity that was his undoing, but that’s another blog).

I guess public humiliation is one thing that knows no nationality, although I think some of these guys could use a good old fashioned CHGBD also know as a ‘Canadian hockey goon beat down.'

Who the heck is Adam Giambrone? Today, nobody.