COMMENT | I had a brief conversation with a friend about the way a politician’s divorce has become one of the hottest media stories around.

It is everywhere, repeated across news outlets and discussed with an intensity that makes you wonder whether something of real public consequence has happened, and our conversation eventually came down to a very simple question. Why exactly is this our business?

This opened up a larger question about what happens when someone enters public life, and we slowly begin to behave as though the distinction between the public person and the private human being no longer matters.

Marriage, divorce, relationships, affairs, sexuality, children, private messages, past mistakes and personal crises can all suddenly become available for public inspection simply because someone holds political office.

This is troubling because...