Why do politicians cheat on wives?

Why do men in power — the ones on pedestals — think they are above their constituents and can get away with cheating on their spouses, particularly these days amid intense media scrutiny and when peccadilloes are arguably more politically damaging?

It is a long list of those who thought they could jet off to Argentina, cruise on the yacht Monkey Business, check into a hotel under an assumed name or use an escort service and never get caught, never have to come clean.

The names quickly come to mind — South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, Sen. David Vitter, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one-time Democratic presidential hopefuls John Edwards and Gary Hart, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, current New York Gov. David Paterson.

These days, the fallout can run the gamut. It can doom a career — former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey — or simply unleash the fury of a special prosecutor leading to impeachment - then-President Bill Clinton.

This was not always the way it was in the United States. There are politicians, presidents even, who did the dalliance dance privately and did not pay publicly — John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, included.

No more.

It's a different world today — a public that feeds on the exploits of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Pamela Anderson and Britney Spears documented in the tabloids, glossy magazines and at-your-fingertips Internet has developed an insatiable appetite for scandal.

That makes it all the more inexplicable that these men — and they are almost universally men as politics remains mostly a man's game — tempt fate. And, particularly, men with presidential aspirations.

One possible explanation, said Stanley Renshon, a political psychologist at City University of New York: “Narcissism is an occupational hazard for political leaders. You have to have an outsized ambition and an outsized ego to run for office.”

Or, perhaps, think you can stray from your marriage without consequence.

To be sure, politicians do not necessarily have different reasons for cheating than nonpoliticians, and they do not necessarily cheat more often.

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