On marital infidelity and other oopses

Concerning Elliot Spitzer, I'll second Matt on the issue of legality and hypocrisy and Andrew on the issue of morality. As a practical matter, though, there are just very few significant professional politicians in America who can really withstand the fallout of being caught in an act of infidelity--particularly an illegal one. Obviously not every politician who gets busted is forced to abandon his career and claim sanctuary in the remote woods of somewhere-or-other. But by and large it spells doom for future ambitions. Politicians know this, and they have to accept the restrictions their careers will impose on their naughty time. Elliot Spitzer may well resign. If he doesn't, he will be finished in some sense anyhow. He'll never be Attorney General. He'll never be president. He'll probably never get elected to anything in New York ever again. That's just how things are and it will be of little use for Elliot Spitzer, in the coming days, to pretend this is all just a personal matter.

And as a rule, I think that's deeply unfortunate. Americans, to some great extent, have internalized this cartoonish idea that politicians ought to be policy-making and policy-enforcing robots, but they almost never seem to bring the hammer down unless a politician errs in some extremely frivolous way. Some senators and congressmen, it's worth pointing out, take legislative action to settle personal vendettas as a matter of routine. Some take bribes, both real and de facto. Others see prostitutes. If I had to pick, I know which "oops" I'd rather catch my elected official in--the only one, it turns out, that's likely to put an entire career in public service at risk.

And, yet, it's hard to feel sorry for any of them--the Craig, the Vitters of American politics, or, for that matter, the Spitzers and the Clintons. Because no matter how many times they see decent people destroyed for committing incredibly common and minor human errors, they continue (more than any other cohort) to reinforce the same silly politician as policy robot caricature. I can't speak to Elliot Spitzer per se, or his political tactics, but you see it everywhere. Who, one might ask, is going to pick up that red phone if the president and her husband are fighting about a years-old blow job at 3 am?