while his wife was battling cancer.

What a guy!

Thank the Lord above that he did not win the nomination, and was not named the VP candidate. We'd be screwed right now.

How can anyone in this day and age think they are going to get away with lying about this. Had Edwards, at the beginning of the campaign, admitted to an indiscretion, even w/out naming the woman, it would have blown over quickly. Instead, like Bill "sexual harassment" Clinton, it was the attempt at a cover-up that screwed him. Sad, just sad.

The only good thing is that McCain can't hope to make much hay out of this. After all, he left his wife to live in sin with his mistress, and may have had an additional affair with the reporter (who looks frighteningly like the living Barbie doll McCain is currently shacking up with), so he's not exactly the poster child for faithfulness.

Thats a real shame. I know there had been rumors but I was really hoping it wasn't true. Its really triflin considering what his wife was going through. Can you imagine had he won the nomination and this had come out now? Good lord. Thank goodness Obama didn't pick him as his running mate. But, he's a man and I believe most men are not faithful to their partners/wives so...should any of us really be surprised?

...and Clay Aiken has a baby. Two disappointments in one day. One more for strike three...

Thank GOD, Edwards is not the presumptive nominee, but what a scumbag, to look the camera right in the eye and lie like that....thinking with his dick instead of his brain.......personally I wouldn't blame Elizabeth if she divorced him. I have lost any and all respect I ever had for this man today.

Just a Democratic hypocrite preaching family values! If he was a Republican, I'm sure the title of the thread would have mentioned it. Of course its pretty low, for whoever is caught cheating on his wife (or husband), In my opinion.

It doesn't surprise me. I was hoping it wasn't true, but like terp said, I think that most men aren't faithful. I never could quite place my finger on it, but there was always something about John Edwards that didn't feel genuine to me. I remember seeing him and Elizabeth on Oprah not too long ago, and something felt odd.

It's been a heck of a week for the spouses of presidential wannabes. It was only days ago that John McCain wanted to enter his wife in the nude Miss Buffalo Chip contest, and now this!?

I'm glad someone feels as I do about most men having affairs. If their partners acept this, they are more likely to have honest relationships. As for Elizabeth. GAWD, I feel bad for her. UNLESS, she knew, and is one of those who can handle it. I think their relationship seemed special. Criminee, Hillary still stuck with her Bill. As a woman, I can tell you that we are a jealous and possessive lot (sorry about generalizing). Most of us try, but cannot tolerate infidelity.
Geez, if Edwards had been the nominee...aghhhhhhhhhh
I can't think of a Kennedy who didn't have an affair. And I wonder if Reagan did.

If Edwards were French he would probably be no more vilified than Nicholas Sarkozy for being unfaithful. If he were gay in a gay world promiscuity would be almost expected, as long as the sex were safe and concensual.

The problem with this situation for me is that Edwards contradicted his own principles by his own admission. And did so while his wife was ill.

His statement of contrition is in stark contrast to the continued confused response of a Larry Craig. And Elizabeth's response suggests just how remarkable a person she is, rather than the political animal instincts of Hillary Clinton.

I may be wrong and perhaps Elizabeth will run for office some day, using her betrayal as a means to gain votes rather than her decidedly progressive views. But more likely it would be the rightwing Faux media which would create that image.

I still believe the policies Edwards espoused were the best of any of the candidates. And that he would have made a better president than either of the two current contenders.

Our social hypocrisy spawns situations like this. Self-professed "egotism" caused Edward's to fall from grace.

If I remember correctly, Elizabeth's cancer treatment has gone from trying to "cure" to maintanance. I hope for a cure, but don't think she will be running for office.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Best,

Drew

WHAT??? What are you talking about? Blame the offender, its his act. To clarify: Are you saying because we as a society have a general rule about monogamy, but that not all can live up to it, that it SOCIETY's fault not John Edwards' fault when he cheats?? Wow, what a concept - then is it society's fault when I speed or shoplift?

I believe you are essentially right Erstegeiger. But I personally believe that suffering from a manageable disease should not exclude one from running for office any more than old age should.

The distinction that makes it impractical, rather than impracticable, is our social prejudices more than any reasonable medical judgement.

Plainly stated: no constituency wants to be robed of its electoral choice prematurely. I do not know the specific prognosis on Elizabeth Edwards but I suspect the general statistics for those with her condition are better than many who already hold office.

In fact if Barack Obama were to backslide on quitting his smoking habit his prognosis could be worse than hers.

So Elizabeth Edwards now says she knew about his affair as far back as 2006... and even though she knew about it, she still supported him running for president. What?! How could she possibly think this news would stay hidden in this day and age?

Your not the only one wondering about that..........

I loved hearing this yesterday on TV -- this is from the National Enquirer's website, about Edwards meeting with this other woman and her (their?) baby at a hotel last month:





What a pig. Not just to cheat on his wife, but to cheat on a wife who's fighting cancer! Shame on him.

National Enquirer?

Now there's a pillar of journalistic excellence if ever there was one.

Yeah except, as usual, they were right.

The "respectable" "mainstream" media didn't report the story. This is a guy who was running for president and being considered for the vice presidential nomination, and the media IGNORED it.

The first I heard of it came from TMZ (it's getting to be my favorite show even though some of the "celebs" they cover are completely unknown to me), talking about the Enquirer story.

It's strange that Edwards' affair has the media talking about how his political ambitions are all but over now, and how the odds of him even serving in an Obama administration are very slim. An affair is very bad it seems, unless of course it was multiple affairs years ago by Republican nominee John McCain, who had affair after affair once he returned from Vietnam and his then-wife had been disfigured in a car accident. McCain met his current wife as a product of one of those affairs, and now he sits judging others. What a hypocrite. Shame on the American media for not telling that story and for allowing McCain to spout his faux pro-family values agenda. This article puts things in perspective.

And they're not the only ones.

Quite honestly I feel that if any adult is having it off with any other consenting adult, it's none of my damned business. I'm not sure if it's any of yours. And while we're on the subject of passing judgment on with whom one gets one's rocks off, aren't we being a bit hypocritical ourselves? It's because we get our rocks off with our own gender that the rest of society has condemned us.

John Edwards' affair is the business of only three people: John Edwards, his wife and his mistress. Period.

Everybody has an opinion on this; in spite of the ubiquity of pols behaving this way, the attention never gets old. On the other hand -- policy details? Who cares? "Who knows what FISA stands for?"

Well it looks like Edwards is, according to reports on MSNBC, ready to finally admit that he is indeed the father of his mistress's baby. Come on, how great would this be if he had been elected President and this all broke?

I wonder how many heterosexual relationships involve cheating? Since Gays can't legally marry in every state, I'll leave them out of the question. I know I will never get a true answer, but I am curious to know...if the divorce rate is about 50 percent, how much of that was due to a cheating spouse? As for Edwards, it's over and done for him. I always thought he was a bit too big for his britches anyway. The footage of him primping for the camera during the primaries did it for me. I know Gay men who preen less than Edwards.

My mom's greatest guilty pleasure is Star magazine because she just loves all the celebrity gossip. Me? I can't even look at the Star cover while waiting in the checkout line. That said, I'm not totally black and white on the affair issue. If a politician has an affair, no, it's none of my business. But there have been a couple of extreme cases recently that I think are exceptions. In Mark Sanford's case, he is literally guilty of dereliction of duty. He ran off to Argentina without making any provisions for the Lt. Governor to take over in case of a state emergency. But even if it weren't a matter of dereliction of duty, Sanford's behavior was so erratic that I found him to be too unstable to hold a job with as much responsibility as governor of a state.

In Edwards' case, it was a case of ego run amuck. In America, right or wrong, if a politician is busted for having an affair during a campaign, it's over. Edwards knows that as well as anyone, yet went ahead and had an affair not just during his campaign, but while his wife was battling cancer. And if that weren't bad enough, he knew that his campaign would be dead in the water if news of this got out, yet he glibly went along and continued to accept campaign donations and to push his staff to work the crazy hours every presidential campaign demands. OK, maybe they're idiots for believing in someone like John Edwards in the first place, but that doesn't excuse Edwards one iota. Would anybody contribute one thin dime to or work even ten minutes for Edwards' campaign if they had known about his affair? Of course not. Yet the narcissist-pondscum didn't utter a peep.

If someone argues that affairs are a strictly private matter, we can agree to disagree. But if that same person argues that it's OK, if not imperative, to out closet-case politicians, then I have a problem. If you believe so staunchly in privacy, then it should always be respected, even if you don't like the closet-case's politics.

Normally I think affairs should be private. But as you pointed out some are different, like Sanford and possibly now Edwards. There are allegations now that he may have used campaign money to pay his baby mama some hush money. That deserves to be uncovered.

But actually most politicians are fair game when it comes to this stuff because of the hypocrisy of most of them. Let's face it, most of them whether Democrat or Republican, yammer on about morals and family values and all that other nonsense that seems to appeal to a certain segment of the population and raise millions of dollars. And it does seem the ones who preach the loudest are the ones who have the most skeletons in their closets. They're against gay marriage because they want to protect the sanctity of marriage but then they are out cheating on their own wives or are gay themselves (Sanford, Craig, numerous others) or they rail against prostitution and prosecute all involved to the fullest extent of the law but are out banging prostitutes themselves (Spitzer). Sorry but they don't deserve any privacy in those instances.