"Pay attention to the better angels of our nature"

Hugh Hewitt has the best view of this whole Mark Foley scandal.

It's excellent.

"All of us have an appetite for sin. Part of the human drama and every life's challenge is to manage those appetites, to control them and vanquish them. It's something that most of us get much better at with age, which is why our truly hideous deeds are usually confined to our youths.

Politicians are often figures with outsized supplies of vanity and pride. It's not surprising considering how they give into these sins that they have appetites for other sins that are greater than the normal man's, and that they also grant those appetites more license than the normal man does."

Hugh chronicles a few well known politicians who have given in to their appetite for sin and he makes a bigger point. The Democrats misjudge the American people who will see Foley as a Republican scandal:

"His party identification will be a non-factor. He will be just another politician who indulged his appetites for sin without any apparent regard for the import of his job or the hundreds of thousands of people that he represented."

As Hugh points out:

"Normal people aren't like this. Most people don't closely identify with either party and they view political obsessives the same way they view avid stamp collectors or grown-ups who play with model trains. In other words, they view political junkies as freaks. Perhaps benign freaks, but freaks nonetheless."

So we, who are "the freaks" need to chill out on not just stories like these, but all the stories where the blogopshere goes crazy with stupid details, misinterpretations, and distortions.

Hugh ends with this truth:

"We all walk a tightrope trying to pay more attention to the better angels of our nature than the devils on our shoulder. When someone else fails, we might criticize him and his actions but we also think to ourselves, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Which is why Gerry Studds and Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy were re-elected. Especially when it comes to sexual sin, people don't want to judge because they themselves might be judged and found wanting.

That's what I believe anyway.