How many of us are too often quick to cast the first stone? Undoubtedly, if the roles were reversed, we’d do the same thing that we are castigating others for. This is especially poignant in many of the situations that proliferate  the media daily.

How many men would have acted just like Tiger Woods if they were given the opportunity? What man—with all the money, fame and power—as Tiger wouldn’t have tested his luck in some similar manner? How about John Edwards? What if an extremely attractive woman was unequivocally throwing herself at a man, telling him things like “you’re so hot”—how many men could actually resist that temptation?

Aside from the sexual seduction that many of us wouldn’t or couldn’t resist,there’s the power of the dollar. We needn’t look further than oh say--Blagojevich. He’ll soon be paying a hefty price for what merely seems like his own financial greed.

Now we hear about Fergie, the Duchess of York, being caught on camera offering to sell some sort of access to her ex-hubby. She asks for $40,000 in cash and then another $500,000 pounds by wire transfer and then she’ll introduce the wealthy businessman propositioning her to the prince.

Fergie has issued an apology and has said that her dire financial stress caused her lapse in judgment. Really, though, I don’t think Fergie acted any differently than any of us would if we had something golden to sell or to profit from. Sort of like politicians—senators, representatives, governors and you name it—who take lavish gifts and trips from lobbyists, everyone wants some free swag or cash in exchange for little or no work—including a mere “yes” or “no”vote or in Fergie’s case, an intro to her ex.

Lawyer’s get referral fees for basically the same sort of thing—introductions. Real estate agents too share the profits of their brokered deals. Seriously, it seems that this sort of thing is allowed in some circles but illegal in others. Regardless of the legality of the action, people cannot escape their innate human nature to be opportunistic.

What bothers me about the media fixation about this is that in Fergie’s case, she was set up. A tabloid magazine preyed on her down in the financial dumps situation and entrapped her all in the interest of having a sensational story to sell newspapers. What Fergie’s story highlights further is that it seems that people tend to be exaggeratedly hypocritical of others without taking a proper introspective look at their own selves and how they would act if they were given an opportunity to make a large sum of money without much effort. What Fergie did was basically broker access to her husband. What’s so wrong about that? The news media loves to hate Fergie and discuss her purported dubious values but how many of us would have done the same?