Leggo my Ego!

Now comes before the court one John Edwards, of late candidate for President of the United States, Senator from North Carolina, successful trial lawyer, husband, father--and philanderer. It is for this last that it seems he was most proficient and for which he will be most remembered.

The depth of his self-interest is way beyond that of us mortals. You know, just to begin with, you have to have a pretty substantial ego to be a lawyer. To strive, as your life's work, to extract honestly earned money from companies engaged in legal enterprises--yes, tobacco companies are legal, and sell honest products--to compensate people who claim they didn't know smoking was unhealthy is -- well, nuts.

All the arguments of smoking aside, no one made those folks take up smoking or stay with it. People quit with good results all the time. The point of it all is to overcome this much fairness and rational thinking, a trial lawyer has to have a grand vision powered by a massive ego.

You need a little ego as well if you're running for one of your state's two senate seats. To consider yourself worthy of the upper house over all the other accomplished politicos in your state takes a lot of chutzpah indeed.

And then of course as your ego feeds on the glories heaped upon itself the senate gets a little crowded and small. You have get the ego out where the whole nation can nurture it as you announce you're running for President as the champion of the little guy. (All Democratic presidential candidates claim to be for the "little guy," then they get elected and stick it to him.)

By 2008, in the midst of his second campaign, Edwards' ego was large enough to have its own staff. But his wife was dealing with cancer which did not feed his ego and actually interfered with it. In spite of this Edwards faded out of the spot light in deference to his ailing wife. Well, good for him we thought.

We thought.

Actually he was carrying on an affair with one of his campaign staffers who was eventually with child. The ego was alive and well, but this was just too big and too many yahoos knew too much. The Senator arranged for an aide to claim the baby to throw any wolves off the trail. Only an ego the size of Edwards' would have presumed this would work. Media operatives were suspicious and point-blank asked the Senator what he knew, their fires stoked by the story having broken in a check-out line publication. But Edwards' ego permitted him to lie his way out. After all, the country desperately needed his leadership!

The ensuing media storm has been ferocious. Some are furious that the aide, Andrew Young, dared to subsequently expose Edwards' lies. Edwards, after all, was a big-government Democrat; those who throw stones at big-government Democrats must be soundly and immediately discredited and destroyed in current mainstream-media thinking. Others have apologized for Edwards, explaining his behavior away in terms of an aristocratic, demanding wife who is defined by a violent temper. "Why," they say, "wouldn't he be easily attracted to a kinder, more charismatic woman who makes herself available?"

No one seems to hold Edwards himself accountable except for millions of us out herein flyover country.

Young, who has written a book, is not received warmly by the news shows and pundits who couldn't stuff this one under the carpet for their boy. They are sick that Edwards was nailed so effortlessly by -- of all publications -- The National Enquirer and soon thereafter by Andrew Young and his book. Obama may be the star in the movie about Democratic politics in 2008 but Edwards was their Best Supporting Actor; too close to the top (read: Too Big) to fail.

All of these stories have a life cycle, and this one has run through it. With a little media help Edwards will now lay low somewhere in an exclusive apartment and wait for his wife to die. The Enquirer has snuffed out his political career for now. The only thing he has to be thankful for is that he's not a Republican. If he were, that life cycle would run for years.