A Different Kind of Romance

Or is it?

You'll pardon me, I hope, if I descend into the murky depths of illicit affairs, which I take in this instance to mean sexual relations outside of marriage.

I'm thinking right now of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his Argentine inamorata. Reports from Argentina have referred to her as a 43-year old professional woman of uncommon beauty. Sanford is 49, so the age range is in line with general expectations.

The element in this romance that strikes me as interesting is the appearance of the two. Given that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we are, nonetheless, prone to accept reports that the woman is pretty darned good looking.

Sanford, on the other hand, altghough tall and with a commanding presence by virtue of that alone, doesn't have the face of a Hollywood idol. He has close-set eyes that some may describe as beady. And a long, narrow nose reminiscent of the noses of some species of lower primates.

As your typical generic Anglo-Saxon male, I am naturally prone to ask, "What does she see in that guy?"

In fact, when I look at Sanford's face, I am reminded of an old Mickey Gilley honky-tonk song, "The Girls All Get Prettier at Closing Time."

The song clearly suggests that a woman's attractiveness increases in proportion with the amount of alcohol consumed by the male. I hold that the rule also applies to women. The more booze a woman consumes, the handsomer a generic will appear to be.

I am not suggesting that Sanford's inamorata has to get loaded to engage in an affair with him. But Sanford surely must possess some sort of characteristic that transforms him into a desirabke male, a characteristic that acts on the female brain much in the manner of booze, a characteristic that casts a soft glow on his entire being.

In my judgement, power is that characteristic. As pudgy Henry Kissinger once said, "Power is an aphrodisiac." This once-Secretary of State ought to know. He used to squire some of Hollywood's most beautiful women around town.

And now, it seems, generic Sanford is the beneficiary of Kissinger's homily. If only the rest of us plain folks were as fortunate. Sigh.