To be sure, I was disappointed when I learned about Herman Cain’s behaviour and his extramarital affair(s). But I do tend to agree with Dennis Prager’s assessment of what adultery tells us about a political candidate, which is to say, not much. This is as true for Herman Cain as it is for Bill Clinton.

Nothing here is in any way meant to be a defense of adultery. As a religious Jew, I believe it violates one of the Ten Commandments. As a married person, I know how much it would hurt my wife and how much it would hurt me if the other had an affair. But marriage is too complex an arena to draw any immediate conclusions about a person. Are we to label a man who takes loving care of his chronically ill wife and who has a discreet affair no more than an adulterer who merits disdain and mistrust? Is a woman who stays in an emotionally abusive marriage for the sake of her children someone with little integrity because she sought to be held in another man’s loving arms? The questions and nuances are innumerable.

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