Day 21: In which Ottawa Magazine contributing editor Mark Bourrie really wants to write about Zsa Zsa Gabor, but settles for Helena Guergis — eventually

I really want to write about Zsa Zsa’s baby.

To me, that’s really the best story of the day. Zsa Zsa Gabor is married to a fake German prince (he paid the impoverished princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, one of the old German states, to adopt him. He’s no more a prince than Skip the Guinea Pig, one of the many little mouths I feed) who wants to make the poor old dear reproduce.

Zsa Zsa is 94 years old, and her best breeding years are behind her. Were it not for Viagra, she probably would have been off the sexual hook years ago. And, since the doctors amputated one of her legs a few months back, she’s really in no shape get up and take care of over-night feedings.

That’s no problem for “Prince” Frederic von Anhalt, Zsa Zsa’s ninth husband. He’s hoping to somehow hawk an egg out of what’s left of her ovaries, mix it with his sperm, and plunk it into a surrogate mom. With luck, Zsa Zsa will remain on this celestial sphere long enough to see whatever might emerge after nine months.

“I would like her to hear the baby screaming, to touch the baby’s hair,” the thoughtful “prince” said.

Well, there ya go. If Zsa Zsa can be a mom again, there’s still hope that I can get into the National Ballet School. The unkind might say that poor old Zsa Zsa is tapped out, that the prince is unfairly pestering himself for his own needs.

Now, Zsa Zsa is not the only woman being geared over by a pretentious man. (Nice segue, Mark. I think I finally see where this might be going! – ed.)

This morning, I wept along with Helena Guergis as she tried to clear her name from the dreadful slanders heaped on her by the Toronto Star and her own party.

Tears flowed down both our cheeks as the normally dishy Helena, who was once Miss Huronia, stood before the press dressed in a matronly black blouse and wearing no obvious jewellery except a simple cross on a gold neck chain to gut and fillet Stephen Harper.

Did Helena Guergis snort coke from the breasts of prostitutes, a reporter asked in one of those “he who has not sinned should cast the first stone” moments.

Why, no sir, Guergis said. Nor had she committed fraud. Nor had she or her husband broken the lobbying laws. And she could prove it. She had an RCMP report clearing her name and some newly-released federal documents that backed up her innocence.

The private investigator who had “investigated” Guergis and her husband, Rahim Jaffer, later admitted he had nothing on her. But there she was, thrown out of the Tory party and caucus, and stripped of her cabinet portfolio.

And Harper had sent his spinners out to lie to the media. For months, she could never get away from the smears.

All this had happened when Guergis was pregnant with her son, Xavier. Pregnancy was supposed to be a wonderful, blessed time, but the Tory “party leadership” had made this sacred time into pure torture.

And Ms. Guergis, running in the Collingwood area as an independent conservative, was still loyal to her party. She pledged to get back into the caucus someday, perhaps when the Tories had a new leader.

(Somewhere a chair got kicked across a room by the Prime Minister of Canada).

Then out came little Xavier, his little black curls mussed on his cute little bean, chubby little legs sticking out of a  fresh diaper. Helena kissed the baby’s milk-fed cheeks with the expertise of a politician-turned-mother. Only the hardest-hearted bastard could stifle sobs at such a moment.

Meanwhile, Guergis’ tormenter continued with his cruelty. The Tories had “moved on,” Harper said, slightly distorting a little speech that I had heard several times as a teenager and young adult, and the party was not interested in being just friends.

Then he muttered something about the Tories knowing stuff that made Guergis look really bad, stuff that, if it were, say, leaked sometime in this news cycle, perhaps to, say, the best magazine in Ottawa, would validate Harper’s ill-feelings towards Ms. Guergis.

Harper is not a babe magnet. The whole control-freak thing plays badly to women. And, quite frankly, he doesn’t really seem to go out of his way to make women feel valued and comfortable.

Not like Bruce Carson, a guy who knows how to treat a gal. Carson was always eager to raise women up from the horrors of the sex trade and provide them with housing and career advice.

The PMO was more than happy to have a disbarred lawyer and convicted felon whispering into the ear of the Prime Minister. Carson’s ex-hooker girlfriend was welcome at 24 Sussex.

Let’s leave it to the voters of Simcoe-Grey to figure out. I was raised in that part of the world and I know they are good, fair people. Right now, that seems to be the only fairness that Helena Guergis can expect.

And if all this craps out for Helena, she can console herself with the thought that “Prince” Frederic will be looking for a new wife soon. After life with Steve, the “prince” should seem like a sensitive New Age guy.