Jack Ryan
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Claims to fame: Multimillionaire; 2004 Republican candidate for Illinois U.S. Senate race; divorcé; pervert
Punishment in this life: He doesn’t get to sleep with ex-wife anymore — blonde hottie Jeri Ryan (”Star Trek: Voyager“; “Boston Public“), who now lives alone with their young son.
Saving grace: Ryan isn’t the worst of the lot, by far; he’s more progressive than most, particularly on gay rights. “If you are taking care of your family, being nice to your neighbors and working hard, I’m for you. Under our constitution, under our God, everybody should be treated the same way,” he told Eriz Zorn in the Chicago Tribune. (Jeri is even more pro-gay; she made her first appearance at the GLAAD Awards not long before she and Ryan split.) Thus, we have hope that one day Mr. Ryan may see the light and abandon the Greedy Old Party.
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Why we could almost actually like him: Anybody who gets slammed by the Radical Religious Right for the most vacuous reason is okay in our book. And Jack got slammed, big-time, by “family values” zealots “waiting for a full explanation” about his financial backing of Jeri’s 1997 movie Men Cry Bullets, decried as “racy” by detractors (even though Jeri doesn’t do anything even remotely “racy” in the flick). Family Institute head Peter LaBarbera told the Chicago Daily Herald, “This is a spousal nightmare … He had a Hollywood wife. And we all know where Hollywood is today.” (Yeah, Pete, we all know where Hollywood is today — in the 21st century, while you and your ilk are stuck in the 1600s, still burning witches.)
Why we could never really like him: Jeri says Jack forced her to go to sex parties and “perform.”
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Ryan:
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
— Song of Solomon 8:6
