As Americans rinse off the stench of the long sad Edwards affair, we find ourselves wondering yet again: how did this happen?
Part of it is the same hubris and delusions of entitlement that ensnared Clinton, Gingrich, Spitzer, Schwarzenegger, Baker, Swaggart and others who have seen their private behavior torch their public image.
But the odor from this one has a particularly sulfurous tang -- carrying on an affair with a woman brought into the inner circle for ease of access, while a wife dying of cancer traveled in the same entourage. Add reports that that a man who was a supermarket tabloid away from being vice president of the United States made a sex tape -- potential evidence that exceeds the titillation factor of even Monica Lewinsky's stained dress.
Some politicians are brought down by the Washington Post. Others by The National Enquirer. Times change.
But what truly sets apart the Edwards saga from the others is the scale of the complicity.
How many office romances go unnoticed? Bonnie Raitt wrote in "Something to talk about": "We laugh just a little too loud. We stand just a little too close. We stare just a little too long."
Compound that by the close quarters of a campaign bus, and a baby with no father on the certificate, and I would defy anybody in the traveling show to say they were shocked.
Events would support reports that the strategy was to reveal the affair after the election and after -- this will follow Edwards forever -- his wife passed away.
Unimaginable hubris meets astonishing delusion meets toothless campaign laws; all converging at the intersection of questions that are yet to be answered -- and perhaps never will be.
Faithful to the sad, sordid script in a parade of political implosions, Rielle Hunter has a tell-all coming out at the end of the month: What Really Happened: John Edwards, Our Daughter and Me.
What Really Happened will almost certainly answer such pressing questions as how cute did they meet, how good was the sex, how bad was the guilt and -- of course -- the reliable book-mover and buzz-maker: the sex tape.
But there are other questions about what really happened.
How did a seasoned campaign staff think that they could pull this off? In what always-on media universe would it be possible to hide an affair with your spectacularly unqualified and inept videographer and your baby -- with The National Enquirer reporters prowling the campaign like coyotes circling a campground?
How can it be so easy to divert $1 million from wealthy donors to hide a mistress from your supporters and -- of course -- your dying wife?
How did a man so bereft of common sense and common decency make it to the Democratic ticket in 2004 and the short list of Obama's possible running mates in 2008?
How could someone be so corrosively self-involved that he would campaign for that spot knowing that under the thinnest of veneers lay ample evidence to reduce the whole campaign to smoking ruins?
It's very doubtful that John Edwards will address these questions as he pursues what he said in his post-verdict statement is "God's plan" for him. But somewhere in the muck of the answers is a cynical politician and flawed human, supported by a staff and structure that chose to see instead an electable asset with a bright smile and perfect hair.
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I am always amazed at the arrogance involved as these high profile figures tell outright, easily discovered lies, yet expect everyone to just take their word for it. Remember Bill Clinton standing at the podium, pointing his finger at the camera, as if lecturing the American people, on how he did not have sex with "that woman", only to be shown for the dog that he is? Remember Hillary Clinton telling us how she landed under fire in Bosnia? As if no one would go back and look at the video.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no idealist. I have no illusions that politicians won't lie. It's what they do, after all, but lies like these - so easily found out, so ridiculous (and career threatening) to tell - require the height of arrogance.
1) What is your congressman's name? What party is he/she in?
2) Name any three SCOTUS justices
3) Which party controls the House? The Senate?
4) Name three Kardashians
5) Who won the most recent American Idol?
6) Who QB's the NY Giants?
Any guesses how that quiz turns out?
When it hits the fan women are victims of men.
G Dubya Bush was "faithful" and that worked out really good for us. I'd still take Edwards over Obama. He's a bad husband but so was Clinton.
Edwards, no matter how vile or contemptuous, surrounded himself with such an organization, that was willing to focus on a goal no matter how bruised or smelly his carcase. The goal was the Presidency, and everyone was complicit, within their own private intent. There is cause here to view the Edwards campaign along with his disregard for decency, as a family of persons willing to slide into obscurity, but not for Edwards, but more so for their own personal gain. The little boy of princely visage, and pickled in narcissism of course was a fake; but his world around him, strong with support and a zeal to march in blinded self-indulgence kept him alive. That's the part we miss, because it could have been us.
We want to believe our behavior happens in a vacuum. That, no matter what happens 'out there', what we do 'in here' is completely the result of our inner spiritual journey. We want to believe it with every fiber of our being. But, if you believe that, welcome to Oz, Dorothy.
Scott Walker traveled to New York City to attend a fundraiser for himself amongst the rightwing billionaire class. Maybe it helped him, financially. But you can bet it helped, psychologically. People like Walker idolize the rich. Meeting with them would have been like meeting Jesus, to someone like Walker. Edwards, someone who wanted to help the 'common man', fell to a 'common woman'. People like Clinton, Spitzer, and Edwards will always be at risk from those whom serendipity places on their 'dance card'. People like Walker are immune to that: their dance card was filled by the Koch Brothers, long ago.