I remember it well. It was just after Ann Coulter beclowned herself by questioning the masculinity of one Former Senator and Perpetual Office-Seeker John Edwards at CPAC. Edwards did an interview with a sychophantic chap named David Kuo for a website called BeliefNet.
Kuo: What parts of American life do you think would most outrage Jesus?
Edwards: Our selfishness. Our resort to war when it's not necessary. I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.
Perhaps Edwards said these words with a sense of introspection. Perhaps he even looked in the mirror for reasons other than to guage the current statis of his $400 style cut. Perhaps you can’t be ignoring the suffering around you much more than to engage in an affair on your wife, while she battles a highly lethal form of cancer.
To reread the unmitigated sanctimony of that reply is to understand why I felt such an intense and mordant dislike for John Edwards. I felt it to the point that I actually enjoyed watching the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama destroy him in the recent Democratic Primaries. It’s not nice cheering when someone like Uriah Heep, of Dickensian fame, gets his just desserts. But then again, I’ve also watched a NASCAR highlight or two just for the car wrecks.
Had Edwards simply offered up a terse admission of his infidelity and then packed things in for a couple of years until someone else in DC did something slimier and more classless, I would be too jaded to care about this Never Was of a man. He could have just fessed up. However, choosing the expedient right isn’t in the vaccuous space that some generously describe as his character.
He claims that he didn’t love Hunter Rielle at any part of the sordid little pig screw. He’s probably more honest than the average member of The North Carolina State Bar with that statement. But why would he tell us this, and why should anyone else care how felt about Rielle? I guess I might like him a tad more, if he were actually deeply infatuated. It beats doing her because he’s bored with a cancer-wracked first wife back at home.
He also only claimed he did the deed, so to speak, while Dear Elizabeth was in remission. I can’t help but wonder if he helped make his poor wife’s maladies reappear. It couldn’t have been what she wanted for an anniversary present; especially after she had staved off The Grim Reaper to campaign at his side.
This claim has been rendered dubious. His mendaciousness has made even The Huffington Post recoil in disgust. It seems Edwards had auditioned her for her filmmaking position in much the same way Alfred Hitchcock supposedly auditioned Eva Marie Saint. It seems he had done so at least six months before he claims his dalliance with her had started.
Then, we have the rather nauseous developments regarding the supposed paternity test. Hunter Rielle’s family demanded a paternity test. John Edwards made a seemingly chivalrous offer to submit DNS. Hunter Rielle than refused to conduct the test. She seems fine with her daughter’s birth certificate not listing any father.
At this point I drop the sordid affairs of John Edwards. Paying attention to this man soils me. He simply is what he is, and the less I follow his downward trajectory, the less I need to worry about heartburn.
It’s best to conclude here. My political bloodlust is sated. John Edwards has sunk to the point where even Maureen Dowd can tee off on him and hit a hole-in-one. I leave what remains of this foppish dandy for the turkey buzzards.
but then, you repeat yourself...