Legal Commentary

Why John Edwards' Affair Matters, Edwards Releases Statement

By Jeralyn

Update: John Edwards has just released this statement. It ends with:

In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up -- feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.

I don't know anyone who thinks having an affair should disqualify one from public office, even the presidency. Certainly no one in my social circles.

The problem with John Edwards is not that he had an affair in 2006, the year he decided to run for the Presidency a second time, but that in 2007 when confronted with it by the media, he denied it.

By denying it, he ensured that if discovered, he would become cast as untruthful, deceitful and someone who can't be trusted. As Jane Hamsher says, had Edwards won the nomination and then this came out, we'd be looking at a McCain presidency.

Edwards put the Democratic party's chances of taking back the White House at risk. Not because of the affair, but because of his dishonesty. [More...]

There's also another nagging factor about this. What if John Edwards, knowing how difficult it would be to win the nomination or general election with a recent affair in one's background, decided against running for President? That would have left only Hillary and Obama vying from day one. Would the Democratic nominee be the same today if the choice all along was Hillary and Obama with no Edwards thrown in?

I'm also curious as to why Elizabeth supported his run so strongly knowing about the affair. She's very smart. She too had to know this would be a disqualifier if it came to light.

I'm angry at John Edwards. I supported him along with Hillary until he dropped out. I could care less that he had an affair. That's between him and his wife. But he put his own desire to be President above the interests of Democrats whose most important goal has been to take back the White House in 2008.

What if he had won the nomination? What if Obama had asked him to be Vice President and he accepted? The ticket would be doomed by his having lied about this affair.

Sex, like drugs, generally doesn't mix with politics. You can get elected if you smoked a little dope or did a line of coke once or twice, provided you admit it and state your regret. But if you lie and get called on it, you may as well have shot heroin. You're history.

John Edwards should have dropped out of the race or come clean on the affair when it first came up in 2007. I have very little sympathy for the risk he took -- it was a risk all Democrats might have had to pay for.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 08, 2008 (boomark / email).