However, I do feel that it’s in the public’s interest to know when a political figure/CEO/celebrity/John Q. Public is doing something illegal. First of all, if you’re in a position of power or influence, others have the right to see you as you really are. So if you’re a hypocrite, we’ll know not to vote for you. Or if you could be putting others in danger, well… yeah, I would like to know if my next door neighbor is a sex offender.

CEOs are asked to step down because of financial improprieties or mishandling of stockholder money or embezzlement or incompetence.

CEOs generally get rather nice severance packages when they are forced to step down for those reasons (and there’s often a nice statement of support for them made to the public and the employees to maintain their dignity and alow them to go on to ruin another company)

Let’s be careful here. While I certainly would agree that we need to go beyond this whole “virtuous MAN” (note my slight change of words to etymologically illustrate what’s going on here — the tying of moral goodness to manliness — and to class … to those who can afford to be virtuous — is an inherent feature in “virtue” ethics) thing, it isn’t as if women don’t have affairs too. This blog would be the last place (or one of the last places) I’d expect to see “men can’t keep it in their pants, but women can” gender essentialism.

IIRC, not only was the governor un-faithful, but his wife was unfaithful as well — we’d still be having this conversation if a woman was the governor if that woman was the current NY gov’s wife, e.g. Of course, given the sexism of the media, you’d imagine it would be even worse.

ASKED TO STEP DOWN, yes. Thrown in jail for life? No. If they were black and poor and stole that much money, they’d never see daylight again.

I’m pretty sure a CEO at a publicly traded company having sexual relations with an intern would result in termination.

unless s/he is an underage intern i doubt it. I can’t be sure, and obviously every case is dif., but I know at a top law firm in New York paralegals have relationships with lawyers and/or partners at the firm – and while each individual case may or may not be frowned upon – it definitely will not lead to the termination of anyone.

CEOs are asked to step down because of financial improprieties or mishandling of stockholder money or embezzlement or incompetence.

Ideally, yes. But look at how many companies are looted by their executives, when there’s no reasonable way they could have hidden their activities from others inside the company.

Wait, did I miss something? Was secret nefarious deed discovered about the new governor?

What Mnemosyne said, though he didn’t reveal anything before the swearing-in. But he and his wife did hold a press conference in which they answered questions about their infidelities, with the express purpose of making sure he couldn’t be blackmailed. In fact, apparently, the reason that Spitzer didn’t resign until Monday apparently had a lot to do with Paterson needing to figure out how to handle this.