let me go another way, for a second, on sanford and ensign. it is very easy to take a hyper-christian who, you know, turns out to be gay, or an adulterer, etc etc and say he's a hypocrite, or that his religious professions, or even attempts to legislate some set of religious values, are simply self-righteous dishonesty. it's possible, especially in the context of politics, that someone's religious commitments are merely insincere: politics is a constant temptation to manufacture a false self. but on the other hand, the situation is likely to be far more complicated, and to engage a fundamental human dilemma.

we are non-ideal creatures with ideal aspirations. our moral principles are pristine. our actual lives and personalities are a mess. everyone with a set of moral ideals comes up short of these ideals. and the force of the ideal itself is embodied in the self-laceration that ensues. even the most basic transgression/mistake-and-apology displays this structure.

now you really don't want to play this out in public, which is why you should not be a politician. the drama is internal, and it is polluted by an audience, which presents a constant temptation to simulation. on the other hand the public spectacle of this drama is weirdly compelling, because you already know what it's like; something deeply familiar and important is being enacted, or represented.

and failure to achieve the perfection to which you aspire or to which you urge others to aspire is not itself hypocrisy. on the other hand, manufacturing a false perfect self to enact on the public stage is hypocrisy. on the third, we obviously demand and reward that.

even if you can't relate to the religious source or form of the principles of an ensign or a sanford, much less to the public spectacle of it all, you should be able to connect to the basic dilemma: aspiration and failure: the most touching thing about us, and the route to whatever decency we ever do achieve.