When a Collision Between Politics and Sex Shocked Americans

Does it matter whether or not the Herald's reporters knew of Hart's interview with Dionne? The point is, it was Hart's own arrogance that brought him down when he invited reporters to tail him — and they obliged him.

The tradition of ignoring a man's infidelities and extramarital indiscrections is in our DNA. For eons, women were married in an arranged way. And when their husbands exercised their lustful urges with mistresses or prostitutes, they just turned a blind eye. Why? Economics. Men held the power of the purse. A woman might protest the situation, but not too much. Her alternative to the arrangement was destitution. And so here we are. We think that all that disgusting epigenetically embedded DNA and subsequent behavior is just going to be washed away now that we believe in full equality of the sexes and expect marriage to be based on romantic love. Not yet. Sadly, much too soon. Read about the women who support Trump despite his despicable treatment of women. They are simply playing out their traditional roles of subservience and acceptance. Trumps behavior is simply a side issue - nothing that unusual for a "man". As long as he protects us from the baby killers and the brown hordes, it's all OK. As the article points out we have ignored rotten behavior by our leaders forever. Not mentioned are Ike, JFK and the one we Dems worship. FDR was the person we needed at the time (mostly) but as a person, he was a selfish self indulgent frat boy - a cruel and horrible husband. So, nothing really new on this front with Trump. The new part is his astounding ignorance, dishonesty and attempts to divide us. He gets an F in leadership. Maybe a C in typical marital behavior.

It's odd that this story doesn't reference https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/was-gary-hart-set-up/570802/ James Fallows' November 2018 Atlantic magazine story alleging with convincing evidence based on Lee Atwater's deathbed confession that the Hart affair was essentially a political dirty trick campaign.

There is a strange tension in this article (and I guess in our politics). The Gary Hart business led to a no-holds barred, 24 hour news cycle dedicated to rooting out the prurient details of politicians' personal lives ... yet Clinton and Trump, both inveterate womanizers, shrugged it off and won the White House. So doesn’t actually matter? I suspect the unspoken corollary is that Hart’s downfall led to the rise of candidates so brazen and shameless that even when confronted with their supposed misdeeds, they deny them. And their supporters cheer. PS: I can’t believe they didn’t call the film either Hart Attack, or An Affair of the Hart.

It's fair to investigate a politician's character. That should not be confused with sainthood, but there is a vast difference between extramarital affairs between consenting adults and sexual harassment or assault. There is also more to 'character' than sexual behaviour. Character also includes whether a candidate has illegally made money out of his office, whether he or she is beholden to special interests, whether she or he has a moral compass in policy-making. Funny how we talk so much about sex and so little about money.

I would see a movie about fellow Coloradan presidential candidate Patricia Schroeder before Gary Hart. More relevant to our times. White male Hollywood liberals (these filmmakers, Pod Save America), small children or born after that campaign, are lionizing Hart as the last liberal hope. I was a college student and remember a conserva-dem, Republican-lite running a racialized subtext campaign against Jesse Jackson.

They really should have considered giving Hugh Jackman prosthetic ear lobes for the role... He's just not convincing as Hart without them.

With the #me too movement now with us I am sure over sexed politicians will pay the price of perversion. Hart got away with it like Cosby because the women were afraid to report it for being afraid of being thrown under the bus. I am glad the # me too movement is with us and we need to get Trumps 19 women to file suit and get closure. I feel women are more safer now with the movement than 50 years ago.

The GOP would care today because they are hypocrites. And, of course, the democrats would too, because they have an unrealistic view of reality. Howard Dean said "Yee Haw!" and they all abandoned the best candidate. So basically, only a GOP politician gets a pass on anything. And they get a pass on some pretty sick stuff.

Sex scandals only disqualify Democrats. They are expected to be as pure as the driven snow. Republicans, on the other hand, are free to behave any way they want because voters continue to buy the fairy tale that they promote rock-solid patriotic God-fearing American values.

“Hart’s presidential campaign was the first to be tanked by a sex scandal”. Then the article references how the same fate befell Hamilton. Hart was not the first and won’t be the last.

Would we care today? Only if the candidate was a Democrat. The corporate media structure is unable (for financial reasons, apparently) ever to give that kind of incessant, nagging, obliterating coverage to any Republican who transgresses the same kinds of mores. The R's can basically shrug off any scandal at all using their DARVA method: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Accuser. See Trump, Donald; infidelity; tax fraud; conspiracy, etc. The media effectively gives him a pass by reporting instead every new shiny object he throws in their face. He knows what he's doing. They ought to as well... but they don't care because they need clicks, eyeballs, readers, ratings. But the media consistently gives the worst they've got to any Democrat who slips up even slightly. Never mind what policies H. Clinton had to offer, or how ridiculous her Republican inquisitors looked when they were unable to find anything at all that she'd done wrong, ever -- she still needed to be punished in the press every day with story after story about her use of email. And B. Clinton's private sex affair got him impeached, because the press deemed it that important. But not Trump, or Bush, or Reagan. They're untouchable.

Thomas Jefferson did not have an "affair with an enslaved woman." It was rape, pure and simple. Stop trying to clean up his act. Bill Clinton survived a sex scandal. He served out his term and was a "rock star" afterwards. There is an article in the paper today saying no one is calling on him to campaign because of MeToo but I think the larger reason is that his time is over. Obama is the rock star of the party for now. Of course there is Trump with multiple wives, side chicks and coarse language about women that his supporters have overlooked. I keep hoping he will vent his true feelings about his supporters into a hot mic he thinks is off but they might still support him after that.

As I recall, Alexander Hamilton couldn't have become president -- with or without a sex scandal -- because he wasn't born in the US. H was born in Nevis.

Would we care today? Only for a Democratic candidate.

I saw Gary Hart in a quiet airline lounge a year or so after the so-called scandal died down, and all I remember is the face of a broken man. Everyone knew who he was, no one spoke, and he kept to himself. What a difference from today, when the president can boast about harassing women, throw out racist epithets without consequence, and condone violence with just a smirk and a wink. Nothing short of a major crisis or shock will return this country to some sort of equilibrium, where the former is forgiven, not forgotten, and the latter condemned, not condoned.

As long as it’s a Democrat who gets caught engaging in “monkey business,” you can be sure that the media and Republicans will have their perpetual outrage machine turned to 11. Republicans like Trump and Kavanaugh, well, they somehow get a pass and a pat on the back for their patience while Democrats are mean to them. The hypocrisy is staggering but not surprising. Republicans have mastered talking out of both sides of their mouths. I think the real question is why Republicans think they have to lie so much. Do they have that much contempt for their neighbors or do they really understand the compromised position they’ve put themselves in?

If a Democrat did it, the Republicans would definitely care. If a Republican did it nobody would care.

That the press did not report on the shenanigans of Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy was simply a failing of the press. The press needs to do its job, and the public needs to decide what standards it is going to use to evaluate its candidates. In the case of Trump, nearly half the public failed in its decision-making process. (Why and how it failed is another story, but I don't blame the press.) Comparing Hart to Trump is like comparing Mickey Mouse to Godzilla. If we were to learn that Mickey had been unfaithful to Minnie, well that would be a big deal. But when you are dealing with a giant fire-breathing dragon, you don't care so much about whether or not the dragon has been faithful to his wife.

I was 17 years old when that story broke and I still remember the two words that brought Hart undone: "Monkey Business". When I saw Jackman was starring in this movie, I hoped that perhaps they'd made the story as a musical - could you think of a better name for a musical than Monkey Business?

I recently read that Lee Atwater may have tried to set up Hart. There's a persuasive argument in __The Atlantic__. Politicians playing tricks? Can it be possible?

The premise is a reach from a middlebrow director. Trump comes from the internet, not paparazzi.

I'd admired Hart until the affair mess, which as smart as he is, was astonishing, and showed bad judgment that was out of character for him. I don't know if Colorado's more sane politics was an influence - a GOP "family values" Governor, Bill Owens, had a child out of wedlock and his wife temporarily separated from him while he was Governor - all of which had a similarly "end of national career" effect on him - but the Colorado media never went into the gory details seriously. The Europeans were supposedly amused at the self-righteousness of the American electorate about Clinton, as though it is common. And of course Clinton's main GOP pursuers (Hyde and Gingrich) had their own mistresses and the audacity of hypocrisy by them also astonishes me. The affairs show bad judgment. That's what is bizarre about religious people forgiving Trump his incredibly bad judgments and constant lying - also bad judgment apart from the substance of his worldview simply being wrong, bullying and anachronistic. Voter sentiments swing back and forth like a pendulum, rarely stopping at a sensible middle - instead swinging from one extreme to another. So we switch parties in the White House every 8 years, vote out the majority party during the President's first mid-terms, and never seem to learn. Thank you Pres. Obama and Michelle Obama and your family for being such a class act.!

According to Jason Reitman at a screening recently, that photograph with Rice was not published until months after the scandal hit and Hartman had already pulled out of his run for the presidency. The film tries to walk on both sides of the line, not taking a point of view about whether or not Rice and Hartman were indeed just friends.

Maybe Gary Hart's candidacy was a change in reporting on personal lives of candidates but I always felt it was his arrogance about it that did him in. When confronted with a rumor he challenged reporters to follow him; well, they did. Instead of stopping the affair he thought a boat called Monkey Business was off limits. In other words, unprepared. Donald Trump seemingly broke the rules but he's actually spent decades honing a message and branding his name then sold that package to a target audience.

Odd casting choice. Jackman doesn’t have the slickness or charm Hart had, or even the slightly abrasive edge that came out when the guy was cornered. And the attempt to make him look like Hart doesn’t work. The hair and makeup just looks all wrong. He’s an actor in an ill-fitted wig, and that is all I am going to see for the entire movie.

I lived in Colorado in 1980. Hart's charisma and political stances were the first that got me on my feet and door-to-door for a candidate. I believe he would have made a fine President.

From your column: "Hart didn’t think what was going on inside his home was anyone’s business." I expect that sitting on a pier with a woman on his lap--which did *not* happen inside his home--made Gary Hart fair game.

Gary Hart was egotistic and arrogant, flaunting his "relationship" with Donna Rice and even inviting the press to follow him (I guess that makes him a bit stupid, too). The picture of Donna Rice on Hart's lap definitely calls into question whether their relationship was platonic; the partially-obscured text on Hart's shirt helps blow his cover: "Monkey Business Crew," Monkey Business being the name of the yacht they were on during a trip to Bimini. Monkey business indeed. Was Hart so vain that he thought members of the press would cover up his extramarital hanky-panky as they had for John F Kennedy and other politicians, and assumed he could do likewise? Whatever the source of his smugness, he clearly brought his downfall upon himself. My only question is why anyone thought this tawdry story was worth making into a movie.