--though he falls farther and harder, because he climbed up on the Mr. Clean image.

Questions for each of them:

Did you know that what you were doing was wrong?  

Did you know it was illegal?

I suspect that both of them would answer "yes."  Twist turn, writhe... but say yes.

What the hell were you thinking?

Both deserve their moment in the modern equivalent of the public pillory--no throwing things, folks--and then should be permitted to try to put their lives back together and move on.  Life's short, and forgiveness as precious as water.

I don't expect people not to make mistakes.  I do expect them to learn from them.  She's learning that accepting money from wealthy and powerful people to do things that are generally deemed illegal and immoral is a fast way to get your 15 minutes of fame in an unpleasant way.  As unpleasant lessons go, that's unpleasant... but not really that horrible.  No marks, no scars.

Respect is something that we offer like trust, on assumptions.  She and Spitzer get to try to recover the right to expect much respect from people at large.  That's a long road.