Did you hear the news about Edwards?

You may think that's a fairly ordinary title, but I'll have you know it's actually a Tom Waits lyric. Just so we're clear.

Edwards' family situation really isn't anyone's fucking business, of course: if he was deceiving his wife, he's a scumbag, of course; if they had some sort of understanding, perhaps not. We can't know and we don't have any RIGHT to know. Since as far as I know, he didn't spend time bleating about the importance of Fambly Values, there's not even the hypocrisy angle. What he is, though, is a selfish dickhead. One would think that after the whole Clinton impeachment circus he would have known better. Sure, marriages come in many different forms, rules of proper sexual conduct within them may legitimately vary, and blahdy fucking blah. But Edwards is not stupid: the bottom line is, even if what he was doing wasn't violating a trust (not that I see any real reason to give him the benefit of the doubt on the matter), the public ain't gonna go for that, and he knew it. Regardless of what individual people may do, we have a very simplistic national conception of sexual morality, and if you want to be a successful politician, you just have to fucking deal with it. Put the country's interests above your own for once, for gods' sake.

I want to imagine that if Kerry had been elected, he would have been more circumspect in his role as vice president--if he hadn't, we would be fucked right about now--but I sort of doubt it: after all, it's no more irresponsible than running for President having just had an affair. We would be SO screwed right now had he somehow won the nomination. Talk about putting ego above anything else.

I do think he probably would have made a pretty good President--better than Obama, probably--but nope, sorry, too late. Now he's just an asshole.