mcgreevey: yeah, yeah. across from jim mcgreevey now, he seems like an affable, easygoing guy, and that's exactly the political persona he cultivated to succeed in the cutthroat arena of jersey politics. by the time he ran for governor, he had been closeted for most of his life. everyone has some level of accommodation, and for me, "you want to run for governor?" so you make this decision to be like what it is that america says is the right thing to do so you can flourish. are you ready to rumble?! crowd: yeah! the power in new jersey is who becomes governor. reporter: ...the race for governor between incumbent republican christine whitman and the little-known democratic state senator, jim mcgreevey. tapper: because he was so little known and not independently wealthy, mcgreevey had to rely on his work ethic to get his name out. he didn't stop. called him the energizer bunny. he just kept going and going. reporter: the governor's race is tighter than ever. tapper: but work ethic could only take him so far.

so it seems like mcgreevey has learned a lesson. but have we? when he resigned, we focused on the gay affair, not the corruption allegations, and that obsession with sex scandals, with the private lives of our politicians over the public good, or over the harm they can cause, that is still alive and kicking, and when the next scandal arrives, the hot take might not be the right one. ♪ company town at work. off duty politicians and members of the press, sometimes gathering over dinners or drinks to trade gossip and share secrets. because here information is the coin of the realm. but in the early 2000, in the terrible wake of nine over 11, some in the d.c. media got a little too cozy with the bush white house as it tried to make the case for going to war in iraq. and when the bush administration's cause for war started to unravel. an explosive allegation became a federal investigation into whether the white house sought to retaliate against a critic by disclosing the identity of a covert cia agent whose name was suddenly everywhere. back in 2003,