Having felt for years that the great man's reputation was under stealth assault from those never inclined to see any pedagogical virtue behind the tough love and bluster of football culture, they pointed to the library that bore his name, as though proof of his essential goodness were exculpatory.
By now, hardly anyone is under the impression that Trump is exactly a model of restraint and Christian virtue behind closed doors, but it's one thing to hear stories about Trump behaving badly and another to hear and see that for yourself.
God forbid Bayern, the club that others emulate, turn to someone like Matthias Sammer in their desperation, a man who can't hide his love of good old German virtues behind his sharp specs.
Nissan should take care not to hide its virtues behind baby-food orange paint.
Unfortunately, Mr Gul announced his candidacy without getting the formal blessing of Mr Erbakan, who for all his legal tangles continues to run Virtue from behind the scenes.
But the book also shows that a more primitive system, with vices as well as virtues, lives behind this façade.
Many of the movers behind virtue ethics, she notes with satisfaction, have been women, like Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum.
Now, the same junta managing this cash is orchestrating the country's first elections in 20 years, controversially excluding over 2,100 political prisoners (by virtue of keeping them behind bars), including Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party just recently decided to boycott the elections.
At the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, Virtue and Moir again finished behind Davis and White, taking home the ice dancing silver medal.
On Monday morning, confirmation arrived that the Californian had dislodged Rory McIlroy as No2 behind Tiger Woods, by virtue of Mickelson's memorable Open Championship triumph at Muirfield.
We visited its booth and discovered the company was the number two player in the power strip industry, behind Belkin, by virtue of owning the category at Wal-Mart and Target.
