By Ben Stein on 8.18.08 @ 12:08AM
John Edwards' private life should have remained that.
I am sorry that John Edwards had an affair with a campaign
worker. But I am not surprised. Men like to have affairs. Men like
to have sex with new women. That's just how men are and always have
been.
I am not surprised that a major Presidential candidate and
former V.P. nominee of a major party had an affair. Politicians are
men and they have all of the yearnings and drives that other men
have. They do not check their flaws and essential elements at the
Capitol cloakroom.
Nor is it a sign that Edwards might not have been a great public
servant. The list of important men with great achievements who have
had extramarital liaisons goes from Julius Caesar to Napoleon to
Thomas Jefferson to John F. Kennedy to Bill Clinton and undoubtedly
has a lot longer to run. John Edwards and Rielle Hunter are only a
tiny footnote in this magnum opus
But there are several parts of this story that are extremely
noteworthy:
One, the same day that Edwards admitted his affair, Russia
invaded the sovereign nation of Georgia. That's a war. It got
almost no media attention except in the New York Times.
Edwards' story got hours of TV drooling. These are whacked
priorities.
Two, whether the baby in question is Edwards or someone else's,
I give Rielle Hunter, the mom, a lot of credit for having the baby
and not aborting that totally innocent child, as many women would
have done. This courage and love of life is the real story here and
if Edwards had a say in it, he is to be thanked and loved, not
hated.
Third, Edwards is not in politics any longer as an elected
official. He's not running for anything. He has a very sick wife.
It is shameful that the tabloid press has followed him and hounded
him into hotel basements and men's rooms and wrecked his wife's
remaining life. Freedom of the press is precious, but so is the
privacy of a man and woman and baby who are not running for
anything. I really wonder if there are any limits on the
viciousness of the tabloid press.
And finally, it would be interesting to know about the private
life of the media people who presume to judge others I know a lot
of them and to say they live in glass houses is putting it
mildly.
Judge not, lest ye be judged, is still good advice.
topics:
Bill Clinton, Law, Russia
