THE WORKING LIFE: You get up in the morning. You shower, wolf down a breakfast and head off to your job. You put in a solid day’s work and go home. For that, you earn a check that allows you to meet your obligations and, if you’re lucky, have some leftover cash to save and spend.

You’re obviously not a New York State senator. They, for the past several weeks, have done no work of consequence, though they are still drawing their checks that the rest of us are paying.

Who are these people? They should voluntarily forfeit their checks or someone should find a way to withhold them. No work, no pay.

WRETCHED HYPOCRISY: It’s nice that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was willing to confess his marital infidelity after first offering the lamest lie ever—hiking on the Appalachian Trail, oh please. But it’s too much that yet another mom-and-apple-pie politician has turned out to be a hypocrite. The man voted for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment over sexual impropriety, for Pete’s sake, and here he is doing the same thing.

Humans are notoriously fallible and sexual failings are not remotely the worst sins that humans—including politicians— have been known to commit. But let’s tone down the self-righteous condemnations. They can backfire.