A week after Eliot Spitzer’s ongoing fling with a prostitute was found out, his successor David Paterson, who was sworn in yesterday, has confessed that both he and his wife have had extramarital affairs. “This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point,” Paterson told New York’s Daily News. “But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on.”

The Patersons should be praised for admitting to their past indiscretions and for staying together and working out their problems. One has to wonder, though, whether in another time or place they would’ve had to go public with their confession. It’s no doubt the press or a future political opponent would have dug up these skeletons in his closet at some point.