While we're never surprised to hear that a married politician has stepped out on his wife with one or a million "other women"--often the type with unreasonably puffy bangs and the kind of teeth that beg for fluoride (or something)--it never fails to disappoint us to find out that another one of our potential leading men is, simply, a dog.
It makes us particularly squeamish to hear about these stories, such as the now-galactic John Edwards scandal, in which the fellow's wife is also terminally ill, the situation is blown out far and wide, and the family--already dealing with so much dark, sad, shit--is also then condemned to a very public hell of shame.
While we heard loud murmurs of the Senator's alleged love child and affair with actress/filmmaker Rielle Hunter (pictured above) along the DC gossip chain during the madness of Super Tuesday, we tried deftly to ignore it. We didn't want to hear it. Edwards wasn't a bad guy, we thought, he's a good guy. The story probably wasn't true, or if it was, then he was a bad husband (not our problem) going through a bad situation (not our business), and this is personal crap (not politics), and that was that.
But the story actually is true, and the family shame is both huge and real, and Edwards is going to tell Bob Woodruff on Nightline all about it in an interview broadcast tonight.
Among other topics discussed in the interview, according to The Corner, Edwards will confidently deny the paternity of Hunter's 6-month old baby.
He will also clarify a most important distinction about the relationship: how he only began the affair when he knew his wife was in cancer remission, not dying of cancer:
"ABC reports Edwards said his wife and other family members learned about the affair in 2006. 'Edwards made a point of telling [ABC] that his wife's cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter,' ABC News says. 'Elizabeth Edwards has since been diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease."
Oh, PHEW! That changes everything. Edwards must be a good guy, after all.