It used to be that when you are involved in a scandal, you would have to resign. These days, around the world, there are new standards in politics. For example, a candidate for Mayor in New York City, Anthony Weiner, is determined to keep running for the position of Mayor, despite having confessed to sexting while married. He has been sending naked pictures of himself to various women, telling them he loves them and wants to get married and all of these usual that one reads about. His wife has come out and supported him and what makes this whole scandal so interesting is that it is a foregone conclusion by everybody that of course he should be able to run for political office having previously done this.

The only problem they really have with it now, is that after he had to resign from Congress two years ago for sexting other ladies some two years ago, he gave interviews with his wife where he said that he had therapy and has stopped the sexting as a result thereof. The concern now is not that he has done sexting, but that he has done it once before, apologised, been “treated and cured” and now, some two years later when he is running for political office again and is a favoured candidate, it has come out that even after he gave all the interviews saying he has changed, he in fact had not. So it appears that the new standard in politics is that’s its not a problem if you did something before, even recently, it’s only a problem if after owning up to a problem and then getting treatment for that problem, you announce that you have stopped that behaviour and then get caught again.