"I don't respond to these lies"

Infidelity is a tough topic to write about. Hell, we all know people who have "wiggled the bean", "bonked the beagle" and "bumped the bush" a few random times in their lives. Who am I to measure the morals of others? "Those in glass houses should not throw stones," a thousand times I remember hearing. We are all human thus imperfect. However, the moral debasement of the sacred vow of marriage is too troubling for me to ignore. So, I am writing because there have been so many recent egregious and most outrageous examples of infidelity that I can't seem to escape its newsworthiness. Therefore, I will try to exorcise my foaming opinion of this phenomenon of human nature by employing a cheaper form of psycho-therapy...blogging.

Recently, real life examples of infidelity, adultery or plain ole "screwing around" have inundated the news of the day. In all forms of media, I hear and read the stories of perceived successful(???) leaders in our society becoming enmeshed in the vile world of the career philanderer. The current poster child of this mind-boggling and in-your-face behavior is the multi-millionaire tort lawyer, former Senator from North Carolina and VP Candidate on the John Kerry ticket in 2004, John Edwards, aka "Hair", he of the uber-coiffed $300 haircuts. "Hair" is the latest inductee into the Floor of Shame wing in the Hillary Clinton rumpus room in Chappaqua. His phony image will be placed on the floor amongst the likes of: Tiger, David L., Wade Boggs, Jimmy Swaggert, Shark, Ted Haggard, Eliot S., Larry Craig, Steve Phillips, Mark S., Rudy, Newt, Silvio B., and the most notorious scoundrel of them all, Hillary's own Bill. You see, ole "Hair", was blessed or cursed (depending on your tastes) with a Howard Sternlike sexual appetite. As time passed and the truth descended upon his head, I mean, hair, he did what most career philanderers do: continued the affair and then lied about it when asked or caught and knowingly deceived and destroyed everybody close to him. Whew! As Paul Harvey used to say, "...and now the rest of the story."

In 2007, he was running for the highest office in the land as a Democratic Party Presidential candidate against Hillary and Barack Obama. Eventually, as the primaries and debates wore on, Edwards realized he had no chance against those two political beasts. He dropped out of the race and then dropped his pants with his "on the road videographer/paramour", Ms. Rielle Hunter, a middle aged bleached blonde with a birdlike beak. Doesn't every pseudo-virile man have a woman on the side? Well, no, not really. But that's only part of the story. While "Hair" and Ms. Rielle were "getting it on" "on the road again", his wife of 30 years and the mother of their 4 children (1 died tragically in an auto accident), Elizabeth, was back home in North Carolina battling a stubborn and pernicious form of breast cancer that treatment could not cure while their children looked on helplessly. Remember, this is the guy, John Edwards, who was running for PRESIDENT on a platform of helping the least and neediest amongst us. While his family was suffering in every way, he was playing "kissy face" with Ms. Rielle behind the portiere and building homes in his faux construction overalls for Habitat for Humanity with the red light of the camera in his "Dorain Gray-like" face. I smell a lack of "truthiness". Do you too? As Big Daddy yelled in the Tennessess Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, "What's the smell in this room? Didn't you notice the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?" But this story is just starting.

"The truth is out there" (to quote the tagline from the old TV show "X-Files") finally found it's way to his doorstep. But Edwards was not ready to come clean. "Hair" was still in denial and with abundant hubris, he declared to the growing siren of critics and skeptics questioning his lifestyle, "I don't respond to these lies." However, as these salacious allegations gained more traction and fodder for the curious, the drumbeat of truth proved to be more than even the delusional Edwards could bear. Finally, with incontrovertible evidence of his dalliance's with Ms. Rielle in the media's hands, he capitulated and confessed to his infidelities. In front of the cameras he once loved, "Hair" tearfully confessed and asked forgiveness for his transgressions all the while dragging his innocent family through the mud. Elizabeth, his tortured wife, steamed quasi-silently on the national stage. Their confused children were at home to wonder why Daddy's bags were packed and readied by the front door. And, last but not least, Ms. Rielle, the complicit concubine now with a new baby in tow, shrouded her face from the media with oversized hats and sunglasses, and fled to the comfort of her new residence supplied by you know who.

If anybody is still reading this blog (and I totally understand if you aren't) I would like to end this story but there are more layers to this real life drama. Recently, investigators revealed three new discoveries: one, he may have illegally paid Ms. Rielle $100k from PAC campaign funds for whatever she needed, maybe for a nose job; two, Ms. Rielle's baby may be "Hair's" love child; and three, Edwards attempted to foist the Ms. Rielle's pregnancy on his aide, Andrew Young. True to form, he denied all allegations. On the baby front, he told the investigators that the baby simply could not be his because of "the calender of events." Edwards was even willing to offer a DNA sampling. Can you image this guy's DNA: one part metro-sexual Southern-style, two parts sociopath and three parts Dr. Strangelove?

"Hair's" melodramatic saga continued last week when Edward's best friend (how would you like to have that label?) from North Carolina announced on the Today Show, that indeed Edwards is the father of Ms. Rielle's love child, Quinn, an adorable 2 year old baby girl. Didn't Edwards repeatedly deny that Quinn was his child? Tally up another victim in this mess, Quinn. And what was ole "Hair" doing when his best friend finally came forward with the truth on national television? He was grandstanding, I mean, helping the Haitians in their time of need. I can hear Big Daddy thunder at his drunken excuse-mongering son, Brick, "BULL". And what about Elizabeth and the kids? A suggestion to Elizabeth from the what it is worth department, take the I-am-not-a-victim path like jilted Jenny Sanford, mother of four young boys and recently divorced wife of disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford (who "met his soulmate Maria" on the Appalachian Trail...in Argentina?...on Father's Day?), and "give him nothing but take from him everything." For "Hair's" fall mirrors the fall of many a great man, and not just the notables as mentioned above. The velvet trap of seduction plays no favorites amongst all classes of men. Some who fall learn from their wanderings and redeem their lives, while others never get it. The moral collapse of a man was succinctly and crudely explained by another famed but faithful attorney, Alan Dershowitz commenting on the shameful sexual conduct of the former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who was caught literally with his pants down in a prostitution sting: "No matter how smart a man is when he does his thinking with an organ other than his brain, it most always comes out wrong." Remember, Senator John Edwards could have been our President!! Oh my!!! as sports announcer,Dick Enberg, would howl.