Dispensing Judgment

John Edwards has admitted to an affair that he'd previously denied having.

As a one-time supporter, do I feel betrayed? Hmm. Not really. After all, he never told me he wouldn't see other people. Do I think he should get a day or two of shit for having cheated on his wife? No doubt the moral guardians of the nation will hurl shit at him regardless of what I think. That's what society pays them for, when society isn't blowing its mad money on internet porn. I can hear them now, even though I'm deliberately avoiding cable news, "To think this man was almost President! A man who can lie to his wife about an affair can lie about anything!"

Actually, I think we can disprove that one. American history overflows with men who were respectable specimens in private, but lying reprobates in public. America has endured, just in the last half century, a pair of miserable sods who, as Presidents, lied about malfeasance, conspiracy, and fraud in the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the Pentagon, the NSC, the NSA, the Committee to Re-Elect the President, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, and the White House. Neither Richard Nixon nor George W. Bush approached a microphone during their respective presidencies without declaiming a dozen hand-crafted lies into it. George W. Bush has lied so profligately during the last eight years that, if he introduced himself to me right now, I'd demand three pieces of identification and a DNA sample. That said, to the best of my knowledge, neither Richard Nixon nor George W. Bush ever cheated on their wives. If asked about that, they could justifiably put up an indignant front and speak truthfully of their devotion to their spouses.

I've always taken it that a man who can lie about cheating on his wife is a man who's capable of lying about cheating on his wife. In this area alone can I assume his credibility is suspect. In other areas I try to assess his credibility by comparing his statements to reality, as I understand it. When John Edwards described the two Americas, he was describing something that matched my experience of how this country operates. When he told me the merits of his health plan, I gleaned from others who know more about the field than I do that Edwards knew what he was talking about. These statements and policies of his retain credibility, even though the man was a jackass where his marriage was concerned.

It's too bad that Edwards has damaged his reputation by lying about sex, because it allows stupid people to conclude that those lies negate everything of value the man has ever said. Ah, well. What's to be done?