Giuliani's willingness to announce a divorce at a press conference before his wife knows anything shows a viciousness that I find relevant. If it was his only slipup that might not matter, but there seems to be a pattern of venality, like when the discovery of the emptied munitions depot right before the 2004 election threatened Bush, and Giuliani blamed the incompetence of the soldiers on the ground.

It's the hypocrisy that gets me. Mess up your private life, but not while you're out preaching "morality" to everyone else. Giuliani has used religion to bludgeon the arts and free speech, but he hasn't put it to much use to save his family relationships.

And I suppose it depends on the "immoral" act as to whether I think it is relevant to someone's candidacy. Knowing about JFK's drug addiction would have been a reason not to vote for him, for example. Knowing about spouse or child abuse would certainly be a reason. So would knowing that someone committed insider trading and didn't get indicted because his father was president.

Everybody is a hypocrite at one time or another, including myself. The point is, is the message correct, not the messenger. Giuliani knows what is right, but he is weak in the flesh, like us all, and occasionally falls. Let us not be the first to throw a stone at a hypocrite. Just because the Rev. Jesse Jackson talks about helping the down and out and lives the life of a rich ruling class member, doesn't mean that his message is invalid. There was only one Christ. When we fall down, we pick ourselves up and move on.

I am reminded of the big speech that occurs near the end of the 1995 film "The American President":

President Andrew Shepherd: "For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character."

So, do we judge our leaders based on upon actions taken in the course of their private lives? Yes, we must. It's a slippery slope, to be sure. It's far too easy to get over-zealous and hold our leaders to standards that we do not meet ourselves, but that doesn't mean candidates should get a free pass. When someone seeks to be elected as the leader of the free world, they should expect an extraordinary degree of scrutiny.

After hearing the Republicans bleat for decades about how being president is all about "character," if they nominate Giuliani I expect them to shut their mouths forever about "family values" and how immoral Bill Clinton was.

Yeah, right.

thank you