Have we learned nothing?

[cormac]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5441195&page=1

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

I liked John Edwards. I really did. I thought he would have made an excellent president, and he very well might have.

But you cannot run for President of the United States with something like this in your closet, and you can NOT lie about it and expect to get away with it. The situation with his wife's cancer only makes the situation worse; whatever sympathy she brought to his candidacy in the primary is long gone now.

Comments

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

like they did for gary hart and bill clinton, I bet the radio stations will dedicate an hour of love songs starting with Bad Company's 'feel like making love'....

[lady_songsmith]

I liked Edwards. I still do. He says he told his wife about it; he's still married. One assumes she felt there was something worth saving in the marriage. They've settled it, or are settling it, between them. What else matters? As for lying about it -- the way our public discourse is currently set up, there is no correct decision. Admitting it is political suicide; hiding it is political suicide. The latter at least delays death.

The only party deserving contempt here is the media.

[cormac.livejournal.com]

And from her statements on DailyKos, they have been working on saving their marriage since 2006. I'm not angry at him for lying about this, merely stating that lying about the affair when confronted with it directly is a really good way not only to commit political suicide, but to become reviled by many.

And I disagree that admitting an affair is political suicide. See also Senator Vitter, who didn't have an affair so much as hired a Mistress to place him in diapers and whip him with a riding crop. He received a standing ovation when he returned to the Senate by his colleagues, and has suffered no real dip in the polls.