History can provide a perspective on modern US politics. Down south of the 49th, politicians seem to be playing musical chairs with their sex scandals and, the higher their rank, the higher are the odds that they will end up in a sex scandal. If what is going on in the United Snakes happened in ancient Rome, most people would just respond to such behaviour with a, “So?” The general is still a great general and who is going to criticise the Emperor, who is still managing to keep the ENTIRE KNOWN WORLD running and fairly stable. However, if you were an aristocrat having an extramarital affair with another aristocrat, the penalty was death. Unless Caesar was feeling frivolous and forgiving, in which case you would be permanently exiled from the civilised parts of the known world, ie: you were fucked. For fucking. That neatly explains the prevalence of sex slaves, because slaves weren’t REALLY people and so fucking a slave didn’t count as adultery. If the Employer Claudius saw The Colbert Report he would not get the jokes (pretend he had a Latin-speaking translator and make SURE that’s Latin and NOT Latino). He’d most likely ask, “what’s the fuss? Just throw that unbelievably stupid orangutan to the lions. And bring me some more waffles.”
