The solution isn't to make the correction, but not to cover the first story.  Who cares?

Isaac, Thanks for the update, but you really should have stepped aside and let Ms. Cottle handle this.

Michelle is the go-to reporter for all types of philandering and matters sexual.  She's hailed Larry Craig, Vito Fossella, Elliot Spritzer & Kwame Kilpatrick in the last few months.

The Chotiner file is more politics, sports and movies type stuff.

Michelle really could get the guilt going with the whole Elibeth with Cancer thing.

And I picked Edwards to win the nomination 8 months ago.  If only I had known.

I'd really rather the MSM run corrections for all those times they called McCain a maverick, an honorable guy, whether you like him or not he sticks to his positions, he really knows his stuff when it comes to foreign policy....things like that. I don't care if they run a correction about John Edwards and his affair, and for Elizabeth's sake I hope this goes away very fast.

Yeah, I picked Edwards too this year and voted for him in the primary in 2004. What gets me is why politicians aren't more careful about these affairs. I mean, hey, if I had a mistress and wanted to visit her in her hotel room, I'm nobody, so I'm not going to be recognized; so what in the world was Edwards thinking when he made that hotel visit? It's almost like they subconciously want to get caught, for all the numbskull mistakes they commit.

When the MSM admits they were wrong about Bush his "reasoning" for getting into Iraq, the lies they spread about the anthrax mess, McCain and his lies, etc., then they should do a mea culpa on this.  Last time I checked, no one died over Edwards' affair so on the scale of lies this one isn't such a big deal.

And I have to wonder why Edwards wasn't smart enough to take some cheap precautions to avoid getting in this mess to begin with.

The fact that his wife knew while he was running makes this pretty interesting. She must have been absolutely convinced it would remain secret.  I'm not blaming her, but I wonder what the hell was she thinking?

Another important observation: you can never know what goes on inside a marriage unless you are one of its members.

"Regardless, it was good Edwards came forward now. The American people have a large capacity to forgive and forget, and so the sooner he can move on to the next stage of his political career, the better. "

He coulda admitted it all those other times he was asked. Like, if the affair ended in 2006, why did he run for office without being smart enough to confess and let the public know it was behind him? Then it would have been forgivable and probably become a non-issue. Instead, he opened the democrats up to vulnerability if he were to become the democratic nominee. That was just plain selfish of him. Even more so if this baby turns out to be his.

What next stage in his political career? It's not like he's had a long one. One term senator, two-time presidential candidate and nothing else of substance politically. I think he's probably finished. Especially because the best thing about him has always been his wife.

I second that who cares?

Makes absolutely no difference, whatsoever, to the policies that Edwards was fighting for.

It's a totally private mater for the Edwards family.

Next stage in his political career??!!!

For me, much of the winter was spent trying to figure out whom to support for the nomination on grounds of policy, since the differences in policy positions were within tolerances I could easily accept.  For months I wavered: Edwards, Obama, Edwards, Obama, Edwards ... and settled on Obama before the California primary.

A politician's affair should generally be forgivable, for the public.   That Edwards would knowingly and willfully jeopardize the chance -- our chance, my chance -- at an urgently-needed return of the White House by running in such circumstances is, however, utterly unforgivable.  

He needs to disappear, now and forever, so that the good ideas he advanced can be carried by someone worthy.

There can be no "next stage" of his political career.

I guess for some of you, it's no big deal, so then why do I feel so friggin' had.  Maybe it's because in 2004 I commuted from western Mass. to New Hampshire and froze my superannuated ass walking around doing house-to-house campaigning for Edwards in wind chills below zero.  Or maybe because I chunked big bucks I could ill afford into his primary campaign coffers that I now wish I had back.  If you cheat on your sick wife, I don't give good goddamn if you have a nice health care policy, you're a certified creep.  If Elizabeth has already forgiven him, God bless her, but it will take me a little longer.  Maybe a lot longer.

Jack - what a sad post.  This, more than anything, is why this matters.

I hate to pile on to a woman I admire, but if it is really true that Elizabeth knew in 2006, then she was just as culpable for putting this election at risk like this.  

Of course this belongs in the "who cares?" category.  However, affairs are great stories for the media: they're easy sells; the "story" is easy to understand; and for politicians, they're great for attacking the "other guy" and not addressing the issues.  The problem is that we as a nation have lost focus on what really matters when it comes to selecting and supporting our policy makers.

Basically, our politicians run as if they are auditioning for the lead role as the father in "Leave It To Beaver" or "Father Knows Best."  

The other part of this is what Iggy said - he's so right.  

John Edwards was absolutely right about the two Americas, if anything it has gotten worse. This nation has slaughtered its middle class, no other word. Who else has been out there making poverty - you know - kids going to bed starving, legions of working poor with no insurance dying SOLELY because they can't get anyone to care for them, abominations like the Bankrupcy Bill making their lives even worse, etc  - the center of their campaigns?  

No one. No one. No one.  

hey what the hell happened to my post?  Here it is again,

For any presidential aspirant to have this in his recent background and still go forward, well, that shows an incredible, near Herculean stupidity, especially considering that he could have won the nomination and then we would be ROYALLY screwed right now...

Now, as a man, I have learned through hard experience that anything can happen between a man and a woman. Given my chiroscuro life and experiences, I will leave the judgment to his wife and his maker.

Having said that, I do believe that his political career is over and rightfully so.

yeah, for me it's not the cheating, it's the risk taking, and that goes equally for EE, since she knew about it.

Am I wrong not to care *at all* about this and think that nobody else should either?  Edwards is not the nominee.  At this point, it's just gossip about a never-was.  More broadly, I take perhaps the controversial view that an extramarital affair has got nothing to do with anything important *to the public*.  I didn't care about Bill Clinton's sex life.  I didn't care about Newt Gingrich's sex life.  In fact, contemplating either for more than two seconds grosses me out.  We are instructed that *this* affair is a story because Elizabeth Edwards was sick and that Edwards himself and/or the media put Edwards's loyalty to his wife at issue.  But if I had my druthers, the media and the electorate wouldn't demand such spectacles to take the measure of a potential public official in the first place.  We're always told that *this* affair matters for some reason other than affair itself, but it's usually bogus.  Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyer said something to the effect that "When everyone's telling you it's not about sex, it's probably about sex."  Commenter Jack says he's a creep for cheating on his sick wife.  Maybe so.  But the real reason Jack has a right to be angry is because he invested time and money in a guy who was going to tank because of an affair.  It's the same reason Bill Clinton's inner circle had a right to be very pissed at him for his transgressions.  But the only way such an affair can be a betrayal of supporters is if the public at large cares about it -- that is, if he really would have tanked.  *That's* the problem -- that an affair may well have sunk him.  It just shouldn't make that much difference.

jhildner = me. It's true that it shouldn't make that much difference, but unfortunately it does to most people. Now that he's not the nominee they should really definitely just be left alone. But thank goodness he's not the nominee, and he shouldn't have run because the risk of discovery/defeat was too great. Even though, again, I don't believe discovery should = defeat.

But I still don't get why it's perfectly ok for McCain to have dumped his sick wife, who stuck with him through the war, for the woman he was cheating on her with. That's much much creepier to me than what Edwards did, and while I agree with jhildner that I never cared about Clinton's or Gingrich's sex lives, at a certain level of creepy it does become relevant to me how these people treat the people they allegedly love and swore to blah blah blah until death do us part, quite apart from the risk-of-discovery/defeat issue.