When the Sex Matters

For the record: I am perfectly fine with any sex act between consenting adults, as long as it does not violate any criminal statutes or harm other adults, children, animals or antique furniture.

However, Christopher Hitchens' defense in Slate of Paul Wolfowitz' - Hitch resents the term "girlfriend," so let's call her his paramour - is just a bit much, even for The Hitch.

Hitchens apparently knows her personally, and thinks she's just peachy, therefore the media types criticizing her boyfriend are a bunch of meanies.

"(T)his is the nastiest and dirtiest and cheapest campaign of character assassination I have ever seen."

Really?

Nastier than discussing in detail the appearance and characteristics of the president's penis?

Dirtier than speculating on the First Lady's sexual proclivities?

Cheaper than taping a distraught young woman's private confessions and broadcasting them to the world?

Worse character assassination than attacking that young woman for falling for a powerful older man and making fun of her weight?

Adultery (Wolfowitz is separated, but still married) is far more common than any of us likes to admit. I have worked in almost two dozen different places in my life, large and small, and at every single one of them there was at least one affair going on.

Some were fairly harmless co-worker gropings. Others were boss-subordinate couplings that led to scream-fests, hysterical scenes, plummeting morale, destroyed productivity, mass resignations, firings, divorce and lawsuits.

It may be true, as Hitchens claims, that Shaha Riza was supremely qualified for her position at the World Bank and the one she eventually got at the State Department, that she did an outstanding job and that she earned every penny of the enormous salary Wolfie arranged for her.

But the only "character assassination" she has suffered is the revelation of her affair. I don't believe publication of the truth constitutes "character assassination."

Wolfowitz is a public figure, and has been for many years - since long before their affair began. Riza is by all accounts an intelligent, highly competent, sophisticated woman of the world. She knew, or should have known, that she was one resentful employee away from exposure.

If she wanted to maintain her privacy, she should have either insisted that Wolfowitz decline the World Bank job so she could keep hers (the I Am Woman option), quietly resigned from the World Bank and found another job on her own without Wolfie's help (the Stand By Your Man option) or ended the affair (the Good Girl option.)

That she arrogantly insisted on being treated as a professional while accepting special favors from her lover opened the door to both exposure and ridicule.

Both richly deserved.