by Dave "Doctor" Gonzo

Tuesday, June 29, 1999 -- LAS VEGAS -- You've just got to love it!

Last week, Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice resigned as a co-chairman of Dan "Familie Vallues" Quayle's presidential campaign on the heels of his announcement a few weeks back that he was getting a divorce.

It just breaks the heart: some said that the mess surrounding Fordice's private life -- purchase of a new home in which it was revealed his then-wife would not be residing and rumors of pre-divorce involvement with another woman -- was a bit too much for the rest of the Quayle team.

Well, ol' Kirk and Teem Quail might want to reconsider his decision in light of the newest American fad: "Moralist Scold" divorces.

That's right!  Another of the more-virtuous-than-thou crowd has filed for legal splitsville -- and it turns out to be none other than Arkansas Senator Tim Hutchinson, who today announced that he too has filed for divorce.

The story -- which seems to have gotten buried by the networks and web news sites reeeeal fast after it broke this afternoon -- says that the Tim-ster "cited unspecified troubles in his nearly 29-year marriage to his wife, Donna."

Now, hold it -- if the trouble is "unspecified", how the heck can you specifically "cite" it?  Talk about an oxymoron.

But I digress.

Hutch was quoted as saying, "There have been tremendous strains on our marriage during the past few years and we sought extensive counseling prior to taking this action."

Right -- trying to position yourself on the moral high ground as a "dedicated advocate for American families" (to use the words of your own web site) while you and your wife Donna were at each other's throats must have been a pretty "tremendous strain." And that "extensive counseling" must have come from political advisors telling you and Donna to put the kibosh on any legal filings until about half a year after the impeachment trial, so that voters in Arkansas will forget about this come 2002 when you run for re-election -- that is, if you run for re-election.

But why should this be an obstacle? After all, Tim -- whose brother "Asa-Bob" was one of the House "Manglers" prosecuting what proved to be a failed, flawed and trumped-up impeachment case against the President -- was one of the most vicious critics of Clinton's "awful" conduct throughout 1997, just like his fellow "swingin' single" bud Kirk, who was bad-mouthing Bill Clinton back during the impeachment fiasco for doin' a bad, bad thang.

And we all know that the GOP is counting on the voters to have a short memory about the Lewinsky fiasco, the abuse of the impeachment process that it spawned, and the conduct of its chief cheerleaders in the wake of Clinton's exoneration by the Senate. Hence, these carefully timed marital splits.

Unless, of course, the coincidental timing of the sad news from Fordice and Hutchinson is strictly to minimize damage to the "American family."