Last week, Politico’s Melanie Mason tackled the question of why female politicians are so rarely caught with their pants down. Mason starts out with a pretty good theory—”Men far outnumber women in elected office, and statistical probability dictates that if a random politician is caught in a sex scandal, it is overwhelmingly likely that the politician would be male”—and then offers up a bargain basement of half-baked ideas in order to cover all the basis—and sexist stereotypes against women. Most of these reasons would never, ever actually stop a woman from messing around, but that won’t stop us from buying into it all again.

Strong Women Aren’t Hot Enough:

“I guess men in power are terribly attractive to some women, but I don’t think that women in power are attractive to some men,” said former Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), who was co-chairwoman of Gary Hart’s scandal-plagued presidential campaign in 1988.

Love Finds A Way: Please. This isn’t true, but even if it were—everybody can find somebody who wants to fuck them. This theory also conveniently lets male politicians off the hook. It’s not their fault! All the women who unexpectedly want to fuck them are to blame, somehow:

male politicians may be lavished with sexual attention they are unprepared to handle. “Most of these politicians were the high school boys that couldn’t get the cheerleader,” said [Suzie] Johnson, whose website GoAskSuzie.com specializes in issues of infidelity. “Now the situation is reversed.”

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The Media Has Eliminated the Female Politician’s Sex Life:

Being so outnumbered in the political realm can also lead to greater media scrutiny for politicians—think, for example, of the brouhaha over Hillary Clinton’s V-neck blouse that sparked a lengthy discussion on the appropriate amount of cleavage a female politician should reveal.

Love Finds A Way: I won’t argue with the fact that female politicians are often unfairly scrutinized by the news-media. Even when they’re not caught with their pants down, women are often scrutinized over infidelity—Bill’s blowjob meant a lot of obsession over Hillary’s reaction. However, it’s not like the Governor of South Carolina doesn’t have reporters watching his every cross-continental flight—and monitoring his sexy e-mails—as well.

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Having A Career Is Hard Enough For Women!:

Others say women in high-power careers are so overloaded already that affairs are an unlikely possibility. As Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) points out, “Who has the time? I don’t have enough time in the day to take care of the responsibilities I have between work and family.”

Women tend to be able to juggle a lot, but with so many pressures, throwing an extra romance in the mix may feel like just another item to have to multitask. “In a certain way, it’s a privilege, and it still belongs predominantly to men,” said Williams, who is herself a mother.

Love Finds a Way: First, women were too preoccupied with homemaking and baby-raisin’ that they simply didn’t have the time or energy to hold down a career. They just couldn’t handle it! Now, women are too preoccupied with homemaking, baby-raisin’, and that career they insisted upon, they just can’t manage to squeeze the infidelity in. Are female politicians too busy with their careers to ruin their careers, or are there—again—just not that many women who have had the opportunity to fuck up?

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Women Can Make Babies, Didn’t You Know!

“The tendency or willingness to transgress sexual boundaries in general is much more likely in men than in women,” said Paul Abramson, author of the forthcoming book “Sex Appeal: Six Ethical Principles for the 21st Century.” Abramson, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, added that “women are socialized to be much more cautious about sexuality due to the fact that they can get pregnant. Having an affair is a sexual risk, and women are much less inclined to do that.”

Love Finds a Way: As Megan Carpentier points out on Jezebel, these women are in menopause. And if they’re not: condoms.

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Women Are Too Emotional To Have Casual Sex!

“That’s the reason you don’t see more female politicians having affairs,” Johnson said. “Women are less likely to have physical affairs but more likely to have emotional affairs, and there’s no way to bust those.”

Love finds a way: Emotional affairs leave paper trails, too. See: Mark Foley’s illicit AIM conversations, Mark Sanford’s flowery e-mails. Also, why are we listening to the advice of Suzie Johnson of GoAskSuzie.com again? You don’t have to take the URL literally!

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Women are wily bitches.

And, of course, there is always the possibility that female politicians have their own sexual indiscretions the public simply doesn’t know about. Those secrets may stay hidden for a while. According to Johnson, “women are way more clever at covering [affairs] up.”

Love Finds A Way: This is likely true—but it’s likely true for many male politicians, as well. The idea that women are inherently better at hiding affairs is a tempting, completely unsubstantiated, and useless theory.

Photo by veni markovski

IF SHE DID RUN, HE WOULD CRUSH HER, a new poll finds [PDF]. “A new national [Public Policy Polling] poll finds that nominating Palin could be a death wish for the party, with Barack Obama leading Palin 55-35 in a hypothetical contest. The key reason Palin would lose to Obama by so much is that even though she might be the top choice for a certain segment of voters within her party, there’s also a number of Republicans who say they would vote for Obama if their party nominated Palin.” [via ThunderPig].

ALASKANS STILL LOVE HER: Palin enjoys a high approval rating in her state:

Very positive 40.5
Somewhat positive 20.8 percent
Somewhat negative 12.5 percent
Very negative 20.2 percent
Don’t know/Didn’t answer 6 percent

Her staff still sucks, though.

WHY IS GRETA V.S. SARAH PALIN’S OFFICIAL JOURNO? Greta Van Susteren has bombarded the populace with interviews with Palins big and small. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza knows why: Her husband, John Coale, is a friend of the governor:

Coale, a well-known Washington lawyer and the husband of Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren, drew national media attention when he endorsed Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid in protest of the way in which Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who he backed in the primary, was treated. Coale, in an interview with the Fix, described himself simply as a “friend” of the Alaska governor but acknowledged that he suggested she start a leadership PAC and helped her navigate through some of the questions surrounding her family that lingered after the campaign. Others familiar with Palin’s political team insist that Coale has far more power than he is letting on—essentially helping to run Sarah PAC. Coale demurred on that front, noting only that he talks to Palin regularly and that she is a “fascinating person” who is “definitely not what the right thinks or the left thinks.”

GRETA ON WHY SHE’S A NEUTRAL PALIN REPORTER:

[via ThinkProgress]

PALIN HEADLINE OF THE DAY, from Politico’s Ben Smith: “Palin Clashes With Feds on Wolves”

MADONNA is to Hillary Clinton as Britney Spears is to Sarah Palin: “Britney is not Madonna,” writes  Spears tour reviewer Jed Gottlieb. “She just ain’t. Madonna is Hillary Clinton. She’s whip smart and survives, even thrives by adapting. And Lord knows she wants it more than anyone. Britney is Sarah Palin. Baby drama headlines. Podunk back story and a massive industry machine behind her. She’s a manufactured star aimed at the lowest common denominator.”

Photo by Kurisu

Steele also told GQ, “I loved to party—still do—and have a good time.” So, you know, this guy will say anything to anybody.

The pertinent portion of the interview follows [via Wonkette].

How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?
Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that—I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it… Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.

Explain that.
The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.

Are you saying you don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
I think Roe v. Wade—as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.

Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

Do pro-choicers have a place in the Republican Party?
Absolutely!

Yesterday, Politico’s Becca Milfeld posted a Valentimey collection of the first-date stories of Washington “power couples.” Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff were escorted on their first date by friends, Joseph Lieberman’s wife asked him to move her furniture, and John Dingell brought Deborah to see “Giselle.” What, no ill-advised drunken hook-ups that led, unexpectedly, to high-profile romance? I call bullshit. Let’s read between the lines, shall we?

POWER COUPLE: Al Hunt (Washington editor, Bloomberg News) and Judy Woodruff (senior correspondent, PBS)

ON THE RECORD HOOKUP: “Hunt had long suffered from migraine headaches and had one when they went out on their first date, a meal with friends at an Italian restaurant in Washington, on March 19, 1977. But he hasn’t had a migraine since.”

REALITY: What, no wine with dinner? Woodruff must have served up some kind of medicine!

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POWER COUPLE: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Hadassah Lieberman

ON-THE-RECORD HOOKUP: “Lieberman called her up and said that they could either go out that day or would have to wait until after the election. . . . Hadassah said that day would be perfect, since she needed her new dining room table and chairs moved in. Lieberman got in the car and drove down to Riverdale, N.Y., and at the door knew that it was love at first sight or, as he put it, an ‘oh-bah-bah-boom moment. . . . And that dining room furniture? She had her superintendent move them in before he arrived.”

REALITY: Ugh, because you know that the Liebermans’ first-date story is really boring enough that having “her superintendent move them in before he arrived” has to count for steamy foreplay.

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POWER COUPLE: Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Deborah Dingell (vice-chair of the General Motors Foundation, senior executive at GM)

ON-THE-RECORD HOOKUP: “He asked her out 15 times, she turned him down 14. They finally went to see Giselle at the Carter Barron Amphitheater on ‘one of those soft June evenings’ in Washington in 1980.”

REALITY: And then, the “soft June evening” turned into a “soft June morning after.”

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POWER COUPLE: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and John Marshall Collins (attorney)

ON-THE-RECORD HOOKUP: “’We met at an election party of a candidate who lost,’ Lofgren recalled.”

REALITY: . . . Then they got drunk and hooked up.

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POWER COUPLE: Rep. Eric Cantor and Diana F. Cantor

ON-THE-RECORD HOOKUP: “Cantor met his future wife on a blind date while he was a student at Columbia. The mutual friends who hooked the couple up went with them to a restaurant in Soho called ‘New Deal,’ hardly a serendipitous name for a Republican love match. ‘I remember it vividly. This was 20 years ago,’ he said. ‘I fell in love very quickly.’ He added, ‘Falling in love in New York is a great thing.’”

REALITY: I think we all know what “I fell in love very quickly” means.

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POWER COUPLE: Attorney General Eric Holder and Dr. Sharon Malone

ON-THE-RECORD HOOKUP: “A mutual friend told a reluctant Holder about a woman he should meet, on the condition that if they got on, the friend could spend a week at Holder’s parents’ house in Barbados. When the two finally met, it turned out they had already hit it off at a fundraiser. Needless to say, the friend went to Barbados.”

REALITY: Hold on. All I need to do is introduce my friend to someone he’s already met, and I get a free trip to Barbados? Something—and I’m not sure what—is foul here.

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POWER COUPLE: Chef Geoff Tracy (owner, Chef Geoff’s) and Norah O’Donnell (chief Washington correspondent, MSNBC)

ON THE RECORD HOOKUP: “‘Norah and I had our first night that involved a smooch or something like that’ during their freshman year at Georgetown University in 1991, Tracy recalled. They were out with a group of friends at The Dubliner when an ‘old guy with no teeth’ began to hit on O’Donnell, and Tracy offered to make him go away if O’Donnell would go along with what he said. She agreed, and he declared he was going to ask O’Donnell to marry him. The bar made an announcement with the happy news, the toothless guy took a hike, and ten years later he asked again, for real this time.”

REALITY: Probably pretty much just like this. Drunken college hookup: Huzzah!

Photo by Thirteen of Clubs

* Jezebel debunks the debunkers of the rumors facts of Palin’s rape kit debacle.

* Meghan McCain at McCain Blogette has posted another election playlist. McCain writes that she creates “playlists for almost every interesting experience,” but doesn’t identify exactly what that interesting experience is this time. What could the combination of David Bowie’s “Golden Years,” Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” and Lady GaGa’s (?) “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” be referring to? Whatever, I’m digging it.

* Via The Nation: A pastor protects Sarah Palin against “the spirit of witchcraft” in 2005. Go to the video’s 7:30 mark to watch Palin get de-witched.

* Feminist fiction writer Chimamanda Adichi wins the intellectual lottery—she gets $100,000 a year for five years and gets the nickname “genius.” [via Feminist Daily News].

* David Levinson Wilk for Politico reports on the domination of “OBAMA” and “BIDEN” clues in the New York Times‘ crossword. “MCCAIN” has never appeared. As for McCain’s Veep: “Like a cruel joke, PALIN has appeared dozens of times as an answer in the crossword grids of the nation’s most esteemed news publications—but always with clues such as ‘Monty Python member’ or ‘Cohort of Cleese and Idle.’ It’s pretty obvious: The left-wing media elite is mocking her. For shame!”

* Via Feministing: Tuesday was bisexuality day. Whoops, see you next year.

Photo by dumbonyc.