Let us return to the gnawing question of character, and the role it plays in politics. In this regard, it is the Republicans who are up a muck-clogged creek in the looming presidential race.

Sen. John McCain began dating his current wife while married to his first, and married her a month after the divorce. Potential candidate Newt Gingrich dated his current wife — are we detecting a pattern here? — while married to his second and impeaching then-President Bill Clinton for lying about his intern tryst, thereby adding hypocrite to his list of achievements.

The former House speaker was already accomplished in extramarital slap-and-tickle, serving his first wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery so he could wed the interim Madame Newt.

Rudy Giuliani has a personal life better suited for "As the World Turns" than "Meet the Press." The third Mrs. G was his girlfriend while America's mayor was publicly humiliating his then-second wife. Now he's estranged from his children, as well. Andrew Giuliani is unwilling to campaign for his father, saying he's too busy trying to qualify for the PGA tour.

The first Mrs. Giuliani was his second cousin, something the former U.S. attorney says he didn't know. He thought she was his third, though the 14-year union was annulled on the basis that the couple didn't get proper dispensation from the Catholic Church to wed.

Ann Romney boasts that the biggest distinction between her husband, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and his rivals is that "he's had only one wife."

So far, this may be his leading qualification. That, and being named Mitt.

By contrast, Sen. Barack Obama's major detriments are sneaking cigarettes and admitting to dabbling in drugs in his youth, a confession the current White House occupant has never made. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's liability is potentially her strongest asset, her boy Bill. Contrary to earlier protestations, Clinton has stood and stood again by her man, something Tammy Wynette didn't do with George Jones.

Former Sen. John Edwards' problem is that no one is talking about him.

The conservative right came to power as a unified front, calling into question matters of character and courting the church, all the while forgiving its hero Ronald Reagan a divorce and a family life where the marriage overshadowed parenting, producing some angry, ignored children.

We live in a culture prone to judgment, especially of the powerful, rich and famous, yet also one in which it is far easier to divorce than it is to stay married. If we search exclusively for leaders who are unsullied, we may end up with a monastery, with people like David Souter, Janet Reno or Condoleezza Rice, who have seemingly devoted their entire lives to their work and are prone to appointments, not campaigns.

As for prior drug use, drinking, or dating "Marie the Flame Thrower of Florida" as McCain claims to have, a whole generation or two or three may be disqualified if never having sinned is a requirement for elected office. Indeed, voters may be more wary of people who weren't a tad reckless in their youth — President Bush was partying well into his 30s and fatherhood — than of someone who has single-mindedly conducted an entire life in pursuit of electability.

Who are we to cast the first stones? But we do, in the form of ballots.

There's something troubling about men who have degraded the women they once claimed to love, especially when they chose a life in the spotlight, a claim to leadership, and brought their families along only to have them end up as collateral damage.

Many failings are forgivable, but overt hypocrisy may not be one of them. We may be willing to forgive, but it's hard to listen to politicians preaching, and boasting of superior records, when experience and behavior suggest otherwise.

Karen Heller is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.