Degrees of rotteness

How can you interpret what is the right thing or reinterpret doing the wrong thing? Whether or not Patrick Mercer MP has done the right thing remains for others to judge but what I can't get my head round are some of the crazy statements which seem to imply there is some honour in doing the wrong thing. Take for example these two statements:

If Mr Mercer has done something wrong he would act totally honourably.

Patrick Mercer has done the right thing in referring himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and resigning the whip. 

It is a strange world we live in where corporate tax avoidance is considered morally wrong even though it may be complying with the law. Yet someone perceived to be unduly influencing the legislative machinery of the land, breaking rules of the organisation is spun as doing the right thing if they resign when caught.

How big a shift is that from a child murder, who, when there is compelling evidence presented which places them beyond reasonable doubt as the killer, decides to change to a plea of guilty?

Or what about the public sector procurement manager; are they doing the right thing awarding contracts to 'mates', until their malfeasance is exposed?

Is it any wonder confidence in the democratic system is waning when you can make up definitions of what is right as you go along, or rather, when you are exposed!