From the grand bedroom suite to the Capitol

According to Gabor Steingart, sex scandals are good for democracy. It had never occurred to me, but he presents his case in a vivid enough way. The revelation typically following a politician's affair is of benefit to the public:

It shrinks the individual politician down to the size of an ordinary citizen, or perhaps to a size even smaller than that...

Steingart doesn't spell out what that smaller size is, but it's something - magnitude - that he doesn't lose sight of:

After a primary campaign of erotic escapades, the healing effects are visible everywhere. The paragons of virtue have been cut down to size.

Steingart also offers comparative observations regarding national behaviours in the sauna - with Americans, evidently, covering their bodies more than others do - and elsewhere:

But lust often rages beneath [the] towels and, in the case of some politicians, naked lunacy. When it comes to their sexual behavior, the Western superpower's elected representatives exhibit a number of traits that clearly distinguish them from politicians in other countries. And when it comes to extramarital activity, politicians in Old Europe can hardly hold a candle to their US counterparts, except perhaps some French presidents and British members of parliament, among whom a certain type of love-crazed behavior enjoys a tradition that transcends party lines.

I haven't often looked at politics from this vantage point, but I'm now hoping for a follow-up from Der Spiegel's man on the anatomy, the specific shape, of German indiscretions.