On the radio show today, a caller challenged me with hypocrisy (hardly the first time) for condemning New York Governor Elliot Spitzer while defending Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

As a matter of fact, I never defended Craig: I called for him to end his political careers and to abandon plans for a re-election campaign. I also suggested it would have been better for the Republican Party, and for the state of Idaho, if he had resigned immediately. Obviously, there’s the two phrases “United States Senator” and “arrested in a men’s room for soliciting sex” don’t fit together comfortably.

Nevertheless, Senator Craig has resisted all pressure with his determination to serve out his term, so now some observers are wondering why Spitzer couldn’t do the same.

A few key differences highlight Spitzer’s far more vulnerable position:

1-     He was exposed as part of a major investigation by federal authorities of a high-profile, criminal prostitution ring. Craig was exposed by a single cop running a little sting operation in the Minneapolis airport.

2-     Other people will clearly go to jail as a result of the “Emperor’s Club” investigation that caught Spitzer. To the best of my knowledge, no one has actually gone to jail (in fact, one suspect was recently acquitted) in the Minneapolis Men’s Room operation.

3-     Craig was caught with barely a year left in a long Senatorial career. Spitzer was caught after just one year of service in his first gubernatorial term. The inclination to let him “just serve out his term and then go away” is obviously much less when a wounded governor was supposed to serve for three more years.

4-     Spitzer’s past prosecution of other prostitution rings, and strong condemnation of such operations, makes his inconsistency even more glaring than Craig’s. The fact that you’re trolling for sex in a men’s room, doesn’t logically require that you support gay marriage; even if Craig had supported same sex marriage, his bathroom bust would have been profoundly embarrassing. But the use of an expensive prostitution service by a veteran prosecutor and smart lawyer (especially is it turns out to have been repeated use) does cast a harsh, unflattering light on his own past enforcement of anti-prostitution laws.

5-     An aging politico (like Larry Craig) who’s caught trying to pick up another guy in a men’s room is disgusting, sure, but also vaguely pathetic. He wasn’t abusing his power in Minneapolis so much as he was abusing himself, violating standards of decency in a public place. A governor who makes a trip to D.C. to testify before Congress and then pays five grand for a gorgeous call girl is, however, very obviously abusing his wealth and power. He’s disgusting, all right, but not pathetic and vulnerable in the same way as poor Larry Craig in his toilet stall. No matter how much you hate his politics or behavior, it’s only natural to feel pity for Craig. Anyone feel pity for Spitzer? (His shell-shocked wife, on the other hand, is an obvious candidate for pity).

None of these differences and distinctions between two sex scandals suggest that Craig deserves to escape without consequences, or that the Idaho Senator disgraced his office and his party any less than the New York Governor disgraced his office and his party.

But they do help to explain why Craig will manage to complete his term of office while Spitzer almost certainly will not.