I could definitely see McCain having done so 30 years ago. If not marry, at least screw around with her. Remember, he was married to his first wife while he was seeing Cindy McCain.

Isaac wrote: "First, Americans should be more accepting of First Ladies who do not fit into a traditional mold." Alternately, Americans should stop fearing sex. Do that, and the kinky First Spouse stuff pretty much takes care of itself.

I reserve the right to be intolerant of First Spouses who either fit or don't fit into other molds, traditional or otherwise (e.g., she or he abuses animals, drives an SUV, likes asparagus, bleeds Dodger blue). However, I doubt I would allow my intolerance of the President's bedwarmer to affect my opinion of the President, seeing as I regard myself as being pretty much without peer when it comes to making questionable bedwarmer choices.

Well, that certainly is one way of looking at Sarkozy.

On the other hand, I have sixteen ways of looking at Carla Bruni. I can't get into details, many are patent-pending, but let's just say you're sore as hell after employing most of them.

I agree with williamyard.  Americans can barely get their heads around the idea the president has to answer a call of nature now and then in the White House, let alone that he might have emotional and physical desires and longings as other human beings have.  Unamerican though it might appear, I think a positive and generous attitude to sexuality should be a primary requirement for anyone seeking to occupy high public office.

Indeed, not only might it bring some human reality to the domestic policy arena, but having such a positive and generous attitude would also be a great help in dealing with global troglodytes like Achmadinnerjacket and Islamic male supremacists like Bin Laden and a bunch of others.

Or we could simply run with "France and the U.S. are different," and let it go at that.

What? A president show off his human side and piss off the religious and feminist lobbies? Perish the thought!

I'm with cspencef here.  The insight of Chotiner's post was what precisely? What does Sarkosy's bagging Bruni tell us about him as a leader?  Not much, I'd say.  I'd venture that, first, if male American pols wouldn't pay an unacceptably high political price for dumping their wives in favor of celebrity sex goddesses and, second, if American celebrity sex goddesses were inclined to pursue married male pols, we'd see a lot more Sarkozy/Bruni-type unions.  The fact that we don't--in politics that is--says everything about the difference between American and French attitudes towards sex and marriage and very little about the particular male politicians in question.

Did Sarkozy "dump" his previous wife in the usual sense of the term?  I thought it was more the other way around.

That may be.  I thought he left her, though I'll admit I don't know the story in any sort of detail.  If his previous wife did dump him, then he sure landed on his feet.  It helps to be president, I suppose.