His then-mistress, now-wife. Which isn't explained until paragraph three—otherwise known as about two paragraphs after people stop reading—itself tucked after a video link insert.
Subtext: Rudy's wife is a slut! Hee hee hee!
It's not like I think Rudy's relationship history isn't fair game; certainly it is, because he's got no basis at all for not supporting same-sex marriage when his marital history is a total shambles, and his marriage mantra appears to be, approximately, "Sanctity schmanctity!"
But something about the sneering, sanctimonious luxuriating in the reminder, in the course of a story about allegedly defrauding taxpayers, that Judith Nathan was his mistress, that they were having a tawdry affair, that he is a lech and a philanderer, just irks the fuck out of me.
Lots of people get divorced. Lots of people have affairs. Not all of them—not even most of them—are authoritarian goons keen to defraud their constituents. One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other.
One's sexual, relationship, and/or marital habits and history can inform one's authority (and integrity) on all the issues that generally fall under that spectacular umbrella known as "family values," but I intensely dislike the idea that being a bad husband (or wife), even a cheat, is necessarily representative of one's overall character. It's as patently stupid as arguing that Bush is a great person overall just because he's been married to one woman for a long time with no known affairs.
Ahem.
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