The Two Francois: An Essay in Criticism

Here’s a quote from a TLS review of Philip Short’s Mitterand: A Study in Ambiguity, (TLS, “Skilled at Distance,” 5/30/14): “Alongside his official family, and the inevitable retinue of mistresses, Francois also shared his life with Anne Pingeot, who was twenty years younger than him and with whom he had a child, Mazarine. Her existence was revealed to the wider public only in late l994, when Paris-Match published photographs of the President with his daughter.” This little paragraph written by the reviewer Sudhir Hazareesingh is worthy of exegesis since it contains a number of assumptions: 1) that a head of state in France has an official family (the current Francois in power in France confutes that assumption, of course 2) “inevitable retinue of mistresses.” Is it written in French law that a head of state must have a “retinue” in order not to face impeachment? Certainly the other Francois seems to have met this qualification handily having thrown over the journalist Valerie Treirweiler for the actress, Julie Gayet, (footnote: his 30 year relationship with Segolene Royal had come to an end one month after Royal’s defeat in the 2007 election) 3) while it seems that the name Francois can be attached to positions of power in French government, we know the name is not a requirement. It was not, for example, Francois de Gaulle. There have been many summit talks in which American presidents have met with their European counterparts. But there has unfortunately never been a sexuality summit in which major leaders could compare notes. Imagine a circle jerk with Francois Mitterand, Francois Hollande, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton for starters. But reading about the exploits of the two Francoises, it's hard not to ask, were these two leaders of France sex addicts and what differentiates them from DSK, a renowned swordsmen, who also occupied a prominent quasi governmental position as managing director of the IMF?

Bill Clinton For Mayor

If the qualifications for high position in New York municipal government are a history of sexual peccadillos then why not elect someone with some real credentials, Bill Clinton? Bill Clinton not only has a history of tawdry sexual involvements with Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, but brilliance and political savvy to boot. Of course there is the question of residency, since Clinton lives in Chappaqua. But these would certainly be compensated for by the potential candidate’s track record in fulfilling what we might call the Caligula requirement. When we think about the great presidents of the twentieth century, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Ike—they all strayed. But unlike Spitzer and Weiner they were great politicians and thinkers. In a way it’s not what Anthony Weiner did— which by any standards was mild and didn’t actually involve any sexual acts. It’s what he didn’t do in failing to exercise even minor judgment when he allowed himself to employ social networks. Social networks are used when you want to draw attention to an activity. Occupy Wall Street uses Twitter when it wants to organize a demonstration. Do we want a mayor who attracts crowds every time he literally and metaphorically drops his pants? Eliot Spitzer disqualifies himself from the comptroller’s position not because of going to prostitutes but because of the outrageous sums he paid for them. Would you elect someone to balance your budget who got taken to the bank by an organization with the hokey name of Emperor’s Club VIP? If Bill Clinton were mayor or comptroller he would undoubtedly avoid the Emperor’s Club and being a true statesmen at heart, he would only use social networks for political purposes.

Saul Steinberg

Photo by  Inge Morath

Saul Steinberg was famous for his drawings, but according to Deborah Solomon’s review of the new Deirdre Bair biography, Steinberg often crossed the line (“Drawing the Line, and Crossing It,” NYT, 11/21/12) “As Bair reveals,” Solomon says, “his love life was a string of infidelities, and crabbiness was his default mode.” The review quotes Steinberg’s wife, Hedda Sterne, as saying, “In a way sex was his life. He deprived himself of true union because he was not ever in love.” Bair, according to Solomon, also describes how Steinberg’s indiscretions which included “the teenaged daughters of his dearest friends” were often excused because “his work was manifestly first rate, and talent tends to foster forgiveness.” Steinberg’s mixture of talent and promiscuity places him in a long line of Lotharios that include Victor Hugo and George Simenon in literature, John F. Kennedy and his father Joseph in politics, and Wilt Chamberlain, the basket ball player who claimed to have slept with over 20,000 women. And one wonders about the relationship between talent and sexuality. Did the talent occur because of the sexuality (with the sexuality being a manifestation of a certain ambition) or in spite of it? Or is hyper-sexuality the reward bestowed on certain narcissistic geniuses,whose insights into human behavior don’t include a keen understanding of the effect they may have on others? On the other hand, can we say that love is an overrated emotion and that one of the products of Steinberg’s highly developed sensibility was to know a good time when he saw it? Hedda Sterne, who died in 2011, was interesting in her own right, as the sole female member of the Irascible Eighteen a group of abstract expressionists which included Pollock and Rothko.