Let’s face it, America needs SINGLES as presidential candidates. Then evidence of sexual activity just indicates they are studs, not cheats.
[QUOTE=greatshakes]
In truth, his SAYING he is willing to take a test is quite different from TAKING a paternity test. I think the guy is a sociopath, and thinks he can talk his way out of taking the test when his bluff is called.
I wonder if he will use the excuse that his wife ‘couldn’t take care of his needs’ for his out.
<flash> Just saw Riel Hunter speaking on CNN. What a spook. If I was Edwards, I’d do better. Maybe Edwards did do better. Any talk about additional affairs?
[/QUOTE]
Why the fuck do you think it’s your business who fathered this woman’s child. And “sociopath?” Really? Is John McCain a socipath too?
[QUOTE=Ducktail]
Hm…when you put it like that, yeah, I can muster the ire to get angry about the cover-up. But mostly, I’m angry about the incredibly bad timing. Right before an election…looks like we’ll be turning from analyzing candidates’ celebrity statuses to analyzing their love lives. Issues get shoved even further down the line of discussion points, and it’s free fodder for Republicans.
[/QUOTE]
This timing is about as good as you could have hoped for. Edwards was being considered for a major convention speech that would have put him back at the forefront of Democratic politics. He could have been picked for VP. Obama could have said things about him that would have called into question his own judgment.
Unless Edwards makes a big hairy thing of himself and stays in the news cycle, this story will be forgotten when the real campaign starts up after Labor Day. Having it break now allows the Democrats to shut him out of the convention and keep him out of the news.
You should thank your lucky stars this story broke now instead of October 15.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
Well, I don’t think he’d volunteer to take it unless he knew what the results would be. The guy’s a lawyer…isn’t one of their guidelines is never to ask a question unless you already know the answer?
[/QUOTE]
A lawyer would know to draw the distinction between asking a question, and making a statement, which is what Edwards did. He would also know that since he wasn’t under oath when he said, it isn’t legally binding, and he may ‘change his mind’ anytime he wants.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
And I don’t think he is stupid enough to claim his wife “couldn’t take care of his needs.” The woman is battling breast cancer for Og’s cancer…to blame her cancer for his sexual frustrations when he could just spend an extra ten minutes in the bathroom with a Penthouse and bottle of lotion is despicable.
[/QUOTE]
As opposed to…?
[QUOTE=ivylass]
Well, I don’t think he’d volunteer to take it unless he knew what the results would be. The guy’s a lawyer…isn’t one of their guidelines is never to ask a question unless you already know the answer?
And I don’t think he is stupid enough to claim his wife “couldn’t take care of his needs.” The woman is battling breast cancer for Og’s cancer…to blame her cancer for his sexual frustrations when he could just spend an extra ten minutes in the bathroom with a Penthouse and bottle of lotion is despicable.
[/QUOTE]
He didn’t blame her cancer. This was in 2006, before her current diagnosis. She says he told her two years ago and she forgave him, and that’s the end of it. She says he told her before her diagnosis, and that her illness actually made them closer. He’s certainly not the first guy to cheat on his wife and then beg for forgiveness.
How do you feel about a guy who fucks around on his wife because she lost her looks in a car crash and then dumps her for a beer heiress half his age?
[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
This timing is about as good as you could have hoped for. Edwards was being considered for a major convention speech that would have put him back at the forefront of Democratic politics. He could have been picked for VP. Obama could have said things about him that would have called into question his own judgment.
Unless Edwards makes a big hairy thing of himself and stays in the news cycle, this story will be forgotten when the real campaign starts up after Labor Day. Having it break now allows the Democrats to shut him out of the convention and keep him out of the news.
You should thank your lucky stars this story broke now instead of October 15.
[/QUOTE]
Oddly enough, I totally agree with you.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Why the fuck do you think it’s your business who fathered this woman’s child. And “sociopath?” Really? Is John McCain a socipath too?
[/QUOTE]
Why don’t we just relax, Dio. I haven’t killed any of your beloved politicians, so just let it drift…away…into…the…night… Relax…
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
…How do you feel about a guy who fucks around on his wife because she lost her looks in a car crash and then dumps her for a beer heiress half his age?
[/QUOTE]
If you had resersed the elements of this sentence, I would have said, “Stop. You had me at ‘beer heiress’.”
[QUOTE=greatshakes]
As opposed to…?
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking. I was responding to your thought that he might use his wife’s illness as an excuse for seeking sexual gratification elsewhere.
[QUOTE=Frank]
Part of what really bugs me about Edwards’ recent idiocy is that if the affair was over long ago, he didn’t love her, the kid wasn’t his - what the fuck is he doing sneaking into a hotel to visit her? Something still doesn’t add up.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, this jumped out at me, too. Makes me suspicious that (a) he’s still boinking her, or (b) the kid really is his, or (c) it’s both of the above.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
He didn’t blame her cancer. This was in 2006, before her current diagnosis. She says he told her two years ago and she forgave him, and that’s the end of it. She says he told her before her diagnosis, and that her illness actually made them closer. He’s certainly not the first guy to cheat on his wife and then beg for forgiveness.
How do you feel about a guy who fucks around on his wife because she lost her looks in a car crash and then dumps her for a beer heiress half his age?
[/QUOTE]
The absolute kicker for me was the bit on NPR about “he stated that his wife was in remission when he had the affair.” As if. What a guy.
I am convinced that men just can’t keep it in their pants*. In RL, I know of more men who have cheated than have not–and that’s a sad statement.
I’m still waiting for all these female pols to get caught with hookers and blow or similar. The last scandal I know of was that one female governor who paid her illegal alien baby sitter under the table. Somehow it doesn’t have the same sting.
*yes, a broad brush, but an all too common occurrence, IME. YMMV.
ETA: let me hasten to say that women are not morally superior, IMO–just more sensible perhaps?
[QUOTE=greatshakes]
A lawyer would know to draw the distinction between asking a question, and making a statement, which is what Edwards did. He would also know that since he wasn’t under oath when he said, it isn’t legally binding, and he may ‘change his mind’ anytime he wants.
…
[/QUOTE]
Not exactly, there have been plenty of cases where people have made public statements which turned out to be lies, and those statementts have been used against them in court. Imean, they aren’t evidence of perjury, but they can be used as evidence, if only that the person is is a liar whose word can’t be trusted.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
Not exactly, there have been plenty of cases where people have made public statements which turned out to be lies, and those statementts have been used against them in court. Imean, they aren’t evidence of perjury, but they can be used as evidence, if only that the person is is a liar whose word can’t be trusted.
[/QUOTE]
True, but saying “I’m willing to…” anything is not legally binding, irrespective whether or not it can be used as evidence.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
An extramarital affair is a big deal . . . within a guy’s marriage. Outside of that, it’s nobody’s business, and certainly I couldn’t give a shit.
Why does anybody put up with that kind of tabloid crap? If I had been Clinton, or in this case Edwards, my only statement would have been, “That’s nobody’s business, so I won’t be talking about that publicly, ever.” No stupid public apologies. It would be between me, my wife, and the other lady I’d been boning.
[/QUOTE]
Edwards put himself out there for just this sort of scrutiny. From this 2007 interview:
He’s a dog. And, Dio just FTR so is McCain. I’m not his fan either.
While I admit it’s impossible for anyone to know what it’s really like inside someone else’s marriage, any guy who’d play around on Elizabeth Edwards, regardless of whether it was before or after the recurrence of her cancer, loses whole piles of my respect.
Ditto (as with Clinton) the willingness to risk the success or failure of the hopes that millions of others had placed in him on the chance that his extramarital affair would be discovered. I feel like saying to him: “You know that money I contributed to your campaign? I want it back, scumbag. You knew you’d have no chance if this came out, but you did it anyway, and you took my money anyway.”
And a hearty fuck-you to the Republicans who don’t seem troubled by GOP philanderers from McCain to Vitter, but want to make hay over this. For you, politics isn’t about any principle, but it’s just like any other game: win by whatever means you can. Well, fuckers, it doesn’t affect the quality of anybody’s life when the ‘wrong’ team wins a football game. But the ‘wrong’ winner in a political contest can mean hundreds of thousands dead on the far side of the world for no reason at all. There’s no pound of flesh you can give that will undo what your assholery has done in recent years. So I will only hope that you die alone, friendless, and quite slowly and painfully.
[QUOTE=ivylass]
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking. I was responding to your thought that he might use his wife’s illness as an excuse for seeking sexual gratification elsewhere.
[/QUOTE]
An attempt at humor. I inferred that you said anybody that would blame his wife’s illness for fooling around on her would be a real POS, more or less. I, in my lofty wittiness, was trying to give us something to smirk about by implying that that was just what JE (or any adulterer) was.
IVYLASS: To blame her…is despicable.
greatshakes: As opposed to? (His infidelity wasn’t dispicable?) Let us laugh, and laugh well, at the irony!!
That was what was meant.
Sorry for the fizzle, and nothing personal, believe me.
greatshakes
Sorry, that sailed right over my head. Blame the receiver, not the delivery. 
[QUOTE=ivylass]
Sorry, that sailed right over my head. Blame the receiver, not the delivery. 
[/QUOTE]
Well, in truth, even my close intimates are rather confused by my delivery-and my wit, for that matter! 
It’s part of my MO.
[QUOTE=dangermom]
He’s a dog. And, Dio just FTR so is McCain. I’m not his fan either.
[/QUOTE]
That’s fine. All I ask for is consistency. Either it matters for all of them or for none of them.
I’ll still point out again that Edwards is a private citizen, not a public official or candiadte for office, though. There’s probably 19 guys on my block who have cheated on their SO’s. Hell, I might be the only guy I know who never has.
Dio, you do realize you’re doing the But, but, but Clinton… thing, only from the other side?