I think this Edwards thing is absolutely extraordinary.

The front page is lousy with these threads, so I supposed I'm not helping, and also I have have a history of laughing at posts of the flavour of this very post that I am writing now as there is so much space for thread on the front page, so, hypocritical ME, mea culpa, BUT...

Personally I think it demonstrates really skewed priorities when the Cold War has finally dethawed:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

... which should be a nice slap in the face to people who thought it was over and there are basically 2 threads on this subject and 20 on Edwards' pecker.

*I* don't think Edwards' pecker is very important. I've never thought that what people do with their pecker in their spare time is very important. I don't even particularly give a fuck about gay Republicans having affairs with male prostitutes whilst simultaneously bashing gay rights, it's not a commendable thing to do but, in all honesty, I'd rather know why they think *I* don't get to make more of my relationships than they do rather than what they do in the john. I don't really care about what people do in the john. I think people who are obsessed with the way other people have sex are basically not getting enough. Sorry.

And I don't understand why people think marriage is about sex. I don't, really I don't.

I think telling fibs about what you do with your pecker in your spare time is bad. But I think I would be much happier to vote for someone who had fibbed to me about what he had done with his pecker in his spare time who also wanted to deal sensibly with health care and the nation's education problems and the economy than someone who told me the truth about his pecker but lied about

EVERYTHING ELSE

and also wanted to fuck with the economy and healthcare and the environment and anything else that made him feel big, like, for example, weaker nations.

But, hey. I'm an old fashioned liberal. We're a dying breed.

And I really wish people wouldn't make this assumption that because someone's fibbed about their pecker that they're going to fib about everything else. It's SAD. It's like they genuinely believe that once someone's in a position of public authority we're somehow married to them. People are entitled to keep their private lives private, as far as I'm concerned. It's understood everywhere else in normal society that sex is private, your own business, a matter for those directly concerned, a form of *intimacy*. Why, then, are politician's sex lives so thoroughly drilled for sensation and titillation? Why is everyone so keen to turn the White House into Jerry Springer? I think it's more than a bit creepy the way everyone jumps on sex stories. I don't think it serves any purpose other than to cheapen the White House, to strip auras from public figures, to get back at them somehow for being powerful. "Ooooooooh, look! You've got a PECKER! Tee hee hee! Underneath all that suit you're all bare and naked like real people."

You wouldn't do it to your next door neighbour. Why is it acceptable to do it to someone who's stepped up to fix your country? "I'm SHOCKED. It's not a superhero, it's a PERSON. It's got BITS between its legs." Well, yeah, but that you ever felt otherwise says a lot more about you than it does about them.

Lambast people for the bad things they've done to you, not the private agreements they've failed to honour, I say.

However, doubtless many people will respond to this with "He's betrayed us," or variations thereof. I wish they wouldn't. Storm in a teacup.

every little secret out of the closet. you are correct. I don't care what he does with his dick.

You know, it came out after John Major, British Prime Minister, left office, that he'd been having an affair with Edwina Curry, the Health Minister. His popularity *increased*!!! But that's probably a strange example, he was a very strange prime minister with a high pitched nasal voice and seemed amazingly boring and normal. Nobody could take the story seriously, it was like "oh, my god, he actually does stuff. We all thought he sat inside and catalogued his insect collection or something."

Britain's gone a lot more like Europe in this regard over the decades since Thatcher, which I think is good. European politicians having affairs are not at all likely to be thought of as "betrayers of the populace" for that alone.

the more serious transgression.

We have a winner.

And anyhow, that's just straightforward nepotism, isn't it? Like politics is ever going to free of nepotism! You're right, it's bad, but that particular thing will get fixed when people want it fixed. I wish people would focus on it if that's what they really object to.

Has a case been made that he put her payroll to keep her quiet?

investigate Edwards for this.

about Edwards. Even though she apparently doesn't have experience making such movies about politicians. The lawyer also said he paid the woman to move,even though the lawyer claims Edwards didn't know about this.
I have no clue regarding the rules on campaign money. By the way the lawyer claims he paid this woman from his own funds and not campaign money.

"to make documentaries of the Senator's work for the One America Committee. Hunter would get paid and Edwards would have an excuse for keeping her around. Six months and $114,000 later, the deed was done."

$114,000 essentially stolen from donators so he could screw this woman for 6 months???

He should be tried and convicted on fraud charges for this.

If she actually did the work, then it ain't theft, I'm afraid. And in what sense is it fraud? I think you're trying to turn nepotism into something more sinister.

Dept of Homeland Security even though he was unqualified? Had he not done that, McGreevy might still be govenor.

And, yeah, nepotism's bad. My point, however, is that what the guy *did* when he was head of the NJ DoHS is more important.

At least it *should* be...

When you are trusted with PAC funds from donators, hiring someone entirely unqualified and rediculously overpaying them is misappropriation of funds.

If it was a public company, the CEO would be sued by the stockholders and likely wind up doing a perp walk.

However,

1) He attacked Bill Clinton for this behavior.
2) She worked for him collecting a huge salary as a pay off. A potential President or Attorney General should not be subject to blackmail which if the kid isn't his, what's been going on the past year.
3) Who leaked the story to the tabloids in the first place. Methinks his former Mistress let them know where he was meeting or someone who knew her.

I too am an old-fashioned liberal. I just don't care about adult consensual sex. It exists. In all walks of life. If we demand marital purity from our candidates, we will have a very small pool in which to choose from.

I do not care about his private behavior. But its public effect does concern me. Edwards didn't have this affair fifteen years ago before he got involved in the political scene. He had it eighteen months ago when he knew better. He knew there were rumors and ran anyway. He was asked about this TEN MONTHS ago and denied it. He has been denying it all the way up until yesterday. THAT is the problem for me. Not the actual infidelity. The infidelity, while I wouldn't personally condone it, doesn't effect me. I can see that difference, but most people here seem to see any comment on the public effect of the private behavior as coming from a closet fundie.

It is hypocritical of you to complain that this story isn't important while starting yet another thread on the subject.

Isn't it? :D

if he or she could get us out of the mess we're in now. In fact, I'd say they'd be entitled to it.

Of people who claim to be all for sex outside of marriage, but confuse extra-marital sex with "unfaithfulness."

If you marry and say: "not gonna sleep around" in your wedding vows in front of God and everything and then sleep around, you're faithless. If you don't make those vows, you're not.

its the money the fact she worked for him and collected a substantial salary from people who donated to his PAC. Money entrusted to him to do good works on their behalf.

Was she any good?

I really don't understand this American obsession with the private lives of their politicians.

Perhaps it's because in our countries, Canada and the UK, these sorts of things are understood to be private and none of our business. And we DON'T connect a personal indiscretion with their job performance.

Look at JFK. Now there was a poster boy for marital indiscretions. And yet, he was an inspiring, dynamic and thoughtful leader. And his legacy as a leader is still being felt today.

If he had been forced to resign over this, America (and the world) would have been a poorer place.

It's really disappointing to see SO many people here taking this as some kind of personal slap in the face.

divorce was taboo and far less commonplace, and so adultery was generally tolerated in a way it isn't today.
nowadays, you've got no excuse. if you really feel the need for an affair, get a divorce first.

that said, reagan got a divorce in, what, 1948? and no one seemed to give a crap about that.


it's all quite ridiculous. would we disavow lincoln or washington or jefferson if we learned of an affair?
should we think better of shrub for not having an affair (assuming that were the case)?

in a spouse, i want someone faithful.
in a politician, i want someone who accomplishes something close to my own preferred agenda.

But that would have been a scandal in itself, considering his two children.

Not even kids can prevent an annulment. Although the Church will recognize the kids as legitimate.

It's like an episode of the Twilight Zone, to me...

Oy, we're not in Kansas any more, that's for sure.

This was not only about Edwards' having sex, for pity sake. It is about adultery and a lot more. His wife is dying and his kids know it. That would have been more than enough trauma for her and them. But, knowing that he has had this affair, he decides to run for the Presidency again? He asks his campaign people and America to give him their time and money, knowing that this could be the October surprise and hand the election to the Republicans? Knowing that there would be no way he could shield his kids when this hit the fan?

He said he had become narcissistic and thought he could get away with anything. Sound familiar?

I think sex is indeed a private matter. However, I think cheating on your husband or wife says something about your character. How much it says may be debatable. But it says something. In the circumstances of this particular case, I think it says quite a bit.

And let's not bring Craig into this. It is not the same. Not everything that involves sex is interchangeable.

I'll so as far as this, you're right that he should have known people would go OOOO he LIED about his sex life, but people should be able to separate this from policy. I don't regard this as a public matter and think it's shallow and cheap to muck about with these things in politics.

I am not excusing him, I am just saying that people do some fucked up stuff when they are freaked out. I can see where facing the loss of the most important person in your life could make you want to 'step out' of your life.

I don't know. That feels apologist, but I can see it happening that way.

He's a republican.

They're allowed to suck cocks in mens rooms while cheating on their wives.

Is that your philosophy? What makes Edwards so different?

than the other nicknames.

:kick:

The situation in Darfur does not effect me personally. I find it horrific and outrageous and I think it is a large problem. I say that.

The Edwards situation does not effect me personally. I find it annoying and that it is happening at a really bad time. I think it is a potentially medium sized problem. I say that.

The filter here isn't whether or not something effects a person directly. If we removed every single thread on this board about a subject that didn't effect the OP personally, we would all have to move to the Lounge. The filter isn't sex. We comment on the sexual misconduct of Republicans all the time. The filter isn't infidelity, same reason.

The filter is the team the offender is on. If he is on YOUR team, his behavior is not worthy of comment and his private business. If he isn't, the gloves are off.

And isn't that EXACTLY like 'them'?

You may notice, going back through some of the numerous "Republican is gay with gay sex horror hypocrisy" threads, the occasional appearance of ME and other gay people like me saying "stop doing that, it's cheap."

You seem to think it's okay for sex and sexual indiscretion to be used as a way of evaluating politicians, I don't. I'm consistent in this approach, and I guess you're consistent in yours. It looks to me like you're accusing an organisation (DU) of being inconsistent with respect to sexual values along party lines, but that's just treating isolated comments on DU as representative of the site as a whole. In order to show this inconsistency you'd have to find a poster, or posters who have said one thing about, for example, Ted Haggard, and a different thing about John Edwards. Have you such an example? Even if you did find such an example, incidentally, your criticism would only apply to that poster.

What we've got is one side of DU saying "don't use sex" and another saying "it's a legitimate concern". You'll probably find it's the same people complaining about Haggard and Edwards.

My outrage is pretty much limited to Edwards running while knowing that this rumor was out there and for pretending that if he ignored it, it would go away. I feel bad for Elizabeth and I don't think infidelity is OK, but that is for them to figure out. I could care less about private behavior which has no effect on me. But when you are a PUBLIC figure, especially a public figure running for President of the United States, you have to know that everything you do is going to be scrutinized. And if you are doing a highly paid campaign worker while presenting yourself as the most happily married guy on earth, that's going to be a problem eventually. And it is my problem if it makes it harder for Barack Obama to get elected.

It just seems to me that 'this' sex scandal is open for comment and 'that' one is off limits. Haggard vs. Edwards might be too extreme an example, but I know that there has been a great deal of comment here about ANY Republican caught with his pants down. Maybe you are right and it is the same people commenting on both Dems and Republicans.

I just don't like seeing somebody post something saying, "I do not condone infidelity" and being told that they must not be a 'true' liberal because condemning infidelity is a fundie thing. That isn't right.

The thing that irritates me about stories like this is the way people "blame the victim", when the media leaps on politicians with it's eyes lit up over sex scandals my first reaction is to be disgusted with the media. I know politicians should expect it, but my feeling is "*Why* should they expect it?", this being the case I usually take little interest in the scandal itself.

I certainly don't think his infidelity was any kind of noble thing. It was definitely a dumb thing to do.

I would hope that most liberals would not condone infidelity. Agreements should be honoured. Condemning infidelity is certainly NOT solely a fundie thing.