Politicians’ Love-Children (Not ‘Politicians Love Children’)

By Igorderysh

Sex and politics go hand in hand, just ask Eliot Spitzer, Senator John Ensign, Governor Mark Sanford, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, or any of the many public officials who have been unable to keep it in their pants over the last few years (that we know of) but what happens when sexual improprieties turn into twenty-years of diapers, food, clothes, and college tuition? Here are 5 politicians who got a little more than they bargained for when they hopped into bed:

Grover Cleveland

Bill Clinton is far from the first president to be involved in sexual extra-curriculars before and during the time he was President. Former President Grover Cleveland, who married his best friend’s 21-year-old daughter not long after he became President, admitted to supporting a child that he had out of wedlock while he was a lawyer in New York.
Former President Warren G. Harding is also believed to have fathered a love child.

John Edwards

Sure, politicians love to mess around but campaigning for President is when they are supposed to behave. And when your wife is receiving treatments for her breast cancer, one is also expected to behave.

John Edwards didn’t. Not only did he cheat on his wife while she was battling breast cancer but he knocked up the chick he was with!

In a time when the media is allegedly interested only in crap like this, the National Enquirer was the only publication to originally print the allegations.

Peter Orszag

That’s right, Barack Obama’s nerdy Director of Management and Budget has a love child, as of a couple of weeks ago.

Though unmarried at the time, Orszag knocked up a shipping heiress who gave birth to their child around the same time that he announced that he is engaged to marry ABC News correspondent Bianna Golodryga.

Vito Fossella

Previously the only Republican to represent a New York City district in the House of Representatives, Fossella admitted to fathering a love child with a military intelligence officer who was the Air Force’s liaison to the House of Representatives. The admission came after Fossella was busted for driving drunk not far from his Baby Mama’s house.

Strom Thurmond

Ah, Strom Thurmond, champion of segregation and vicious opponent of civil rights…and the father of a black maid’s child. Long before Thurmond became a symbol of oppression of African-Americans, he knocked up his maid who gave birth to their child when she was 16 and Strom was 22 (meaning this was like the early 1800s…old fart) and Thurmond supported the child after her mother died and while he spent his career battling against the rights of black folk.

Honorable Mention: Many of the Founding Fathers

They may have been brilliant revolutionary thinkers but condoms they had none. Thomas Jefferson is most notable for having fathered a child with one of his slaves after the death of his wife. Benjamin Franklin also fathered an illegitimate son who would later become the Governor of New Jersey.

A number of lesser known Founding Fathers (i.e. Those who were Constitutional Delegates or signers of the Declaration of Independence) also fathered children out of wedlock.