Dear Tiger Woods, Christopher Lee, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Hugh Grant, Mark Sanford, and all other public figures who not only can’t manage marital fidelity, but fail on a spectacularly public stage:
There are people for this. Sometimes we’re called handlers. Or fixers. Body men. Executive assistants. Personal assistants.
It doesn’t matter what title you use, but the job description is the same: we run interference between your squeaky-clean reputation, and all the nasty little peccadilloes that you simply can’t stay away from which would otherwise ruin it.
We have what Martin Blank called “a certain moral flexibility.” We live for oppo. We have carefully cultivated access to the other important gatekeepers who can clean up messes and make things go away. And we have leverage with those people (often thanks to the oppo).
We create labyrinthine layers between you and danger. The messier and nastier your compulsion, the more complex the layers and further removed you’ll be. We know the wheres and hows of due diligence, alibis, pseudonyms, disposable phones, throwaway emails, and paper trail elimination. We drive non-descript cars. We have forgettable names and faces, although we remember everything. We have access to cash. We know which hotels have discreet staff, and which are never to be used. We know which of your habits need to take place in private facilities. Or other countries.
We have access to weapons, but we don’t need them, because the situation never gets that far. Chandra Levy and Mary Jo Kopechne were embarrassments to the profession. The joke about getting caught with “a dead girl or a live boy” is a boogeyman story but in reality, getting caught at all is amateur hour.
We are willing to die with our secrets because we don’t crave public power, preferring instead private respect. We’d rather be feared among a few than worshipped by thousands.
We get paid very, very handsomely. You think of it as hush money, and so might your spouse, and you might even resent the expense at times—but your dark urges are just too powerful, in the end. If you could quit, you could save that cash, but you can’t quit.
And neither you nor your spouse really want to give up that public persona and power and all that comes with it—the junkets, the headlines, the money, the cars, the planes. And frankly, our personal success rises with yours. We too are invested in you keeping your nose clean and your star rising.
So make the call: your urge, or your career. If you can’t give up the urge, hire a fixer. If you can’t afford a fixer, give up the urge.
But you can’t both satisfy the urge and succeed at the public career. You’re not that clever, and you’re too egotistical. You believe both that you can’t possibly get caught… and that if you do, you can minimize the fallout. You’re wrong on both counts. Stop embarrassing yourself, your family, and your constituents/fans.
Regards,
Every political aide in the history of time, back to Henry VIII and the Caesar dynasty (#)
pineapple in a thread about the Representative who was found posting
shirtless photos on Craigslist. In my humble opinion, the world would be significantly simpler and more awesome if people just didn’t care about stuff like this. Go fuck as many girls as you want, Chris Lee. Go get em!
