Here in France, the ever-so-cosmopolitan Parisians have quit pretending to ignore stories of their philandering leaders. They’ve succumbed to the basic tales of titillation. No question about it. But a certain threshold has to be crossed. No one was bothered much by the fact that this year’s Socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal, had never married the father of her four children, François Hollande -- who was also the head of her party. But when their problems as a couple intruded on the campaign the papers filled with gossip as hot as café crème. The private life of the victorious candidate, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, was dealt with gingerly by the press, not least because of his hot temper. Americans got a taste of that when they saw him rage off the set of a “60 Minutes” interview after questions about problems with his wife Cécilia. But her public affair with another man captivated the chattering classes before the elections, and le divorce captured the headlines afterward.

What made these French politicians different from their American counterparts is that none presumed to preach sexual morality to the masses, as so many randy right-wingers have done in the United States. And that, precisely, is what makes the Americans’ peccadilloes in so many cases such public spectacles and their appeals for forgiveness less like the expiation of sin than an exercise in spin.