I think that, unfortunately, a gay sex scandal or, fortunately, sex with a minor are still career death blows outside of a few areas of the country. Although, I imagine this will change with gay affairs in the years to come. (McGreevey would still have been dead in my opinion, but that’s up for debate since we weren’t presented with the alternative scenario.) However, consensual adult sex scandals (excluding prostitution) appear to be easily survivable when there is no hypocrisy angle (this wasn’t true years ago). Yes, FDR and JFK’s sex antics were no big deal to the good old boys club, but that in itself is not evidence that the American people would have necessarily been dandy with it if they would have known. (Although, I think FDR’s immobility would have been far worse, which is another topic I suppose.) This was an era when a divorcee dare not even think of running for president. It is now quite common for both parties to nominate divorcees (Reagan, Dole, Kerry, and McCain come to mind).

I must say that I still think that the hypocrisy angle isn’t necessarily a killer anymore. Yes, it may lead to a wilderness period, but people seem to be much more willing to look beyond such trivialities (although wrong, hypocrisy may not have the same effect when it is unrelated to the important issue of the day; in other words, financial hypocrisy would be much more deadly in 2009 than sexual hypocrisy; I don’t think all hypocrisies are necessarily the same at every context). The survival of Vitter, Spitzer’s possible comeback, and Newt Gingrich being a frontrunner for the GOP nod in 2012 are all evidence to the point that Americans are willing to forgive hypocrisy. Perhaps it’s because they’re desperate? For example, the GOP is desperate for any leader (hence Gingrich), the guy who replaced Spitzer has been horrible (who cares if our governor was a hypocrite in retrospect now that the current guy is raising our taxes and cutting our vital state programs!), or from Louisiana (enough said).

I guess I see the hypocrisy angle as an interaction effect, or something that magnifies a sex scandal. One could posit that the original effect of the scandal is minimizing, but the interaction with hypocrisy is still as strong as ever. However, it could also be reasonable to posit that the interaction effect is also mitigating in such tough times when we have much more important things to worry about. Also, it is possible that Americans are so distrustful of their politicians, that hypocrisy is no longer a surprise to many. Of course, this is not to say hypocrisy is not a big deal–far from it! I agree completely that hypocrisy is much more salient than any type of sexual deviance outside of obviously grotesque acts. In fact, I agree that hypocrisy is the worst thing any politician could ever be accused of (poor John Kerry).

So yes, that was a long winded way of saying that I agree that hypocrisy is often the icing on the cake and a very large part of this. However, I don’t think that sexual hypocrisy is necessarily the death blow it once was either (Gingrich, Vitter, etc. as examples), where other types of hypocrisy might still be. This makes me think that sex isn’t as big a deal in the US as it was even a decade or two ago. However, that’s just an educated guess. Perhaps we have Bill Clinton to thank for going over the top in a semi non-hypocritical way eh’. Bill may have done the same for drug use as well (no one cared once Bush or Obama came along).

Of course all of this could also just be a lot of random noise.

Under the umbrella of “sex scandals,” you forgot Larry Craig and Mark Foley. And why not factor in Ted Haggard, for good measure? And there’s Jim McGreevey. Let’s look at all of these:

Jim McGreevey revealed that he was gay and then resigned from office. Why did he resign? Not because he had been having an affair with Golan Cipel, his homeland security advisor. No; Cipel was unqualified for the job of homeland security advisor and couldn’t get a security clearance because he was not a U.S. citizen. Verdict: nepotism!

Eliot Spitzer had been employing an expensive escort service. Why was that a problem? Because, as New York Attorney General, he spent years busting prostitution rings. Verdict: hypocrisy!

Larry Craig was vehemently opposed to homosexuality and gay rights. So was Mark Foley. So was Ted Haggard. Craig was caught soliciting sex in an airport men’s room; Foley was caught sending lewd emails to male congressional pages; Haggard was caught after the male prostitute he had been seeing (and buying drugs from) went to the press with the story. Verdict: hypocrisy!

David Vitter said, in 1999, that Clinton should resign for his sex scandal. But Vitter did no such thing in 2007. Verdict: hypocrisy!

The issue of Bill Clinton’s sex scandal was pretty divisive. Republicans desperately wanted to get him for something — anything. They kept throwing things at the wall to see if something would stick. Whitewater? Nope. Travelgate? Nope. Wealthy donors staying in the Lincoln bedroom? Not even that. Then, while looking into the Paula Jones thing, Republicans struck pay dirt with Monica Lewinsky and the possibility that he may have perjured himself. But most Americans really couldn’t care less. There was no hypocrisy; Clinton never claimed to be a morally upstanding citizen; indeed, like FDR or JFK, his trysts were known about but never really talked about.

Now, why did Bob Livingston and Henry Hyde resign shortly around the time of the Clinton impeachment? They were a liability to the Republican party, since it was revealed that they had also had extramarital affairs. I submit that a “sex scandal” is only a “scandal” if it involves some obvious hypocrisy. An ABC News poll taken in August, 1998 asked whether or not respondents thought Congress should impeach Clinton. 69 percent thought that Congress should not impeach him.

With regard to Jim McGreevey, we had our own case of nepotism here in The City by the Bay. Two years ago, it was revealed that Mayor Gavin Newsom had an affair with his best friend (and campaign manager)’s wife. Okay, that’s bad, but what really caused scandal was the fact that this woman, who worked for the city, mysteriously got more paid vacation days than everyone else.

Oh, and what about Paul Wolfowitz? Not a sex scandal, but another hypocrisy scandal with a sexual element, as Wolfowitz’s long-time partner, Shaha Riza, soon found herself in possession of a new job at the State Department, but with a very cherry bonus from World Bank on the way out. So cherry, in fact, that a lot of people wondered whether or not Wolfowitz had used his position as World Bank president to give Riza a lot of money. Wolfowitz resigned in the wake of the scandal, protesting the entire time that he had done nothing wrong.

So, I submit that the fact that a politician had an affair is not the issue; rather, hypocrisy is the issue. I think, actually, sex scandals by themselves aren’t interesting to the public unless that scandal causes the politician to have his foot in his mouth. Americans love to see people get their just desserts.