It is said that the truth shall set you free, and this week it's certainly set Eliot Spitzer free, although only temporarily. No amount of jail time will undo the damage he has done to worthy men and women, but one thing is for sure: he will no longer be drinking with reporters, i.e. no more spritzers for Spitzer and Blitzer.

Schadenfreude is the pleasure we take from watching other people suffer (from the German words for harm and joy). It's a relatively innocent sensation when your football team beats a hated rival. It's less attractive when you watch a fellow human falling from grace and derive satisfaction from it. But you must excuse me if, in this case, I cite the well-known pornographer Snoop Doggy Dogg: ho' ho' ho'.

A few in the insurance industry might be forgiven a secret grin over the former New York Governor's shame. The man who set himself up as a paragon of virtue turned out to be just as human as the rest of us. The manner of the Luv Guv's resignation was suitably preposterous.

Attempting to sound noble, he appeared to claim high standards that he could not live up to. Balderdash.

What he meant was: "I am resigning because I thought that buying hookers - women temporarily enslaved - and associated crimes are a wizard hobby for a married father-of-three, and that lying is a man's best friend. Oh, and I was caught."

Even if you don't take a dim view of prostitution, what are we to make of a man who betrays the trust of his wife and children, and millions of his constituents? Who delighted in using techniques outside the law to bring down innocent people?

And who then took a few days to decide whether or not his high standards required him to resign his office in the face of a stay at the Gray Bar Hotel?

I'm not on Mr. Spitzer's case because of his "crusade" against the insurance industry, even though he used vile tactics to break better men than himself. I lump him in with a whole cast of lowlifes, who set themselves up as moral arbiters.

Jim Bakker, a "reverend" (a man to be revered); Bill Clinton, a President (one who presides over his people); Ted Haggard, a pastor; and now Mr. Spitzer, a Governor (one who governs the lives of others). These charlatans, who set themselves up as special men, all proved to be special only in the morally bankrupt sense of the word.

Who am I to point the finger? No one, that's who. And that's why I can do it. Like many men, I too would like to buy naked women, dozens of them on the hour every hour, the nakeder the better - but it's just not on. I therefore don't make such purchases, and nor do I want to lead a nation, enforce my standards on others, or claim a special relationship with God.

Lord, I hate the self-important, the hypocrites, the cheats and the serial liars. When the Spitzers of this world commit their sins, they close their minds to their own worthlessness and assume no one will find out. Or they engineer their own downfalls because of it. You be the judge. Caught, these scoundrels routinely deny their actions, usually with gusto, as did Bubba Clinton, throwing the weight of the Presidency behind his lies to crush a 25-year-old he had seduced; so too Mr. Spitzer, at first mugging for the cameras and assuming it would all be 'business as usual' once a few weeks had gone by.

His initial announcement brought to mind a particular Bermuda politician (now retired), who said without irony (irony apparently being unknown at the House of Assembly): "Sometimes, even I must rise above my principles". Mr. Spitzer apparently felt that it was OK to pay the pimp, but not to pay the piper.

I say this: by all means, wallow in filth. Perv your brains out. But if you are caught doing it, have the decency to resign. Don't hold a press conference, glibly say "I'm a love rat", mug for the cameras, and take off for a session in which you probably browbeat your wife into thinking it was her fault in the first place. Oh wait, decency - the one thing all pompous blowhards lack.

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Death tax update: A couple of weeks ago, I asked practitioners who are versed in UK estate duties to contact me so that I could include them in a listing of such people. Only one replied: Jim Sabo at jsabo@expatriatetaxservices.com. Mr. Sabo is a columnist for this newspaper. He seems to be the only one who reads this column. I'm glad someone does.