After watching the eloquent, but otherwise wacky and apparently crooked recent Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, return from a media tour of every major television show in America just in time to be impeached by the Illinois legislature, it was now time for Peterson to try to take back the national stage. Blagojevich has a good chance of going to jail, something that four of Illinois’ last eight governors have managed to do, but Peterson and the media circus that he has created, still manages to elude the long arm of the law he once represented.

Henry VIII, whom legend suggests wrote the old English folk song “Greensleeves,” (“…Alas, my love, you do me wrong,To cast me off discourteously. For I have loved you well and long, Delighting in your company…”) had six wives, two of which (#s 2 & 5) he had put to death while wife #6, Catherine Parr, almost met the same fate for questioning her husband, a man and a tyrant who wanted his own way all of the time. Fast forward 500 years and although perhaps a king only in his own mind, Drew Peterson, another man who seems to want his own way all the time, has been married four times to date, but has still managed to lose his last two wives to either murder or suspected murder. Peterson, the man who once offered himself as first prize in a “win a date with Drew” contest, this while the search for wife #4 was still ongoing, has lately been quick to tell anyone who would listen that he would soon marry for the fifth time, this to a woman 31-years his junior.

Reports initially indicated that potential wife #5 saw the light, in reality the light of television, this when she watched her betrothed on national TV last week admit he lost interest in his four previous wives because “there was no excitement in the marriage anymore.” Said the now former-fiancée of the unlucky Mr. Peterson, a woman who allegedly still has the $15,000, two-carat diamond (or cubic zirconium as Peterson now appears to suggest) engagement ring he gave her, this perhaps echoing the words of Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr some five centuries before, when she stated “he was stressing me out, he was trying to control me,” something that all four wives had accused ole Drew of doing.

Peterson, for his part, remains the man who never accepts responsibility, initially suggesting it was the fault of television for scaring off the former future Mrs. Drew Peterson V. When she decided to bail out on Drew this past Friday, his new ex-fiancée showed up at his doorstep with her father, a cameraman for the Dr. Phil Show (surprise, surprise), and the local police, this to insure there would be no trouble. Peterson, who acknowledges he likes his women young, faints amazement at the media attention he draws, suggesting it’s like “Drew TV.” In one way, though, he is right. No matter what television channel you watched this past week, you couldn’t get away from the Chicagoland area where Peterson resides. Either the former US Senator turned President; or the former senatorial seat salesman and now former governor; or the former police officer who has now officially put himself back on the market for any fresh female face that will look his way; you had to watch this area and these three men with a varying, and far different sense of awe.

Said the young woman’s father when referring to Peterson: “It’s either him or me,” “he’s fooling with the wrong guy,” and later, “we beat the devil.”

But why did this young mother of two, someone who allegedly planned to marry Peterson later this year even though he had yet to divorce missing wife #4, put herself through these emotional high jinks in the first place? As discussed in a previous Newsvine article (http://clintvanzandt.newsvine.com/_news/2008/12/17/2224063-drew-petersons-getting-married-again-and-why-good-girls-choose-bad-guys), while some women know in their hearts that dating a bad man can be self-destructive, they do it anyway. Many women see a bad guy as someone with a high degree of self-confidence, someone who is self-assured, an independent man possessed of energy and an aura of power around him. He glows as if radioactive (and some are just as dangerous.) Women may also believe that they will be the woman to “tame the wild beast in him,” not understanding “the beast” does not want to be tamed as he draws the web of control tighter and tighter around his new prey, something like a spider does to the innocent fly that wanders into its deadly web.

Some women can draw power, energy and even social status from their association with such a man who constantly lives on the edge, even if the edge of his own mind. In this world, you either have your own identity or you share that of another. For some women, being associated with a locally or nationally-known man can be personally rewarding, even if he is many years older and the only thing they can really share together is a bed. Some women have learned to live vicariously through their partner, finding the other person’s life far more interesting and exciting than their own, denying the negative that appears evident to everyone but her, this while other women may be cursed with a low sense of self-esteem and a challenged personal image, allowing them, perhaps, to believe that any man is better than no man. Some women, however, have an entirely different story to explain their association with a bad guy. The potentially new Mrs. Peterson now says, “it was all a stunt.”

The Rest of the “Drew” Engagement Story

Appearing on national television, Peterson’s alleged former fiancée, who indicated she was not comfortable discussing the death of Peterson’s third wife and the disappearance of wife #4 (whom she knew), stated the engagement was just a media stunt set up by Peterson’s lawyer. How low can he go, you must ask yourself, referring to both Peterson and his attorney, should this engagement have just been a stunt to keep Peterson before the tabloid press of America. The now not-former-fiancee said she did not love Peterson, although she has known him since she was 15, and that this whole affair was just “Drew playing games.” It would appear that Peterson has found his moral and emotional equal in his current attorney, someone who also represented Rod Blagojevich. And lawyers wonder why they are held in such scorn by so many Americans.

Drew TV

Although Peterson suggests his life is like “Drew TV,” (one of his own invention), many simply believe he’s watched too many repeat episodes of the same show. While the criminal justice system continues to try to determine Peterson’s role, if any, in the murder of wife #3 (Kathleen), and the disappearance and assumed death of wife #4 (Stacy), Peterson, who may be the only person on earth to know the true fate of these two women, continues to hold himself out as a high profile media figure, stretching his 15 minutes of fame into years, this while he continues to make a mockery of the criminal investigation that has centered on him alone. While the history books have long been closed on King Henry, Peterson and Blagojevich continue to be the stories that just won’t stop giving, and though the court of public opinion has ruled on both, we must wait until their cases see the inside of a court room before their final chapters are written. And as far as Peterson and Blagojevich; well remember, you have a channel changer in your hand when you see either face pop up on your TV.