The Times of London is upset that the American main stream media is not looking into rumors that former Senator, and Presidential candidate, John Edwards has a girlfriend while his wife stays at home dying of cancer. Ignoring the fact that he is not running for any office at the moment, why should I care? Who Edwards does is between him, his wife and his alleged baby momma.
Edwards is human and whether he is or is not cheating on his wife in his private life is none of our business. That is why it is called a private life. The real problem stems from those who confuse a politician's private life with a public life. We're not electing the Pope, we're electing a leader for our country, or in Edwards case, Obama is selecting a running mate. Give me a philanderer who can make the trains run on time over a tea-toter who is unqualified to be President any day.
This is not news, it is gossip. Just I don't care what Britney is up to or whether Mel Gibson is drunk again, I really don't care what Edwards does in his private life. Then again, I also didn't care about what President Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky, aside from the scandal taking him away from the important job of running the country. That whole mess was between Bubba, Hillary and Monica. If Hillary was ok with Bill's philandering, that was her business not ours.
I think my attitude stems from my believing the public has no role in being involved in acts between consenting adults. If two adult homosexuals want to enter a committed relationship, that is their business, not mine. If a married couple decide they want to swing with other married couples, that is their business not ours. If a wife chooses to turn a blind eye to her husband's alleged sex life, that is her business and no one else's. I still refuse to forgive the Republican leaders of that era from putting the country through that waste of time and energy just to, essentially score political points, by impeaching President Clinton. As recent news events have shown, the republicans have their own issues with sex scandals -- all of which I do not care about. The only reason I'm even mentioning their problems is that Republicans, in general, like to bash people around on moral issues that are no one's business except their own and I love when a hypocrite gets caught in a lie.
We don't know what Edwards situation is. He and his wife may have some sort of understanding regarding their private life that we, the public, are not privy to. In any event, I am more interested in a politicians thoughts on Iraq, the economy, fuel prices, climate change and other things that may affect my and my family's life then I do over who someone is sleeping with. Integrity in a person's private life is no where near as important as the integrity of a politician in his or her public life.
Edwards is human. So is every politician. Humans make mistakes sometimes. With roughly half of all marriages ending in divorce, I have a feeling a spouse having an affair is very common among all classes of society. Someone can have poor personal judgement but highly superior leadership skills and judgment. Until it can be shown that character issues relating to personal sexual and moral choices have anything at all to do with economic or political judgment, then it is a non issue to me. You can argue that a leader, such as former NY Governor Spitzer was showing reckless judgement by letting himself get caught and brought down by a sex scandal, but I argue that his sleeping around was not our business to begin with (though if the allegations of money laundering is true then he should pay a price for that). If we eliminated every leader who messed up his personal life from being a leader, we'd be a much poorer country.
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