There, topazz. Now I have it back.

It's always more hilarious watching someone else's governor make a complete ass of himself for illicit sex. But one senses a theme: in both New York's Spitzer and South Carolina's Sanford (and let's throw in Larry Craig, John Ensign, John Edward, John McCain, and that Haggard guy from before most of you were born, and pretty much every one of these sexlexic pols)... men who can't wait to tell you how to live your life, and how terrible every violation of the letter of the law is, men who insist on a black and white morality for the world. Men who loved to paint themselves as heroes, as family men, as champions of Good in the war against Evil.

And let's throw in their harriers: the Atlanta paper that published his emails. The New York papers that published Spitzer's behavior, the reporters who hung out at Gary Hart's back door, all of them, couldn't wait to heap very public humiliation on top of the private misery of thse men's wives (oh, you say, I assume too much. Did you see Vitter's wife's face? There's no need or room for assumption here, these women are not neutral, not merely displeased, not merely suffering from having their vanity impinged upon).

And everyone cloaking their behavior in "doing what's right" and lying about how deeply they're involved, and sneaking back in trying to redeem themselves (sometimes in these pages).

Katty Kay said last week that Americans are a bunch of Puritans who make too big a deal about sex. But really, aside from a few really, really slutty western European countries (and those Russians, my goodness), we're a pretty loose country. It's not the sex, it's the sheeps' clothing, if you ask me.

Maybe if the wives knew the old boy was going to hop in the sack in a foreign country on father's day, when they signed on, and maybe if they got to have their own pool boy, a new one every week, and the pool boy knew she'd never marry him, and so on, then you could call it fair, maybe. But right now, it just looks like one big, messy public game, with women and kids left holding the scum bag.

And the other women never knew the guy was married.

It's not black and white, women against men, sluts against prudes. That's my point.

A post below reminded me of Fnord. Did he ever contact you after he left DP?

That's the usual hypocrisy charge one hears from the paranoid. "They want to run our lives!" Which, from the list you gave us, includes really only one: Eliot Spitzer. Because he was truly a self-righteous prick. And Slate contributor!

The rest on the list were just politicians, y'know, gettin by in this crazy world without going on witchhunt jihads like Spitzer. Incidentally, you left off Clinton?

Not to defend Sanford's conduct. I know none of the people involved, and steer well clear of marital disputes generally.

Where I think you’re right—if it’s done honestly in the light of day and with mutual understanding. The point of my post about “John” was that in order for him to be an autonomous moral agent you are minimally precluded from withholding information and continuing to act in a way where you benefit at another’s expense as a consequence of that deception/omission. (More on that in a minute).

People make all kinds of deals and I’m reluctant to interfere with those sexual deals or partnership agreements for the same reason—it reduces other moral agents to ‘tools’—parts of our environment.

Where I disagree is the gender discrepancy. Deception by omission is equally abhorrent either way and my experience is it is gender neutral. Not in this case, but overall.

Side note: as a result of the position I took one of the financiers is being overthrown and “John” and I are being engaged together (with a different financial backing plan and management team). Sometime doing the right thing brings a reward (not usually). In this case I won. I explained my reasoning and refused to cooperate and they were not only shamed but rejected the financier and executive who would have done otherwise. Go figure. An Angel capitalist was rejected. Because I told the entire executive board that he had violated two ethical precepts that would preclude him from credibly doing business in the US in this small a community. Chalk one up for the good guys. The key question was can we work together and build trust amongst each other and the community. I told then no, not the way they were proceeding and I respectfully declined to continue. They cane back—this time eliminating the one who would operate that way. I’m shocked. 2 for 2 on that loyalty thing. Who knew?

I would have sworn we were fucked. Instead well... it's the reverse.

He'd made it his business to be anti-gay. (He was clearly not gay. He just had a wide stance.)

to hear.

It's rarely the sluttiness that is so abhorrent to me. It's the outrageous lack of character and lack of taking personal responsibility - the absolute silliness in their denials, the cover-up attempts, and the "oh-please-forgive-and-excuse-­me-sob" bullshit. THAT is what makes me think they are mind-numbingly stupid.

People are human and frail. Relationships are messy. Lust and sex and love and blindness are an integral part of the human condition and politicians are no exception.

What I find amazing is that each and every one believes that "it won't happen to him" ... that HE won't be caught. That HE is exempt from the human condition. That HE is special. That HE is somehow pursuing something "true" and therefore..... blah blah blah. Fucking idiots.

Literally.

And, fwiw, I think Bill Clinton was the worst of the bunch except for maybe Mark Foley.

who didn't put a moral stick up everyone's nose, that includes Clinton, that Hays guy in the fountain, Bush pere, Jack Kennedy, MLK, Eisenhower, or FDR (although those 3 burn me up for other reasons). And all the women pols who are no doubt boffing their interns as we speak.

I agree that Clinton's support of the Defense of Marriage Act was painfully ironic, but he was not waving the flag of PromiseKeeping fundy antipathy to sexuality that the others are. Might have cut into his pool of prospects.

Not what I was saying, and you know it. Moralizing liars are jerks.

I got a tear in my eye, brother. I am so glad you made it work the way you needed in your soul for things to be.

I reread my piece and I'm sure I didn't say it only goes one way, in terms of gender. I advocated for deceived wives, sure, but the most public incidents of misbehaving pols are, in fact, all men. That is not my fault. It troubles me that you and NickD both seem to think I should include some disclaimer about female troubles. Were women in power the way men are, and acting out sexually and very publicly, in violation of solemn vows to God and the community, after preaching otherwise to others, I would point them out.

If you know of examples of lying, cheating married moralizing women at the gubernatorial-senatorial to presidential level, please point them out and I'll amend my statements.

I mean it: it's not the sex, it's the sheep's clothing.

NOpe, dont' know what happened to him. He was an interesting guy.

It's not just the do as I say, not as I do, mentality, it's going out of their way to condemn other people's behavior, and then indulging in it themselves, or worse, being someone who cannot possibly live his normal life under the rules he has set for others.