Craig Melville, Alex Salmond and MSP Mark McDonald all made the headlines for the wrong reasons last week.
All three SNP – or former SNP – politicians put on displays of arrogance and hubris that must have left First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with her head in her hands.
McDonald, the MSP for Aberdeen Donside and one-time childcare and early years minister, quit the SNP after a party probe into his behaviour towards women.
Although McDonald admitted his behaviour had caused distress and quit his party, he has decided to continue serving as an independent MSP – and drawing his £60,000-a-year salary – despite being urged to quit by Ms Sturgeon.
Things got worse for the SNP when former First Minister Alex Salmond tried to defend Kremlin propaganda station RT, home of The Alex Salmond Show, by saying it is just the same as other media outlets like the BBC.
RT seeks to equivocate Russian actions in places like Ukraine and Syria while undermining trust in Western governments.
The BBC, which Mr Salmond denigrated for its “propaganda” during the independence referendum, might make mistakes in its news coverage, but is not a wedge being used to promote the interests of a gangster state, unless there’s more to Bargain Hunt than meets the eye.
Russia stands accused of the first use of chemical nerve agents on European soil since the second world war but Salmond is, unwittingly or not, giving credence to those Manichean conspiracy theorists who believe everything the UK does is intrinsically bad.
While Ms Sturgeon spoke like a leader in her condemnation of Russia, her predecessor was advancing arguments barely worthy of a bedroom blogger.
At the lower end of the scale, former Maryfield councillor Craig David Melville was finally found guilty of sending Islamophobic texts to his lover Nadia El-Nakla on the night of the Bataclan terror attack in Paris.
Like McDonald, who seems to think his own redemption is more important than how his return to Holyrood will affect his victims, Melville seems unable or unwilling to accept when he’s wrong or the consequences of his actions.
Despite having to quit politics, he chose to put his own young family through the humiliation of having their dirty laundry aired in public. Nor does he seem able to grasp how offensive and distressing his messages actually were.
Perhaps Melville, McDonald and Salmond genuinely all believe themselves to be in the right. Perhaps an absence of doubt is a prerequisite of a career in politics.
But let’s hope not.
If the remarkable rise of Donald Trump to power in the US has shown us anything it’s that while simple answers may be superficially attractive, they are rarely effective.
Being able to admit when you get things wrong is a sign of maturity, not weakness.
And while Melville, as his solicitor intimated, is no doubt filled with regret about the end of his political career, what should really bother him is this: his replacements as councillor in Maryfield, Lynne Short, has done more for her constituents, her party and her city in the two years since her election than he did in his near seven-year career in the City Chambers.
