John Edward Wins Silver

So by now we all know that John Edwards cheated on his cancer-stricken wife.

I suppose one up side of this is that it spares us any chance of Newt Gingrich's making a last-minute run as an independent. Everybody's justifiably laughing over Edwards' attempt to mitigate his assholery by pointing out that his wife was in remission during the affair, but after one of his affairs Gingrich actually asked his wife for a divorce while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. So despite a strong kick at the end Edwards will have to settle for silver in the 400m Freestyle Big-Haired Douchebag

But keep at it, tiger. You're an up-and-comer.

(Nyuck, nyuck.)

Yet again, I'm having a hard time getting scandalized by this. Mostly, as Mike and I have been saying for a long time, Americans need to stop pretending that monogamy is easy. People cheat on each other. People have open relationships. Spouses should care about that stuff, but I don't think the rest of us should. Not unless a candidate has made his or her own monogamy or celibacy a selling point or has spent a lot of time demonizing others for violating sexual taboos that he or she is also violating.

Still, I'm curious: should I be a bit upset? Is there some hypocrisy here (mine or Edwards')? Edwards, after all, was trying to position himself as a "values" Democrat. I guess my thought is that despite the occasional nod in the direction of the religious right, what Edwards meant by "values" always seemed to have a lot more to do with social justice than sexual conduct. But maybe I'm letting him off the hook too easily. Anybody have thoughts?