The charges "should not come as a surprise to anyone," Michael A. Schwartz told reporters. "We have continually said from day one that Larry has cooperated with investigators and will continue to cooperate and will accept full responsibility for his actions."

Something in Schwartz's comment seemed to suggest that Mendte was to be commended for working with the feds, as if copping to the crime had elevated the fired CBS 3 news anchor above his new status as Internet creep.

I guess it's one thing to break into your colleague's most private communications, divulge the contents to the media and watch in jubilation as her high-paid career explodes.

But it's quite another thing to lie about it.

And Mendte, ladies and gentlemen, is no liar!

I know - ridiculous, right? Especially since Mendte's transgressions embodied the very essence of deceit.

Except I sort of get it. Once you're caught as handily as Mendte was, the only way to survive - and perhaps soften a judge's sentence - is to hold still while you're reeled in.

That doesn't make Mendte honorable when compared with those who'd never dream of doing what he admits he did.

But it makes him kind of a stand-up guy when compared with another high-profile lowlife whose transgressions also made headlines last week:

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

For those who haven't followed the icky travails of the Motor City's top elected leader, let me start by saying that whatever consenting, gooey-eyed adults do with each other is no one's business but their betrayed spouses'.

Unless it costs taxpayers $8.4 million, which might be the case with Kilpatrick and his one-time chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

Detroit's former police chief and one of Kilpatrick's former bodyguards claimed during a trial last year that they had been wrongfully fired for their role in an internal investigation of Kilpatrick's security team.

The probe would have exposed an affair that Kilpatrick and Beatty were having, the men claimed. But under oath, the couple emphatically - and angrily - denied that they were lovers.

Kilpatrick went so far as to say, "I think it's absurd to assert that every woman that works with a man is a whore."

Such gallantry!

When the men won a multimillion-dollar verdict anyway, Kilpatrick, who is African-American, blamed the win on the bias of white suburbanite jurors and vowed to fight it on appeal.

Weeks later, though, he suddenly agreed to an $8.4 million settlement, after The Detroit Free Press revealed that Kilpatrick and Beatty had traded umpteen romantic text messages, many of them sexually explicit, during the period of time they'd denied, under oath, of having fooled around. Both were slapped with perjury, misconduct and other embarrassing charges.

Things got worse for Kilpatrick last week, when charges against him were expanded to include allegations that he lied about additional trysts, as evidenced by the discovery of steamy text messages to even more whores, er, women.

Kilpatrick's arrogant response?

"I think the prosecutor's case is going to hell quickly," he said of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. "I think she knows it, and I think that she's on the verge of committing some real prosecutorial misconduct."

I'm telling you, the guy's like the Anti-Mendte.

Alongside the deluded, monstrously egomaniacal Kilpatrick, Mendte appears like merely a petty sad sack who let professional jealousy get the better of him in a way that even he can't believe he allowed to happen.

His once-sterling career is a shambles. His personal reputation is in tatters. And we can only imagine what his stupidity has cost his family.

But we certainly know what it has cost Alycia Lane, thanks to her blistering lawsuit against CBS 3, which fired her in January, six months before Mendte got his comeuppance.

Still, unlike Kilpatrick last week, at least Mendte didn't spin tall tales about those who'd dare notice his transgressions.

That means something.

Not necessarily that Mendte's a man of honor. But that maybe, one day, he'll be capable of acting like one. *

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

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