One Hundred Twenty Four: Bad People

What do Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jon Corzine all have in common? They have all been celebrated public figures in positions of authority and power, and generally esteemed by large sections of the public media before being exposed as scoundrels and louts. The other thing they all have in common, at least for me, is that their loutishness and dearth of decency was very blatantly apparent from the first time I ever set eyes on them in their public positions. Now I know I do not possess any special powers of observation, so the question is why these characters (and many others like them, especially most career politicians) are reverred for so long prior to their downfall? Why are their bad characters ignored and even glorified?