There's no double standard, just the single one that has been applied to American politics for the last 15 years or so. Our parents aren't running things anymore, so it's no longer about running the machine well, but about ideas. The FDR/Kennedy template is, if not dead, asleep for about 20 years until we get sick of the Morality Wars.

When the rhetoric rises to the level of involving politicians' personal lives rather than their professional competence, practical issues go by the wayside.

We've already reached the point where the morality play has taken the place of the caucus compromise. Subtlety has been bled out of our national political conversation. Where evil is invoked as the opponent, sainthood is the expected antidote. That's the way it is.

The Democrats are short on saints at the moment, and just lost a genuine one in a plane crash. (How prophetic! ;) Maybe it should have been a train wreck...) The Republicans have just been handed the opportunity to demonstrate how many of their saints are made of plaster.

Wait and see.

Not trying to pick a fight, Ed. Even Caesar had a slave with him in his triumphal chariot to whisper a warning in his ear. Much good did it do him: he was stabbed in the Senate anyway.

Best rear guards... er, regards--
Mary Anne