Robert Kirby : Loose Cannon
Now that the media blood pressure is dropping and the Bill Clinton/FW de Klerk/PW Botha emotional and sexual needs have been assessed in all their horrible detail, I think it’s time for a more informed look at these scandalous goings-on in high places.
The first major peril of trying to write perceptively about sex-crazed statesmen is that one is continually tempted to think up catchy little witticisms like “the Oral Office” and “Head for Head”. Stitch enough of these into otherwise placid copy, you’ll liven it up no end. What I will studiously avoid in this pelvic précis is the use of gender-corrosive wordplay like “The Oral Orifice” and “Hillary’s Clintoris”.
So to the reflections. What has been most notable in these latest sex scandals is the intensity of the global envy at the mental picture we were given. The leader of the Western world sitting at his desk late in the evening, tossing himself off to a dirty phone call from his deep-throated ex-aide with Saddam Hussein on hold.
Try to think of Abe Lincoln crouched over one of those early Morse code receivers, one feathery hand clutching an earphone to his head, the other grappling away among his long johns. Think of Dwight Eisenhower using a steam-driven vibrator to keep Mamie under control. Not quite the same picture as Bill trying to manoeuvre his dwang past Paula Jones’s nose. But nothing new on the hill.
Moving on to Botha. There’s something infinitely lovable about old PW, especially now he’s in his quivering dotage. All those years of pomp and ceremony. Cruelly thrust into indifferent posterity — how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is, to have an ungrateful Cabinet. Facing the end, PW acknowledges the penalties of age and settles for just the pomp.
All he is showing with this late-flowering lust is that men of power invariably have irrepressible libidos. Jack Kennedy was uncontrollable in the Sixties. He vented it on no less than Marilyn Monroe. The secret service used to fly him to Santa Monica in a plain brown helicopter and keep guard over the modest suburban house while he played the game of the two-backed monster.
Showbiz babes seem to have some extra appeal to political giants. To the delight of his numerous fans, the Lion of the North, JG Strjdom, took unto his house a woman of the stage. It has long since been rumoured that’s not all he nudged over the threshold with Marda. Along with her came some microscopic bywoners which eventually drove the poor fellow to a giddy social death.
The footlights continued to lure and deceive. I remember how the grapevines throbbed about HF Verwoerd, how he’d been equally unsuccessful in constraining his turbulent scrotum. After a long illness bravely borne, he had a blistering affair with Taubie Kushlick. If it didn’t work out, it was only because Percy Tucker refused to have it on Computicket.
They’re all the same, these power mongers. In De Klerk’s case, how can we blame the man? All those years shacked up with a woman of a gratifyingly fascist oeuvre, one who openly abhors people of colour, konfyt- friendly, stitched through with envy at all the black children Winnie’s been able to whack. In one sour glance, Marike exemplified everything FW had tenaciously fought both for and against his entire political life. So he touches up some rich fleet-owner’s woman and suddenly the papers are awash in “heartbreaks” and “pain-filled decisions” and “it is the sincere hope of the church he will see his way to coming back to God in this time of his confused emotions”.
As to Clinton, what is all this unseemly fuss about a routine extra-marital gobble? French presidents are pitied if they don’t use their positions and power to get their hands on some stray. Their mistresses and illegitimate children get invited to the funerals.
Why are we all being so prissy? In a mature society Clinton’s popularity would flourish with every pulse of his willing shaft. I just think he could do a whole lot better than Monica.
But before he starts feeling up the next one, what Clinton now needs to do is spend more time humping away at Hillary. I know she’s brainless and looks like something you buy at morticians’ clearance sales, but she got up on television and stood behind her man. She deserves some reward for that.
Go for it, Billy.