People Love To Try And Dig Up Dirt

The following excerpt, from the New York Times, leads me to believe that newspapers have a thirst for trying to dig up dirt on politicians even when there is nothing scandalous to report:

When Gov. David A. Paterson was the State Senate minority leader, he got in touch with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a fellow Democrat, with what seemed like a routine request: Would he meet with a representative of a small Harlem hospital that was in need of financial assistance?

As it turned out, the hospital’s representative was Mr. Paterson’s wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, who was responsible for lobbying the State Legislature for aid. Mr. Silver agreed to meet, but warned that it would be improper for the senator to be present. As a result, Mr. Paterson did not attend the session, held on April 7, 2003; he would later say that arranging the meeting was a mistake.

But that meeting was not the only thing Mr. Paterson did for his wife’s employer. He also directed state grants of at least $150,000 — with a pledge for as much as $500,000 more — to the hospital over the next two years, a period that overlapped substantially with his wife’s employment there from 2002 to 2005.

The article went on to say that he did not want to do anything unethical. So what is the problem? If Gov. Patterson did not come forward to say that he tried cocaine in his early twenties, there would have been a reporter trying to snoop into that period of his life. We are all human and as such we all make mistakes.