Media pretty excited Christian Republican congressman caught cheating on wife

Vanity Fair is probably most typical of the media's jubilation over the latest conservative Christian Republican who's been nabbed - by virtue of nothing but his own stupidity - messing around on his wife. Cue the celebration as Congressman Vance McAllister of Louisiana is caught in the act, and add bonus points because he's tight with the Duck Dynasty crew:

Here's a story you've never read before: a conservative politician known for running on a family-values platform gets caught being more than friendly with someone who is not his wife. This time around, it's Representative Vance McAllister, a G.O.P. congressman from Louisiana's 5th district, who was reportedly spotted passionately embracing one of his female staffers. McAllister was, as per his campaign website, "taught at a young age the importance of faith, family, and hard work." According to reporting by The Ouachita Citizen, McAllister's alleged kiss took place a few days before Christmas. The congressman reportedly can be seen embracing Melissa Anne Hixon Peacock, his district scheduler. Peacock and her husband each donated $5,200 to McAllister's campaign, and the husband went to high school with McAllister. Though he's yet to make a massive impact on America's political landscape, McAllister has the distinction of bringing Duck Dynasty star Willie Robertson to the State of the Union as his special guest. (The Robertson family endorsed McAllister during his campaign.)

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"Here at the McAllister house, we have a big family breakfast every Sunday before church. Kelly does the cooking, and I do the dishes," McAllister said of his wife during a campaign ad. "O.K., O.K., so mostly, I do the eating. But it's here in this house that Kelly and I worked to instill the values of faith, family, and country in our five children. If you will trust me with your vote, you can count on me to take those values to Washington."

Just so you know how this works: When a conservative Christian Republican is caught cheating, the storyline is his hypocrisy. That's why you see Vanity Fair recounting the whole Sunday-before-church story. When a more secular-type Republican is caught cheating, the storyline is hypocrisy by association. When a liberal Democrat is caught cheating, the storyline is the overreaction by judgmental prudes, if it's covered at all. Never, ever, is the storyline that sexual immorality is actually a problem. You'd think you might at least get a hint of its relevance in the sense that we're supposed to be able to trust these people, but the reason liberals got away with "everybody lies about sex" when it was Clinton under the hot lights is that the media not only believe that, many of them are active participants in it. It's only people who advocate for higher moral standards that they have a problem with, which is why they get so excited every time there is an opportunity to take one down via the charge of "hypocrisy." About that: There is no defense of McAllister at all. None. And I have no idea if this is a matter of a man who sincerely believed the things he was advocating but was too weak personally to adhere to them, or if he was just spewing self-serving nonsense to advance his political career. I know nothing about him. I have no idea. But having said that, we would all be better off if everyone advocated for higher standards than they themselves have achieved to date. In the ministry world, I have met many people who had huge anointing on their lives, but also had huge flaws. It doesn't mean they were frauds. It means that the carnal always fights hard to gain the upper hand over the eternal, and sometimes even those who are squarely on the side of the eternal get taken down by it. Being faithful to your spouse was the right thing to do when McAllister said so before he cheated on his wife, and it's still the right thing to do now that he's done it. His own personal failure doesn't invalidate the very standards he fell short of. Indeed, it only shows why it's so important that we must meet them. Don't fail to understand this: The media are shouting the McAllister story from the rooftops precisely because they want to destroy the credibility of all who advocate the standards he failed to meet. Utopia for them will be when no one is expected to meet such standards. At least that's what they think it would be.