Edwards admits to affair
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/...edwards_affair

Affairs are never good but in a way I'm glad that protectionist Walmart-bashing trial lawyer is out of the VP picture.

He says he didn't love the woman. So he sells out both his wife and his girlfriend. Will he haul out his wife in front of the cameras as a show of support? Please spare us that.

He may end up the most hated man in America, at least this week.

A politician/lawyer getting busted screwing another chick while his wife is battling cancer?

No freaking way!

Larry Craig's bathroom footsie: 3 weeks of news coverage.
Mark Foley's explicit text messages: 2 months.

John Edwards' affair and possible illegitimate child: 22 seconds.

Being a Democrat philanderer instead of a Republican philanderer: priceless.

Dems seem to have sex with women.

Republicans seem to have sex with other men or with teen boys.

So ... the press is homophobic to boot.

John Edwards has been my most hated man in America since 2004. Once again, I'm a trendsetter.

Signed,

Barney Frank

Powerful rich people have a lot more temptation. It's hard to have compassion for a hypocrite who has traded on his alleged piety, though.

The Congressional Page Scandal was a bi-partisan affair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Co...ge_sex_scandal

Be strong SU and if you're not please share.

and seconded,

Jim McGreevey

Edwards' statement:

Leave him alone, guys. It's tough being a self-deprecating, egocentric, narcissistic, 99% honest millionaire trial lawyer.

You cannot possibly beat him up more than he has beaten up himself. May The Obama grant him forgiveness.

Very disappointing indeed.

I don't know that the phrase "I have been stripped bare" was good imagery either in his statement.

Does anybody care about affairs any longer? I know all Springville mascot hating RS presidents do, but outside of that, will we ever get to the point of just ignoring this shit.

Agreed. I'm not sure how this is any of our business, even if he were still in the running for VP/Pres. I didn't care about Clinton (other than the juicy details, which are always entertaining), I don't care about Edwards, I don't care about bathroom stalls (well, I do care a little more there as he's bordering on breaking the law...).

One thing I've never understood about JE: Why does he part his hair on the wrong side of his head? If he parted his hair on the other side, he wouldn't have such a 'hair wave'.

Also there is this...

http://www.bookofjoe.com/2005/06/why_john_edward.html

http://bookofjoe.typepad.com/photos/...college2zz.jpg

Bill Clinton and Gary Condit may want to take issue with you on this one.

The days of that stuff being news are past. When sixty to seventy percent of all marriages suffer from affairs do you really believe anybody gets bent out of shape about them?

What I can't figure out is why male politicians impregnate their paramours?

And when was the last time a female politician got pregnant from an affair? That would be juicy.

I tend to think that his indiscretion will make him a lock for VP. Democrats around the country love this kind of behavior in their politicians.

I did, but only for a moment. The thread's title had me concerned that Lavell and, who knows? Sherri Dew? Elaine Michaelis? Anyway, once I realized it was only a politician, I felt a mild sense of relief and went back to not caring.

He said that to make it his wife feel better. "Honey, I was just horny. No love, I swear."

If people don't really care, then why do politicians strive so hard to cover it up? The crux of the matter is this question: If he had been honest about it when it was first exposed would it have been as big of a deal? I'm not sure what the answer is to that question but the fact that politicians nearly universally try to cover it up seems to me to indicate that yes, people do care.

If we conclude that people do care, the natural follow up question is should people care? I believe affairs are made relevant when the person having the affair is also publicly proclaiming their own virtue. Hypocritical politicians (redundancy alert) are notorious for claiming virtue and then being shown to be less than virtuous. I'm not saying that Edwards specifically falls into this category - I don't know enough about him to make that claim - I'm just pointing out a certain class of affair that is indeed relevant to the public. An affair also shows something about a politician's honesty. An affair by its very nature is a dishonest, secretive act. People can and should expect the utmost in integrity/honesty from their politicians. Thus, I conclude that affairs are indeed relevant to the public where politicians are concerned.

Summary:
- Do people care? Debatable but evidence indicates they do.
- Should people care? Given the nature of politicians/politics, yes.

I concur. Well stated.

BFM, what are we to make of McCain's widely acknowledged affairs?

I'm sure virtually all GOPers including yourself will forgive him if forgiveness is defined as choosing to vote for the man.

I brought up the affairs to my bro-in-law. He said so what, are you aware that Obama is going to raise taxes on people making over 200k?

It sounds like Edwards is in therapy. Did McCain ever sort out what caused him to cheat? Other than she was fat and disfigured?

And nowhere near as wealthy. It's an ugly story.

Welcome back, Mike.

I'm with MikeWaters and the French: affairs are a bad basis on which to choose a president. Besides, you can never know for sure if your man is without sin.

Not an automatic disqualifier, but it shows poor judgment. It makes a big difference whether there is an apology and remorse. I don't respect men who just up and abandon their wives and children for a mistress. It is a coward's play.

That is true.

You must be assuming that I am a GOPer because I'm not sure I've specifically stated that I am. Have I voted Republican in the past? Yes. I've also voted Democrat. For the record: I'm registered Republican in Utah because Utah has a closed primary system. Philosophically I tend to be more Libertarian but I vote Republican more often than Democrat because Republican's are generally closer to my philosophy than Democrats although lately it's getting harder to distinguish between the two.

I don't know the specifics of McCain's affairs. In terms of general principles I have the following thoughts about any politician's affair:

- Did the politician lie and attempt to cover it up after it was exposed to the public or did the politician humbly acknowledge, apologize, and accept the consequences?
- Was the cover-up/lie/affair facilitated by the politicians public office or the use of public or election funds? Were they abusing their office? Was there anything illegal going on?
- Any other special circumstances? e.g. Did the person abandon their spouse? etc.

For me, none of these questions are a single "basis on which to choose a president" (SU's words). Individually, they are just one among many other issues to consider. They are decision factors that speak to a politician's integrity and judgment but not necessarily to a politician's position on economy, environment, national defense, states rights, etc.

We're basically just talking about importance here. As many have already pointed out, the "morality issue" is a rational basis on which to rank a candidate. In other words, the importance of morality > 0. It would be irrational to conclude otherwise. The real question then is "How much weight should the morality issue be given in relation to other decision factors?" That's a very difficult question to answer. I'm sure that for some people it is of utmost importance and thus becomes a single "basis on which to choose". For me, it probably ranks somewhere in my top 10 but not in my top 5. Thus, if two candidates were equal in terms of higher priority issues then I would add the morality issue to the equation. If two candidates are separated on my high priority issues then the morality issue is less relevant to me.

Thus, to answer your specific question, I would probably forgive (in the sense you defined it) McCain because of the differences between him and his current opponent on my top issues. Also, the answer your BIL gave seems to indicate that he is also ranking morality lower among his issues.

As I stated above, I don't believe they are a "bad" basis, just a less important basis. They become more important if higher priority factors are equal.

I thought you weren't a high handed cultural moralist. You may be the only person ever to call John McCain a coward. I don't know what if anything you've done to prove your mettle (you do seem somewhat callow), but I bet at 72 he could still fuck you up good, and you'd be scared.

Translation: "I have a mistress too and she ain't cheap."

Noted Right-Wing pundit and cultural moralist Michael Kinsley:

Right. The point is he's a hypocrit. I agree, as noted previously.

I didn't have any notion of how wounded you were over me calling you boring.

I didn't realize there was anything moral in what I had said. Cowards run away from things. I can with hold judgment and still not want someone making important decisions for me who is the turn their back and run away type.

Nice usage of callow. I keep a thesaurus on my desk as well.

I'm not wounded. I just think your point is a tad facile. I'd understand better if you called such a person selfish or callous or even fiendish. But I think it's simplistic and off the mark to generalize about "running away."

For one thing, such a person may be opting for more problems than he or she would have had had he or she stayed in the unhappy marriage. See Anna Karenina. For another, courts of law establish rules for division of marital property, payment of maintenance and child support, and many divorced parents are good parents, sometimes better than they otherwise would have been. Our society does not criminalize ending a marriage for love.

So if all obligations are complied with incident to the divorce decree and order of child support, and the parent who sought the divorce delivered as a parent, I think according to our civic virtue the person did not "run away," however else you may wish to moralize.

Finally, you say you respect someone who apologizes more. What of John Edwards, who, taken at his word, didn't love his extramarital partner and did it only physical gratification? I wonder too how genuine an apology is that has been extracted under such circumstances. He'd probably rather have never been discovered.

How else has John McCain's life shown him to be one who "runs away from his problems"? Spin it any way you please, it's moralizing. Go ahead and moralize, just be forthright about what it is.

I wasn't aware callow was an obscure word.

The law often allows what honor forbids. Nevertheless, I used the word "abandon" which you are either ignoring, have forgotten or are inferring far too much.

By the way, I'm not aware of McCain's past on this front and didn't make any of my comments with him in mind, particularly, or with any particular person in mind. Shot birds do flutter, however.

I am not so concerned about the affair as I am that too many people won't recognize what the affair shows about John Edwards.

He was out there "in your facing it" for the last 6 years. The man of the people. The man looking out for the poor. The soldier in the war against the rich and the powerful. A man of principles.

It isn't my principles I expect him to adhere to as he proclaims who he is, it is his principles. Supposedly one of his strong principles was his "family values". He paraded his wife around and their marriage, someone else didn't. He is a fake.

Any of you really not question that his strong stance for the non-rich is just his way of soothing his guilt over all the money he has and how he earned it. Anyone want to really tell me this isn't a guy who can easily justify anything in his own mind.

If he thinks breaking a marriage covenant is fine and his wife is OK with it, it is none of my business. I am not sustaining him as a GA. However, I do hate dishonesty and disception. At the core, Edwards is a well trained dishonest and deceptive person.

As a final note, those who try to compare this to McCain and his affair or whatever it was upon returning from Viet Nam. Can anyone provide me a clip of him out promoting family values and deceiving the public at that time.

Edwards allows Clinton (via a surrogate) to remain looming in Obama's shadow.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5553013&page=1

This post is a mess of internal inconsistencies. It's also dishonest. You didn't have any person in mind? You're lying. I'm no flutterer, but I do call B.S. on disemblers. I like clarity and courage of convictions.