Akst: The political virtue of self-control

Daniel Akst is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

Now that Anthony Weiner has taken his leave of Congress, it's worth asking whether any grown-up ought to care about the sexual misadventures of a public official.

Of course, the answer will always depend to some extent on the nature of the misadventures. If former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn turns out to be guilty of trying to rape a hotel chambermaid, we certainly should care. We should also care about John Edwards, who not only portrayed himself as a loyal family man while impregnating his paramour, but is under indictment for allegedly using campaign funds to keep her out of the way while he ran for president.

But how about if an elected official makes a fool of himself through some sexually oriented escapades on the Internet? Weiner, it should be noted, does not seem to have broken any laws, and so far there is no evidence the married former congressman had sex with any of the women involved. But he did commit two cardinal sins for anyone in a leadership position. First, he let his appetites get the better of him. And second, he did so in ways he should have known would degrade him and his office.

Weiner surely knew that we often judge others on how well they cope with desire. There is wisdom in doing so, especially when it comes to leaders. The ancient Greeks, who were obsessed with self-mastery, argued that if a man could not control himself he probably couldn't control the polis, or city-state, and therefore was unworthy of office.

Spiritual ascetics have always been revered by worldlier mortals, and leaders like Gandhi derive enormous authority from ostentatious displays of restraint and self-denial. Today's imperial chief executives, with their huge pay packages, badly undermine themselves by broadcasting their greed.

Weiner's sexting habit wasn't job-related, yet who can deny that it reflects badly on his character as well his judgment, both of which are very much job related? If a person can't control himself outside of work, after all, can he be trusted to control himself on the job? In fact Weiner was notorious as an on-the-job bully, indulging his anger so freely that his office was plagued by high staff turnover.

His downfall also shows how poor self-control in one arena may subvert one's life in another. His indignant lying in the early part of the scandal, which was probably as harmful to his cause as the things he was lying about, never would have happened had he kept his impulses reined in.

At 46, Weiner has lived long enough to know that public lapses in self-control can torpedo reputations. In our work lives, at least, capitalism has always encouraged a great show of conscientiousness and propriety, even if it encourages excess in our lives as consumers. Nobody wants to do serious business with people who lack self-control (witness Charlie Sheen), which is one reason being fit can be such a competitive advantage in a nation of fat people. Contra Weiner, it's supposed to show self-discipline, like the ritual of men and women at a dinner party greeting with chaste hugs and kisses. The idea is to demonstrate that we can safely consort without crossing the line.

Americans are sometimes accused of Puritanism about all this, yet perhaps those worldly Europeans can learn something from us. In Italy, after all, Silvio Berlusconi remains prime minister despite a blizzard of sex scandals and investigations that have made him a national embarrassment. In America, Strauss-Kahn and Edwards are awaiting trial. And Anthony Weiner is toast.