Mayor's disrepute

The verdict has gone against Ken Livingstone:

London's mayor has been found guilty of bringing his office into disrepute when he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.

The Adjudication Panel for England ruled Ken Livingstone had acted in an "unnecessarily insensitive" manner towards the Evening Standard reporter.

(See here, following the links, for the backstory.) I find it interesting that the line of defence pursued on Livingstone's behalf was...

... to convince [the] disciplinary tribunal that it was possible for him to damage his own reputation without bringing his office into disrepute...

Livingstone's lawyer argued that...

...it was perfectly possible to separate Livingstone the man from Livingstone the mayor.

Another line of defence was, theoretically, available: namely, that there was nothing disreputable in the incident at all; that nothing he said was to the discredit of Ken Livingstone the man. I wonder why this defence wasn't used.

Update at 11.10 AM: See also David T's post.