Duplicity snags another big-time pol

Eric Schneiderman is paying the price that so often is levied on politicians who say one thing, but then demonstrate their through their actions to be someone quite different.

The former Democratic New York attorney general quit suddenly this week after allegations surfaced that accused him of sexual assault. Yes, the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements caught another one!

But here’s the thing. Schneiderman has been out front and quite vocal in criticizing others who’ve been caught doing the same things that the former New York AG has been accused of doing.

That only heightens the hypocrisy of it.

This reminds me at one level of the recent case involving Missouri Republican Gov. Eric Greitens, who has been accused of sexual misconduct. You see, what makes Greitens’s alleged transgression so ghastly is that he campaigned for election by proclaiming himself to be a “proud husband and father.” He was a “family values” candidate and he played on that theme while winning election to the Missouri statehouse. While he was bellowing his love for his his wife and children, he was messing around with a woman who isn’t his wife.

That makes what Greitens did all that much worse and it elevates it from a “private” matter to a “public” scandal.

Do you remember when former U.S. Sen. John Edwards was campaigning for vice president as part of the Democratic ticket led by U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2004? Edwards was so proud to proclaim his love for his wife, Elizabeth, while keeping secret an affair he was having with someone else.

Eric Schneiderman managed to pop off quite vocally about how other men should be ashamed of behaving badly with women. It turns out he also was misbehaving — allegedly — in violent ways with women with whom he was having sex.

Shameful.