Patterson-Gate

I know, I've gone off on the "gate" suffix thing before, how it's completely stupid to import that appellation from one (significant) scandal in the 1970's to every single scandal that comes down the pike... But it's not like I'm going to change anything by writing anyway, so who cares? (This is the kind of thing I say to my students...)

I was e-mailing with Dan setting up our next guitar lesson, when we got to prospectively waxing-nostalgic about these days, when a new Patterson scandal seemingly breaks every minute.

Immediately after the inauguration it was: "Hold the champagne everyone, I just need to get something of my chest: I cheated on my wife (and she cheated on me, so it's fair, right?) several years ago during a troubled period of my marriage. But I did not pay for sex, nor did I use campaign funds."

The next day: "Okay, so I did use campaign funds to pay for the Day's Inn, so sue me? I still didn't pay for sex."

Two hours later: "Oh, and did I mention that I used to do coke. Like, a lot. Constantly, while smoking blunts and the occasional chronic spliff... You get the picture. When? Oh, nothing to worry about, like, in the 70's, you know, when even Al Gore smoked dope. Long ago. Look at the President! I mean, come on..."

Ten minutes later: "Yes. Yes. Yes. The rumors of my involvement in the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan are true. Lee Harvey Oswald was always someone I looked up to (figuratively) from an early age, and when my good friend John Hinkley came to my Harlem pad early in the 80s, naturally I supplied him with a gun after he told me what he wanted it for... Any other questions, because you guys are really chasing after shadows here...?"

One second later: "Oh, and I might add that Joran van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers had nothing to do with the disappearance of Natalee Holloway. That, also, was me."