Just what were these guys thinking?

We knew Arnold Schwarzenegger was The Terminator and the Governator but we didn't know he was also the Loveanator.

The count as of this writing is one child produced from an affair he had while married.

I suspect you could get odds that number might increase because if a hound dog can get off its leash once it almost certainly will again.

John Edwards, former presidential candidate and poster child for hair spray, not only cheats on his wife, who is battling cancer at the time, but is now accused of using campaign funds to support his mistress.

Now, he is facing a pile of federal criminal charges involving various offenses which are rooted in misuse of money stemming from his extramarital dalliances.

And along comes Anthony Weiner, who vehemently denied sending lewd photos of himself over the Internet and claimed he was the victim of a prank, only to recant a few days later and admit he did it to himself.

Then we have Rod Blagojevich. The former governor of Illinois, now a convicted felon as a result his first trial, is in court for the second time for misusing the powers of his office and attempting to sale the senate seat one occupied by President Barrack Obama.

The good news here is that he didn't try to trade it for sex - well, as far as we know.

While this type of personal misconduct and professional shenanigans have gone of forever and these guys are not the first to engage in such activity, it is distressing that it seems to be a growing trend.

We all make mistakes and it is unreasonable to ask our leaders to be perfect and it should not be expected.
But these transgressions are not honest mistakes of someone who has simply made an error of judgment.

Certainly their judgment was lacking but the conduct is premeditated and the mistakes are of arrogance and entitlement, mistakes of men who believe they are somehow immune to the rules and if caught they will offer excuses and reasons which will justify their actions.

Perhaps the vilest and disgusting thing about this business is how each of them, despite the rhetoric, seems to casually dismiss their transgressions.

They whimper and cry and mumble apologizes then blather on about how they accept responsibility for their actions and are sorry for the misery they caused before walking away from the camera smiling, as if a half-hearted apology makes up for everything.

The reality is, like the common criminal, they are not sorry for what they did - they are sorry they got caught. This is caused by the mountain of lies they usually build to try to protect themselves and cover the truth, which usually is the root of their downfall.

You need not go to church or be a moralist to know that lying, cheating on your wife or stealing is unacceptable behavior. We will never find leaders who are without fault but these men, powerful and in positions of authority, made conscious decisions to violate the trust
they were given; trust all the way from their family to the stranger who voted for them.

It is likely some bad things are going to happen to these guys, from Schwarzenegger losing half of what he owns in a divorce to Edwards and Blagojevich going to jail.

And after he's out of office the best Weiner can hope for would be to land an Oscar Meyer commercial. (To make further jest of a yahoo politician named Weiner who gets involved in a sex scandal is just so easy it's not even fun.)

But in the end, a whimpering, whining, crying, gasbag apology is not enough and they deserve what they get.

Ric Latarski is a freelance writer who writes on a variety of topics. He can be reached at Rlatarski@aol.com.