You expect better behavior from politicians than from the general public? I suppose you haven't known too many personally. I don't think people who seek power are, for the most part, the most ethical of people. You should look at the politician's voting record and what he does in his public life, not his private life.

I think Edwards should have revealed this from the beginning, but I don't think it would have made him a worse president. Your reaction is typical, but not necessarily rational. It's not the politicians who have lowered the standards. Everywhere you look, people are cheating on their spouses and lying. It's the culture. To expect that your representatives would be better than your neighbors is not rational. Most politicians are someone's neighbor.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." Dwight Eisenhower