Filler: The twittilation isn't worth it!

Lane Filler is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

Deciding whether to do the morally iffy things you really, really want to do should be pretty easy, particularly if you're famous. Simply write down, in enormous lettering, the headline that will be plastered across the newspaper when you get caught, then decide how it will impact your life when the parents, kids, spouse, clergyman, librarian and psychologist read it.

Because you are going to get caught, you know.

And if, once your ickiest longings are discovered, that inevitable headline will include the terms "sexting," "minor," "love child," "tearful apology," "immoral misuse of pudding," "tryst," "shirtless," "age of consent," "well-equipped dungeon," "soliciting," "undercover," "phone records," "scheme," "payoff" or, of course, "genital self-portrait," you should give that particular behavior a pass.

The Tweetplosion of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Forest Hills), who was sending pictures of his various body parts to various women, comes just months after the upstate Republican congressman, Chris Lee, was forced to resign because he was transmitting shirtless images of himself via Craigslist. Lee used his real name, but a false description of his life that claimed he was a divorced lobbyist (which may yet turn out to be clairvoyant rather than simply dishonest).

The timing of these disgraces, combined with the fact that each of the men comes from a different party and region of the state, could at least have made it easier to deal with the 2010 Census' subtraction of two congressional districts from New York. After all, as long as New York has congressmen disgrace themselves at exactly the same rate it loses population percentage, it would be easier to decide which districts to eliminate.

The problem with this plan is that Lee's seat has already been filled by Democrat Kathleen Hochul and Weiner, as of Wednesday, had avoided resigning, opting instead to lie, scurry, bluster, take a leave of absence, "seek treatment" and apologize.

The thing about apologizing is that it's a different act when it's for something you're admitting to, that you haven't been caught at yet, than when you've been well and truly busted. One means, "I'm sorry that I'm a flawed human being, but I'm working to change." The other says, "I'm sorry I got caught, because if I hadn't I'd still be tweeting pics so hot and heavy the Internet might actually burn down."

Weiner and Lee, of course, aren't the only two prominent politicians to get in this kind of trouble lately. A lot of the other ones, though, like Mark Sanford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Ensign and John Edwards, went with the old-fashioned sin of having adulterous sex with women, which is quaint by comparison.

Anybody can understand (note to my beloved wife: not support, but understand) how people commit adultery. You get tempted. Weak. It's an animal urge that, for whatever reason, you fail to overcome.

Although these tweets and texts of naked and half-naked pictures to strangers probably fall lower on the official sin list than adultery, they climb much higher on the ick chart. They aren't about lust for another human, or loneliness, or weakness. They are about narcissism and arrogance, the objectification of self and others.

But gentlemen, whatever bad acting attracts you, the point is this: Emails can be deleted, but not erased. The phones have GPS. Every computer can be hacked. And none of us are James Bond. If I can't successfully hide Hanukkah presents for 48 hours, I'm unlikely to successfully conduct a double life.

So before we do the crime, we must imagine the headline. That should help us keep the pants on, the pics proper, and the pudding in the pantry.