No one who has had sex with someone other than their spouse should ever be elected to office.

[GiaGiovanni]

78. No, it's about discretion. Assuming your parents were single and not holding elected office

they could sext to their hearts content and not worry about vulnerabilities that public officials have. In fact, they could have been committing adultery and very few people would have cared.

However, if you're a public official, you cannot act like a person who is not in the public eye. You have to be careful of even the appearance of impropriety. You have to be careful of your vulnerabilities.

Franklin Roosevelt carried on a long term affair with Lucy Mercer, and Americans were none the wiser. Of course, Mercer didn't run to the Washington Post with photos, and the technology was not available to duplicate those photos electronically even if she had. Dwight D. Eisenhower had an affair while he was commanding the Allied Forces during WWII. Here again, Americans never knew about it until after his death. It was never an issue in the Presidential election of 1952. Both men were discrete and so were the women involved. And, of course, the technology did not leave people so vulnerable. (You could have a handwritten letter delivered, pay cash for a hotel, and leave no electronic trail.)

These days, EVERYTHING leaves an electronic trail and someone will find it. Weiner is not a kid--he's 50. There's no excuse in someone that age not covering his tracks. After the first incident that destroyed his Congressional career, Weiner should have learned to be far more discrete. No excuses.