Missing the point

There's been a lot of news, well until Michael Jackson died, about the South Carolina governor's affair (something Sanford, I don't know his first name and don't want to get distracted to find out because I want to make this short). From the reaction I've heard thus far it seems that people are more willing to forgive him for the affair than for leaving his post without telling anyone. It's as if the crime against the state, for which he was indeed the governor of, is more heinous than the crime against his wife. I heard the same sentiments with Clinton. They's say, "What a man does in his personal life is his own business."

This makes no sense to me at all.

If you can break the trust of someone you stood up in front of God and everyone and committed yourself to for the rest of your entire life in all/any circumstances that life brings then you sure as hell can break the trust of a bunch of people you've never met.

And for those who give him a pass on the affair, it makes me wonder if they are only extending the same latitude to him that they want extended to themselves when they screw-up in the same way.