Am I not allowed to think less of someone because they had an affair? because it is a “private matter”?
I guess this is my disconnect with others politically. You don’t equate a man being disloyal to his family as a moral failing of judgement that would carry over into his judgement in public policy decisions?
I do. I can’t for the life of me separate the two. He didn’t think about how his actions would affect his wife who was battling cancer, or his kids who look upon him as the head of the family. What he cared about what getting his own dick wet.
Don’t you think that would translate when a national crisis would arise? (e.g. Is action X good for the country or good for me?)
I disagree with you, not so much about who’s business it is, but about lying.
After all, if you as the adulterer believe it is no one’s business, you can say that. “Senator Edwards, is it true you had an affair?” “That’s none of your business.” See?
But to LIE is wrong, period. Always wrong. Wrong in all cases. Wrong in all ways. Wrong, plain wrong, morally wrong, simply wrong. It indicates that you have the belief that telling the truth is something unimportant when it benefits you not to do so. Which, according to many, is exactly what they dislike about George W. Bush and his administration (see, e.g.: the issue of whether or not the administration lied in order to get a vote authorizing the Iraq war).
A person who lies about their personal life, in my opinion, is willing and able to lie about anything, including their professional life. As a person who stood before judges numerous times and had to be believed in order for the judge to be willing to do what I needed him/her to do to the benefit of my client, I can say that lying is one of those things I just don’t condone, in anyone, for any reason.
Look, when your wife is dying, where are ya supposed to get some? It would be an imposition to ask her!
You’re allowed to think less. My point is really about whether the public is entitled to ask about it, or whether the person in question is obliged to give honest answers about it.
So you don’t trust John McCain, then?
Is said person asking for a vote? Then it would, in return, be up to the individual voter as to whether or not a refusal to answer the question, or a lie to the question, would suffice.
Why is adultery so sacrosanct? I remember in 96 someone asked Bob Dole what his favorite junk food was. Why didn’t he tell the questioner to fuck off as the question wasn’t important because it didn’t hinge on his ability to govern?
or how about this:
Q: How are you feeling this morning, Sen. Obama?
A: Piss off. That is my own private business and you have no right to ask me that.
Q: I was just trying to make conversation.
A: Well, piss off just the same. My conversation skills do not translate into my ability to govern the country.
???
Actually, I don’t, but I don’t know the details there. IIRC, his marriage was in the crapper, and he only started banging his current wife after he was separated from his first…
That’s incorrect. He’s admitted to “multiple extramarital affairs” before he was separated.
And McCain lied about it… when?
If that is true (and I haven’t researched it) it is a fair thing for a voter to distrust McCain for it. It is also legitimate to see that he has been with this same woman for almost 30 years now as evidence that he has a changed view of loyalty, or that the previous time was a lapse in judgement.
My point is that I don’t think that pouring the pork to someone while you are married is something that is simply a private thing that you should be insulated from…
Not to mention, he went ahead and ran for president in this cycle knowing that he had this skeleton in his closet; knowing that he, like every candidate, would be subject to intense scrutiny into every nook and cranny of his life; knowing that if the affair came to light he’d be sunk politically (whether that’s fair or not being beside the point); and knowing that this is the Democratic Party’s best chance in a generation to take control of both Congress and the White House.
So, besides putting satisfying his libido before his family, he also put it before his party and (if this doesn’t sound hopelessly naive) his duty to his country.
I think it also shows an enormous lack of good judgement to carry on an extra-marital affair when he knew he was going to run in the Democratic presidential primary. The guy had been essentially campaigning since he and Kerry lost in '04.
Man, this thread is depressing in its predictability. I knew before opening it that the same people who declared John McCain to be the scum of the earth for cheating on his wife would suddenly decide that Edwards’ affair was A) no one’s business and B) not that big a deal.
The guy cheated on his dying wife. That’s pretty low. Far worse than anything McCain did - McCain’s situation was totally different. He was away for years, in a cage in Vietnam. He came back and his wife and he were different people, and they split amicably. He and his first wife are still good friends.
But regardless of who’s worse, it should be clear now that Edwards is a complete dickhead. How would you all feel if he had won the Democratic nomination, knowing full well that he had a huge skeleton in his closet that would sink him when it was inevitably discovered? Talk about lack of judgment. There are people out there who are not well off and who gave a lot of their own money to this guy’s presidential campaign. What kind of self-absorbed idiot do you have to be to risk sinking the presidential chances of your own party in that way?
I know lots of politicians have done this, but that’s because lots of politicians are scumbags. The trick is latching on to the ones who aren’t.
The Democrats dodged a bullet here, no thanks to John Edwards. If they have any sense, they’ll make him a political pariah and let him go back to chasing ambulances.
I’m so glad he’s not the presumptive nominee.
How likely is it that the baby isn’t his? If it’s not, then he showed even worse judgment, because he boinked a woman who was boinking someone else at the same time.
Rat bastard.
I usually agree with you, Sam, but just because you discover that you and your wife have drifted apart doesn’t give you a blank check to fuck around. Let’s be fair, here.
The stupidest thing to me is “If the kid’s not yours and the affair is over, WHY ADMIT TO THE AFFAIR NOW?” If the kid is yours, then that’s a major WHY DENY IT? cause if it is you’re just making it worse.
I’ve said before that I never faulted Bill Clinton for his sexual infidelities; in the first place it’s his and his innermost circle’s business, in the second I think many if not most men’s fidelity is proportionate to their options. I fault him majorly for his handling of the affair: if he’d said something to the effect of “I will not answer questions about this, I believe they are nothing but a deliberate attempt to smear me and embarrass those I love, I cannot see how they have anything remotely to do with national security or the executive duties or the Whitewater business dealings or whatever you’re pretending this already fusterclucked and improperly managed ever evolving and changing investigation is about these days, and I will not cooperate in your $40 million taxpayer funded attempt to write a National Enquirer article and call it an investigation”, I honestly think most Americans, even many conservatives (except oddly for the ones with the biggest planks in their eye) would have been on his side, but when he said “I did not have improper relations with that woman” I remember thinking “Oooooh… you damned sure better not have… they’ll forgive an adulterer quicker than they will a cool liar”.
Same with Edwards.
I really do think it should be the same with McCain as with Obama as with Clinton as with Bush as with Bush 1 as with Edwards- if they’re having extramarital sex I don’t think it’s anybody’s business unless they’re trading national secrets for it. If they’re not, that’s also okay. (Hell, Lucy Mercer was in Warm Springs GA with FDR when he died and between his affairs with her Missy Lehand lived in the White House with him- and we won’t even go into the what if anything went on in the cottage bedroom Lincoln and the soldier shared; neither WW2 or the Civil War was affected by whatever did or didn’t happen in either presidential bed.)
But for God’s sake just refuse to discuss the matter- don’t lie about it. I may be naive, but I honestly think an “I will not answer questions about my private life and you may infer that to be a denial or a confirmation as you please, I do not care, but I will not compromise my privacy and that of my family for something not related to my job” would be the proper way to handle it.
Well, that’s what I tried to post two weeks ago when the internet ate my post. Now, of course, immediately after I posted that, he admits it.
Oh, I agree with that. But I don’t really know the McCain’s situation back then - do you? For all I know, he came back and they were completely over each other and just maintained a convenience marriage for a while before they could split up. I’m not sure they even lived together when he got back, because he went off to the War College. But I’m not excusing anything. My personal opinion is that it’s valid to judge a Presidential candidate on the content of his character, and cheating on your spouse is a big character flaw. It’s also fair to judge a candidate on his judgment, and carrying on an affair while running for president, and therefore being shadowed by reporters, shows appalling judgment.
As for whether it’s anyone’s business - Let’s say Edwards had been the nominee, and the reporters who discovered his affair had actually been private investigators working for big oil or agribusiness or a foreign government, and they told Edwards they’d make the affair public unless he worked to give them a sweet deal?
Character matters, background matters, and skeletons in the closet matter.
Kindly insert your broad brush into your nether aperture, Sam; I condemn both, I’ve reamed Edwards in this very thread, a mere two posts above yours, and I’m not the only one who’s been consistent on this.