If you didn't see Nightline's interview with John Edwards, here it is. I think you'll find it, as I did, quite unsatisfactory as a confession. After all, it is incomplete, contradictory, and has plenty of self-serving misdirection as when he brings up John McCain or his several references to that contemptible "supermarket tabloid" that caught him.His tracing for Bob Woodruff how a sense of invincibility and narcissm was thrust upon him because he was so talented (thank the Lord, he didn't say pretty) was really strange. I can't imagine Americans buying that. And that bit about him telling his entire family "the details" about his "mistake in judgment?" That was a faux pas sure to creep out a lot more viewers than just me.
John Edwards actually managed to make this tragic admission into a bitterly comic event, given the high moral tone he takes in the interview about character, trustworthiness, his love for his wife and family, his cause, even honesty -- all in what is supposed to be a confession (after being caught, of course) about an ongoing course of sexual infidelity, an ongoing course of covering it up with lies and angry denunciations, and an ongoing course of unmitigated hypocrisy.
And that's not even mentioning how little "the cause" must mean to a fellow who is willing to throw it away for a sexual fling.
Edwards must have thought that a muted confession (remember that the words "sex," "sin," "adultery," or "hypocrisy" are never mentioned nor is lying itself ever treated as anything but the most natural, reasonable path to "protect one's family") was the best thing he could do at this stage. But it probably won't be enough. Indeed, even certain players in the MSM, embarrassed at their double standard being so brazenly exposed, will probably keep pursuing the matters of paternity, hush money, the origins of the affair (1 and 2) and even the impact that the coverup had on the election process.
Another issue, the most important for the culture certainly, is the bigger problem of media bias. John Tabin, in his fine commentary for the American Spectator, examines this a bit.
...The mainstream press, shamefully, had totally ignored the story, to the point that this is as much a media scandal as a sex scandal. The New York Times was happy to run vague innuendo about John McCain on its front page in February (the week before Hunter's baby was born) but fastidiously avoided looking into the Edwards affair, which was first reported by the Enquirer in October 2007.
A McCain spokesman declined to comment when I asked him on Friday whether there's a partisan double-standard in how the media handles adultery rumors. Readers can draw their own conclusion...
