The Edwards Affair in a Political Perspective (Ezra Klein, Center for American Progress)

I think he sums the political implications of this up really well.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=08&year=2008&base_name=edwards

Since I'll probably be expected to have something on this, John Edwards has admitted to an affair with Rielle Hunter. Shame on him. Insofar as there's anything political to be said, it's worth remembering how uncertain predictions about fallible human beings are. One of the prime arguments for Edwards in the primaries was that he was the safe bet. As opposed to the polarizing woman and the inexperienced African-American with the Islamic name, Edwards was a white, male, southern populist who with an extremely likable wife, a bevy of adorable kids, and the experience of a national campaign under his belt. Yet it turns out he was the riskiest candidate of the three.

Update: This comment from Tyro gets at the part I find most galling:

Here's the thing: his family found out about the affair in 2006. How on earth did he think a presidential campaign would survive such allegations -- and he had to know they would come out, sooner or later -- given that he kicked off his presidential campaign soon thereafter?

It's not just the affair that makes Edwards look bad-- it's the narcissism of deciding to run for president after having been caught in the affair, thinking that it wouldn't eventually find its way into the press. The guy was putting the entire Democratic party at risk by creating the possibility that he might actually get nominated.



No one forces you to devote your life to national advocacy of important issues. But if you decide to do follow that path, with all the plaudits and moments of roaring applause it entails, you have to make certain sacrifices, and shoulder certain realities. Among them is that if you falter, you can harm all that you're advocating and deny help to all whom you claim to represent. I don't know if it's true that Edwards' affair started and ended in 2006, but if so, that's actually the most morally unforgivable of possible timelines. If Edwards had won in Iowa and captured the nomination, this could easily have lost him the election, and thus destroyed the country's chance at health reform, withdrawing from Iraq, and so forth. This reaches back and recasts his candidacy as an act of extraordinary selfishness. That's not to say it was conscious -- we all contain multitudes and we all compartmentalize mercilessly -- but it was gambling with the fates of the very people Edwards was running to help.

he would not be found out.

I give up!