He was one of America’s smartest, most talented lawyers. Besides being brilliant, he was audacious enough to pursue legal cases that other lawyers, just as smart and talented, wouldn’t consider. His courtroom victories and backroom negotiation skills rewarded him handsomely; they brought him immense wealth and power. As his reputation grew, he was alternatively admired and feared by those in his circles. In the business community, the Wall Street Journal routinely ran scathing stories portraying him as the Devil Incarnate. And then, not too long ago, at the height of his career, he decided to do something even a layperson could tell him would destroy his career if it was discovered - and it was.

Eliot Spitzer? No, same plotline, different character. This was the story of Richard “Dickie’ Scruggs, the Mississippi trial lawyer who made a fortune by launching successful class action lawsuits against the asbestos industry and helped craft the $248 billion settlement against the tobacco industry, netting him legal fees in the neighborhood of $400 million. His character was featured in The Insider, the movie about the tobacco case.

But last month, Scruggs pled guilty in federal court to conspiring to bribe a judge in a case involving legal fees from a Hurricane Katrina lawsuit. The amount of money at stake for Scruggs was chump change compared to what he earned in his career. And now, in all likelihood, he will be disbarred and serve prison time.

Why do men like Dickie Scruggs and Eliot Spitzer do these things? Is there a teachable moment here? The talk shows hosts and columnists are full of opinions, but when it comes down to it no one really knows the answer. These men (and the occasional woman like Martha Stewart) probably don’t know the answer themselves. Ultimately, their experience must lead them to believe they won’t be caught or if they do get caught, they will be able to manage the consequences. The fault, as Caesar cautioned Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves.

A small clue comes from a British movie, Scandal, which tells the true story of a powerful 1960’s English Cabinet Member who consorts with a prostitute. The prostitute also happens to be sleeping with a Russian attaché and when the Cabinet Member’s affair is eventually disclosed, not only is he forced to resign but the scandal brings down the Prime Minister. A key scene in the movie occurs when the Cabinet Member initially denies the affair and tells the procurer who introduced him to the girl, “ I have nothing to hide.” The procurer, a far more keen observer of human behavior than the better educated, more powerful client, says knowingly, “Come off it John, we all have something to hide, what a boring life it would be if we didn’t.”

Perhaps that’s the teachable moment - on some level we are all fallible, even the rich and powerful. And the more powerful one becomes, ultimately the more vulnerable one is since power breeds enemies and pride in equal portions. It will be a costly lesson for Scruggs and Spitzer. One need only look at the expression on Spitzer’s wife’s face at his press conference to see that. Because the worst penalty these people pay, long after the prison sentences and fines the pay, is the everlasting effect it has on their families. The headlines will eventually go away, the rest of us will forget (who remembers Mel Reynolds or Wilbur Mills?) but their families will live with it forever.

Scruggs is lucky in one respect. He doesn’t have to worry about one thing that will dog Spitzer. The woman who caused Spitzer’s downfall, Ashley Dupre, aka Kristen, is, as one would expect, entertaining offers rolling in from the tabloids and men’s magazines during her fifteen minutes of fame. On this feature of the story, the definitive word belongs to a man who knows something about illicit extramarital assignations, Frank Sinatra. He once introduced a girl, Judith Exner, to John F. Kennedy and she and Kennedy went on to have an affair early in his Presidency. Many years later when she went public with the details of her affair with the President, a rueful Sinatra summarized it this way, “Hell hath no fury like a hooker with a press agent.”

Have PoliticalMavens.com delivered to your inbox in a daily digest by clicking here