As a white, single male professor (and before then, graduate student lecturer), I was wary of being alone with my female students. In many universities, there is the presumption that male professors can and will use their grading and other authority to sexually exploit female students. [It does not surprise me some men will say or do inappropriate things; for instance, I had befriended a female psychology graduate student in Milwaukee staffing a statistics lab I was using for one of my articles, and she confided in me one day the professor in one of her classes had kept her after class one day and told her that her breasts were too large.] What I did notice was that some of the female students were very aggressive, more so than the women I met in my normal social life. For example, while I was debugging a female student's computer program one day I suddenly felt her foot crawl up inside my left pant leg. I decided to pretend nothing had happened, but after she left with another classmate, I heard her laughing down the hall, "Did you see me turn on the teacher?" A coed in Houston once suggested to me she was willing to do anything for a higher grade, and I recommended that she study harder. But in 8 years of college teaching, I never dated or socialized with any current or former student. I always inferred that if the student's behavior was not manipulative, it had more to do with my being an authority figure than a personal interest in me, and it would have been wrong to take advantage of my position.
Authority or powerful figures can be of many types, including political leaders, rock stars, etc. It seems to me morally wrong for a politician to take advantage of his position for sexual self-gratification, even if the woman in question had initiated the behavior.
I do not think politicians of either party have a monopoly on virtue. And to a certain extent, I think the personal indiscretions of a politician that don't affect his or her performance in office and that don't violate the law or pose a threat to national security (e.g., a foreign spy) should be tolerated.
In the case of John Edwards, I think there are a couple of points which disturb me: (1) John cheated on his wife, whom is dying of cancer; I think that's particularly disturbing when you're championing a moral cause, like the elimination of poverty; (2) John, even after confessing to his wife, kicked off his campaign and, instead of acknowledging a past indiscretion, constantly denied it, knowing his campaign would be devastated by revelation of the scandal; this was unfair to his supporters, contributors and the people whom voted for him. There is a troubling rumor that John's mistress may have taken payment for services from campaign funds for which she did not have suitable qualifications and were of questionable quality. This raises the question of whether there was a quid pro quo. It's an astonishing fall from grace from a former major party nominee, and Edwards' political career seems to be over.
Bill Clinton's indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky are a different matter. Bill Clinton was responsible for abiding by relevant policies, including sexual harassment. Bill Clinton knowingly, as a lawyer and sworn to defend the Constitution of the US, misled an Arkansas court investigating the Paula Jones case. Democrats were first in a state of denial and then tried to represent the affair as one of mutual consent, as if he had simply visited a Nevada brothel. In fact, Monica Lewinsky was a White House employee, and there's a question of whether, in her access to the Oval Office, President Clinton had discussed privileged matters (e.g., on the phone) for which Monica had not been properly vetted.
A particularly troubling aspect about the revelation of Mr. Edward's improprieties is the fact that the journalists whom had unmasked them were not from one of the established liberal newspapers, like the New York Times or the Washington Post, but the National Enquirer. In particular, one is reminded of the disgraceful decision earlier this year by the New York Times to publish a thinly sourced scandal story that didn't meet professional standards against John McCain.
