Another pol with his pants down. Of course, this time it's a Democrat, and a once-promising one (though I gather that his tenure as governor of New York hasn't much pleased anyone), so we can't feel the Schadenfreude that we enjoyed so much when it happened to Larry Craig or David Vitter or Mark Foley. Still, the hypocrisy and the hubris are the same.
The question lingers: Why do these guys think they can get away with it? Politicians must suffer all the time from cognitive dissonance, from the knowledge that their flawed private selves are so very different from the tough and virtuous public image they have to project. They're like movie stars who know that they're not really as strong and as handsome and as virile -- or as glamorous and beautiful and sexy -- as the characters they play. As Cary Grant said, "Everybody wants to be Cary Grant. Even I do."
But movie stars can get away with all kinds of scandalous behavior. Maybe we should let politicians do that, too. As long as they do their jobs -- create and enforce laws -- to our liking, who cares if they cat around? When Bill Clinton was caught getting blown by an intern, I thought he should resign. But he went on to be one of our most popular public figures, and his wife may be our next president.
Lord Acton got it right: Power tends to corrupt. The question is, who's being corrupted? The powerful, or those of us who elect them?