This stuff is so personal and private.  I wish we as a culture would not give it so much attention, but we do.  What is the percentage of folks who strayed during their marriage?  I am on my second marriage and I strongly believe we would never hurt each other in that way but I know so many folks stray.  The egos involved in politics make the problem so much worse.  

I hate this for the whole family.  Elizabeth supposedly knew about this since 2006.  Hillary haters bash her for staying with Bill, I hope the same does not happen to Elizabeth.  It is their personal journey.

While I agree this is a private matter, it was pretty foolish of him to think he could have an affair and keep it under wraps.  It was a pretty reckless thing to do.  It's one thing if this was something that happen 15 years ago but as he was seeking the nomination.  Foolish.

I DO feel bad for Mrs. Edwards because her family's "dirty laundry" is being aired.  Not to mention the kids.  The damn press and the "i-won't-read-about-policy-that-affects-me-directly-economically-but-will-drool-over-extra-marital-a ffairs" public need to get a damn clue.

Running for office, yes, there is a higher standard.  But we don't need those who claim to have a higher mantle (when in reality they don't) try to shove their version of morality down my throat.

And Obama returns to the big churchy thing with the fundie preacher, the hourlong interviews with both Obama and McCain.  I see the GOP in this -- as why would Edwards, after denying it repeatedly, be admitting it now?  Because some media or other were going to go with the story.

Maybe his wife's cancer screwed him up.  Men act strangely when women get cancer.  With some of them, they aren't full of oxytocin, and they resent rather than nuture.  I know a family member who did nothing but complain about his wife's bald head while she was going through chemo.  He loves his wife dearly, but he had to resent the head that signified the chemo in order to survive her cancer without falling to pieces.  It pissed me off that he did that, but I saw what was happening.  Thankfully, she dealt with it well, basically ignored him or wore head covering.

So the affair might be "sh*t, she has cancer, she's leaving me, the beotch. I have to find someone else."

I may be giving him too much room.

But, stopping this kind of quest for damaging personal information will also be hard because there are people who think it speaks to character, and character matters, even if it wouldn't prevent someone from being an excellent public servant.

I would have preferred that Edwards not have felt obligated to be interviewed about it, or to say things like he didn't love the woman and Elizabeth was in remission - "it was just sex" is not exactly a winning admission.  And "at least it wasn't when my wife was battling cancer," is even worse.

Link

And I do think it's worse when he says he didn't love her. If he's capable of carrying on an affair with a woman he didn't love, why would we believe she's the only one? Sometimes a married person meets someone else and falls in love. That doesn't make them a serial philanderer. But this doesn't seem to be that kind of thing.

I also think there's more to the story, when he says "some of his friends or supporters may have made payments without telling him." It appears he's been trying hard to keep a lid on this for a while.

To be clear, none of this means I'm condemning him as a person. I have yet to be horrified to learn someone is having an affair. But it's not the fact of the affair, it's the other personality traits it reveals that concern me.

Because of that, we should never support them again.

We especially have no right to judge how Elizabeth handles things.  She has a right to do whatever she wants to do with the information.

It's possible that she and John have, shall we say, a business arrangement.  She may get enough out of their relationship that she stays anyway.  God knows, she probably doesn't feel much like looking for new prospects with the cancer and all.