The recent revelations that Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child 10 years ago with a longtime member of his household staff — while he was married to Maria Shriver but just before he ran for the California governor’s post — make me think that the writers of The Good Wife are more creepily on the mark than they may realize with their storytelling.
Though the fictional Peter Florrick — who humiliated his wife Alicia by frequenting a prostitute, spending time in jail for political corruption and by sleeping with his wife’s future colleague — hasn’t been revealed to have fathered a love child, the way in which Alicia Florrick and Maria Shriver initially stuck by and then left their lying husbands in the wake of learning about past betrayals is eerily similar.
During the 2003 California gubernatorial race, Maria Shriver helped boost her husband’s campaign, which was trying to fend off allegations that Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed dozens of women over the course of several decades. Shriver took her defense of her husband public, telling voters to trust her because she, a Democrat, knew that their state would be in good hands if they voted for her Republican husband. “His open-mindedness, willingness to listen and tolerance is exactly what the doctor ordered,” Shriver told a crowd of women in the eleventh hour of the campaign. “I wouldn’t be taking my time, I wouldn’t have left my job that I love, I wouldn’t have done any of this if I didn’t believe in this man.”
What Shriver didn’t know at the time was that Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with a member of their household staff.
Shriver recently learned, after Schwarzenegger left office, that he had a 10-year-old child with their family household staffer, a person Shriver saw every day in her home. Then Shriver left him, according to media reports. “This is a painful and heartbreaking time,” Shriver said this week in a press release. “As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal.”
Meanwhile, over on the fictional CBS drama The Good Wife, Alicia Florrick made a last-minute plea during a TV interview for folks to vote for her husband as state’s attorney, adding that she’d forgiven her husband Peter for cheating on her and that she thought he’d do a great job if elected to the post. “I think he’s a good man,” Alicia Florrick told the interviewer. “I think he would be the first to admit that he has flaws, but I wouldn’t be here if I thought otherwise … It’s easy for people to judge and I think it’s harder for people to forgive.”
What Alicia didn’t know at the time was that her husband had slept with Alicia’s current best friend a few years prior.
When Alicia learned, on the night Peter was re-elected to the state’s attorney position, that he’d slept with her now-best friend and colleague, a person she saw every day at work, Alicia kicked Peter out of the house.
As one TV blogger tweeted this morning, I’m half wondering if we’ll learn, some time in season 3 of The Good Wife, that Peter also fathered a love child. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on May 17, 2011 @ 16:15 EST5EDT
Honestly, cheating is so common among celebrities and politicians I see no similarity at all. It never even crossed my mind as I watched the finale.