Shocked. Shocked!

Somehow newspaper editors, television presenters, and the "public" have to muster up all the surprise and outrage we can when some Republican conservative senator like Larry Craig turns out to have been arrested for indecency in a public bathroom.

What exactly is this shock over?

Are we perhaps shocked that he didn't just hire a male prostitute and have sex in the relative privacy of a hotel?

No wait, Ted Haggard did that, and we were "shocked" then too.

Are we perhaps shocked that he didn't just use his position of power to sexually approach attractive men in his employ who were unlikely to report this abuse?

No wait, Mark Foley did that, and we were "shocked" then too.

Or that he didn't have an extramarital affair with a male employee who only got the position because of the affair?

No wait, Jim McGreevey did that. Shock. Shock. Shock.

The feigned innocence of the American public when it comes to sexual matters apparently knows no bounds.

For me, it's hardly a shock at all that a closeted, conservative, powerful man whose power is contingent on projecting the image of heterosexuality might engage in sex in restrooms with other men who are unlikely to recognize him or go public with their sexual encounter.

The real shock to me is that he got caught and couldn't pull strings to hush it up more thoroughly.

What is the role played by this surprise? It's to distance ourselves from the system that is obviously failing.

Everybody has to act surprised when a marriage fails, because otherwise, maybe marriage isn't all that great.

Everybody has to act surprised when an ostensibly heterosexual man enjoys same-sex sexual activity, because otherwise, maybe the whole idea of heterosexuality starts to look suspicious.

Everybody has to act surprised when a politician has a private life that does not conform to the straight-white-married-monogamous mold, because otherwise, the whole idea of that being the proper source of this country's laws becomes suspect.

It's the same reason I always act a little surprised when somebody wants sex on a first date, and the same reason I always feel a little disappointed when people let me down.

Maybe that fake innocence is the only kind of innocence we've got left.