PBS NEWSHOUR: David Brooks of The Atlantic and Jonathan Capehart of MS NOW join Geoff Bennett to discuss the week in politics, including the fallout from this week’s shakeup in the Maine Senate race.

GEOFF BENNETT, PBS NEWSHOUR: And, David, the fact that Graham Platner survived one controversy after another, his political support largely held until there was this allegation that was just so serious that it became impossible for the party to move on, what does that say about how high the threshold for political shame has become? DAVID BROOKS, THE ATLANTIC: Very high, apparently. Everyone’s a sinner, and we all have things that we’re not proud of in our past. But he had so many red flags. And it was not only the tattoo and over a decade of Reddit posts. But, as we have learned, when some guy’s abusive to one woman, there are more. There’s a pattern of behavior all the time. And we learned from some reporting in The New York Times this week that three operatives from the Democratic national party in D.C. went up to Maine and told him, you’re the guy, you’re our hero, you’re a messiah, you should run. And people in Maine who knew him was like, you might still be in a fragile state. Maybe this is not a good idea. And they turned out to be right. To me, the bigger picture is, when you decide whether or not to vote some for somebody, there should be three filters. First, do they have the moral character ready to do the job? Are they trustworthy? Do they tell the truth? The second filter should be, do they have good judgment? Can they read a situation and see, here’s what needs to be done here? And the third filter should be, do they agree with me? Do they — are they on my political team? But what’s happened in politics over the last, I don’t know how many years, is those first two filters are gone. And so people only ask, are they on my team? And that’s obviously true on the Republican side with Trump, but it’s also true of Bernie Sanders, who stuck to Platner like glue after a lot of these revelations were coming, because he decided, well, he’s a Democrat, therefore, I don’t have to worry about character. I don’t have to worry about judgment. But let’s all learn the lesson character actually kind of is important. And if somebody doesn’t have that, it doesn’t matter if they’re on your team. BENNETT: Well, what about that, Jonathan? Democrats for years had pointed at Donald Trump and made the argument that character matters. Does the fact that so many Democrats were willing to stick with Graham Platner, does that undercut the their argument fundamentally? JONATHAN CAPEHART, MS NOW: No, it doesn’t, because we’re talking about one guy over a history of candidates where Democrats didn’t put those — the considerations they gave to Graham Platner into work. I look at it like this. What happened, what should have happened, finally happen. And when you look on the Republican side, and particularly with President Trump, who has had similar accusations against him, including some court actions, and yet Republicans stuck by him. And so I wonder if a lot of Democrats looked and thought, you know what, the guy in the Oval Office has got a lot of baggage, this guy has a lot of baggage. We’re going to hang in there. Should they have done it? No, they shouldn’t have. And the consequences of that, Maine and Maine Democrats are dealing with that now. But I hope that this is a lesson for candidates around the country. If you have skeletons in your closet, you better know what they are, and you better be truthful and forthcoming about what they are when people come to you and say you are the one. Maybe you should be the person who says, you know what, I’m not, and maybe you should go talk to someone else.

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