I understand that birds, bees and educated fleas do it, but Edwards handled this even more poorly than Sanford with his soul mate.

I am so pissed because I backed this coward because I thought he was more progressive than Obama and Clinton.
GO AWAY NOW!

If Edwards had been the nominee, this would have come out -- count on it -- and you'd be pledging allegiance to Sarah Friggin' Palin right now. Any reasonable person would have known this, but he decided to bribe his pals to cover it up. John Edwards is a narcissistic coward at best. And Elizabeth Edwards was also willing to let this scandal stew while her darling hubby torpedoed the Dems' chances in the election.

Agree with lexicon - to a point. Edwards can sleep with whoever he wants, I suppose, BUT when he act in such a way that practically guarantees the election of the Republican ticket in 2008 .... THEN he's directly affecting my life directly and he is showing despicable judgment, a kind of judgment I don't want to see used on other major decisions.

(Guarantee the election of the Republicans? Yes. HE knew the affair was there; he knew there were rumors already; he knew that he (and the rumors) weren't - yet - the focus of any real attention because he wasn't a frontrunner; and he knew the, er, morals, loyalty and self-restraint of the people he was dependent on to maintain the cover-up. Would you put money on his keeping it secret? And after Bill Clinton and *that* embarassment and vulnerability, do you think even Democrats would have voted for him in great numbers?)

As to Elizabeth Edwards, however. It's been established that she did not know about the affair when he announced he was running but was told only a few days later (so he could still say that she knew "in 2007" and muddy things up, the rat fink). Put yourself in her shoes at that point: you have a broken heart; a scum husband that you've loved most of your life; a belief still in the message he represents for the country; three childen - two very young still and one a young woman; and an incurable disease that will see to it that only your husband will be around for them in the future. Think about it: those last three facts would - and should - override anything else, I think. So I'll not make any judgments.

In fact, she may have done more for both her children and the party/country than we suspect or will ever know. Did she perhaps fashion a way out of the situation that did right by the party and country but also preserved (or tried to preserve) some dignity and privacy for her children? Would Elizabeth (like some of his high-level staff who knew about the affair were purportedly prepared to do) have stepped in and stopped things if Edwards had come anywhere close to securing the nomination? Until then, however, he was not doing harm to the party during the primary season (arguably helping it) or to the principles he represented (arguably helping there, as well) In fact, if you look back at Elizabeth's involvement, it dropped off markedly from Iowa to the point that she was barely there around the time of the South Carolina primary. He dropped out before Super Tuesday, and Elizabeth was once again in the picture (tho not speaking). Do any of us really know how that decision was reached? I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, because that is how a truly concerned mother would have handled it. (And it might have worked ..... if Edwards had stayed away from Hunter, after he was out the press wasn't focusing on him as much, just enough to catch middle-of-the-night visits to hotels) ----------- As a mother I cannot imagine anything worse than knowing that at some point, probably far too soon, your still-young children would have as their only parent someone who was capable of such betrayal and dishonesty. I suspect the interests of the Democratic party and even the American people weren't the major factor in her decision-making.

I agree with Lexicon. This guy was in striking distance of the nomination in Iowa and if he had become the Dem nominee he would have sunk the entire ticket.

I never, ever liked the guy and argued with many of my progressive friends that the guy was a fraud. He gets what he deserves.