I find the comments about someone else's marrige to be ludicrious; as if these posters and bloggers could possibly "know" about the essence, the committment, motivation or emotion of someone else's marriage.
The fact, is that when one spouse is unfaithful, it is extremely hurtful and humilating to the other or wronged spouse.
All this media glare just magnifies the hurt. The other problem, is the stubborn refusal of the posters, bloggers and media in general to acknowledge that so goes one spouse, goes the other spouse.
Selling out one's husband or wirfe in public does nothing, but instill the anger and betrayal in the wronged spouse and later, regret and then there is all the issues with the kids, the extended family members, close friends and employers. The financial sphere in which couples operate is also gravely at risk; women in particular who betray a spouse publically can find themselves without the means to support their children or themselves should a divorce ensue.
Falling on one's sword so to speak is the better part of discretion as opposed to backstabbing. It is best to pray for the family and leave them alone to sort out the mess and find new direction.

GREAT POST -some issues are too enormous to be settled by making one point -except on a tv sitcom built around one gag.after all,mlk never could have won the nobel peace prize for his groundbreaking work in marriage counseling.today's fox news would have had a field day with dr king-and the nation would be the worse for it.o'reilley,hannity,hume etal belong in that heehaw cornfield of a bygone era where the lovely barbie popped up and warned the audience that since she did not repeat gossip,we'd better get it right the first time.you had to be there.it was funny at the time.now,not so much-fox would be using barbie as an actual reporter,freeing up billo to pursue a career in sitcoms.

doodledo--

Well actually, that was a quote by Lord Halifax, an English statesman who died in 1695, before capitalism. Of course, they still had money and competition back then....

miftin said: "Anyone who would walk around telling the truth all the time would be knocked down in the street as a common enemy".

True, but that's life under capitalism. People strive for advantage by any means, because of the competitive nature of the system, so they lie. Dog eat dogism is encouraged. The law of the jungle prevails where there are no restraints on it. The cooperative nature of socialism reduces the need to lie because competition is, to a large measure, eliminated.

Huck,

What was he supposed to say? If you believe like I do, that the private lives of consenting adults are private, and yet not appropriate for children to know about, how could Edwards respond to those questions without lying?

There's a "family hour" on broadcast TV, during which time entertainment programs restrict certain subjects and language. No such family hour exists with news coverage.

Perhaps "I won't dignify that question with an answer" is the appropriate response to salacious questions? (It worked for the last president that used it.) Or simply, "none of your business?"

In any event, Edwards' lies about his extra-marital affair are more on the order of "little white lies" than they are major character defects. They certainly are not comparable to the murderous lies of Bush and Cheney.

The real character defects are with The National Enquirer, the Jerry Springer program, and other media that ape their sleazy sensationalism.

People lie on their resumes all the time. People lie when applying for convenience store jobs. Cops are constantly lying on the witness stand. Everybody, including the judge, knows they are lying. If it weren't for lying, this entire economy would fall apart. Anyone who would walk around telling the truth all the time would be knocked down in the street as a common enemy. I don't like Edwards' slick act either. But if his entire political career is going to be destroyed because he was caught lying about cheating on his wife, then Hedges is right on the mark.

That said, it was a political hit. It's the same political hit the open Internet is going to suffer when they blame all of society's woes on Internet pornography. This is fascism, folks. This is how fascism operates. Morality is the best of all devices to lead humankind around by its nose.-- Fred Neechy.

This is the first thing written by Hedges that misses the mark in my opinion. Sex is not the issue. The issue is that he National Enquirer reported this story in 2006. Since that time, rather than telling the truth, he lied numerous times when questioned about the story. As someone who was seeking the highest office in the land, that tells me something about his character. The only thing Edwards showed me is that he is a pathological liar much like Bush and Cheney. And that disturbs me.

miftin -- or maybe children prefer monogamous parental relationships because they want to know who their fathers are ? seems to me a child should have that right . . .

miftin August 11th, 2008 11:03 pm

Ho-boy....you didn't mention that you had been there. Would you prefer Cuba to the US?

Sorry, Mr. Hedges, I'm not buying it. There is absolutely no reason why we - as citizens, residents, voters - must be forced to choose between different types of weakness and corruption. There are plenty of decent people with the aspiration and drive to improve our country and world who can step up. We don't need to settle for the weak, venal and arrogant whether it be the likes of George Bush or John Edwards. I'm tired of the left/center giving weak like Bill Clinton a pass just because he's "better than Bush."

Who wants someone so arrogant and who displays such poor judgment? He runs for president, not once, but twice - knows his opponents will look for anything to ruin him. On top of all that, his wife has cancer, and he has three children. He lied to not only them, but his entire campaign staff... even his closest aides.

There are plenty of people out there with ideas for change on par (if not superior) with those of John Edwards... people who are just as bright and energetic, if not more so. People who can keep their libidos in check, or focus them on their partner. People who, even if they don't respect their own families enough, respect their own ideals and supporters enough to not risk it all on something so stupid and selfish. Push the arrogant and corrupt Bushes, the Clintons, the Edwards, the Stevens, the Spitzers, the Fossellas, the DeLays, the Fletchers out, and don't let them back into politics. We don't need any of them.

Yes pissant - in the perfect world we could F anyone at anytime. And in this perfect world you would be a pissantsomebody. I much prefer the volleyball girls. HMMMMM gymnastics = felexibility.
Lord this conversation is getting ugly.

Men invented monogamous relationships to ensure their immortality by knowing for certain who their children are.

disenchanted: The world in which we live all but forces monogamy on us(at least publicly!). How can anyone be free to decide on the merits of monogamy when it is so enforced? When you are in the honeymoon mode, monogamy comes easily, and there is no need for anyone to tell you to do it. But that never lasts, and there will always be new, fascinating, attractive individuals coming into your life that, if you were truly free, you would have sex with. Beyond that, if you have children and family to consider, or if you want to fit into the mainstream community, monogamy is a a cage that you might crawl into with reluctance, but let's not try to dress it up otherwise. In any case, it is usually a tool of control, and always a property contract first, and utterly independent of love.

Thomas More--

See? You try to tell an American what you saw with your own two eyes, and his automatic, conditioned response is: "I think you are wrong and I have no personal experience upon which to base my opinion."

miftin August 11th, 2008 6:35 pm

I don't think I'd count Cuba as that successful. There suree a lot of folk leaving there. And I don't think a lot are quite that well off. My opinion, not factual knowledge.

Now......about that night in the hot tub with the entire female Soviet gymnastics team??????

Well, I once spent an evening in a hot tub filled with Jello with the entire female Soviet gymnastics team.

If anyone has read this far, I'd like to add another funny aspect to this. These types of things happen to me often, and that's probably one reason why I study what most place no credence in. Too many so called 'coincidences.'

I told a woman friend of mine I wanted to meet this guy (above mentioned) and she was very over protective about it. She thought it was dangerous. I put forth 3 elements, that if all were satisifed, I would take that as a SIGN to go. The first was that my boyfriend be out of town (that happened). The second, that my children would be staying with friends (that happened). The third was that my paycheck would show up as it was late. The doorbell rang and it was the UPS guy, but as he handed me my check (I was all smiles), I noticed his name plate. It said, "Robert Frost." I asked, "Is that REALLY your name?" He not only answered yes, he sang me a sonnet! And it was about a couple who meet and have one intense day and then both are on their way. I swear this is true! My friend just about fell off her chair, plus she had just smoked a roach in my kitchen, so the encounter's significance was driven home stronger than might otherwise have been the case.

The sonnet I took as a negative omen... I think it's why I never slept with the guy. And I think he may have been someone I knew in another time, as there was such a BOLT of something, perhaps soul recognition. This to me explains those sudden attractions, and why it is that people who are truly NOT compatible, are irresistably drawn together. I have a phD in that alone! (LOL)

DUBET: Our nervous systems work a lot like electricity, constantly pulsing, sending impulses up and down the nerve dendrites. I mention this because electricity is ultimately a force of tension set between opposites, opposite charges, its own Yin and Yang equivalent.

WE are electricity, we ARE sexual beings. In my mind I do what you say... if I am out somewhere dressed up I assess the options, almost never act on the assessment, but it definitely IS an energetic thing. Here's a funny example. I was on a date (weekend) with a guy I knew for some time, but knew from the moment I took off with him that I felt no chemistry. He put country music on and smoked a cigar, and all my sensibilities turned off. We stopped at this cool place in central Florida known as Casadega, like Lillydale, New York, it's a community of mediums and psychics! The metaphysical version of a Disney themepark.

I was looking over books in a little bookstore when this guy came into the same aisle and it was the chemical version of LOVE at first sight. Since I was on a date with someone else, I did NOTHING. But when I came outside, the OTHER was waiting for me and he said, "I knew you from a past life." I looked at my date who was watching and said, "Is it okay if I talk to him?" He nodded, so I responded, "That's MY line!" All four of us (he was with his partner) had lunch together at the old "haunted" hotel, and the electricity between me and this guy wouldn't quit.

I saw him once after that, met him somewhere, but IT was too contrived and I never consummated the tie; but the realization of that species of jumping electricity can be VERY VERY real. It can range from funny to "Divorce Italian Style."

twitter twitter twitter - were all junkies for this kind of shit - it gives us pleasure. twitter twitter twitter.

The sorrow of the Edwards family is immense. NONE of us should know anything about it much less twitter about it.

Cuba is pretty successful. They are putting up wind turbines left and right, and all of their rural schools are powered by stand alone solar units. The people are not starving, they wear adequate and attractive clothing, there are no homeless people, tourism is a booming industry, their rum is the best in the world and so is their ice cream, young people wear Chinese made running shoes, there's a high level of community spirit, their musicians are excellent as is their ballet company, their medical community and scientific research institutions invent medicines that U.S. pharmaceutical companies are eager to steal, their urban gardens are very productive, their ports are literally filled with shipping containers from China and elsewhere, their taxicabs are Hyundai Sonatas and Mercedes Benz, they have gala festivals and street parties, internationally known musicians and bands perform for free at festivals in their various city parks, their streets are in better repair than here in my town, their cultural activities, events, museums and jazz clubs are great where around here we have tired old middle-aged men playing "Sweet Home Alabama" or covering Conway Twitty.

Frankly since Edwards is not running for office I am astounded why anyone cares. I hate the press for his wifes sake, other than that, who cares?

He's a proven liar, so its just as well hes out. Thats the only important note of interest. He lied.

annabelle August 10th, 2008 2:59 pm

Well said annabelle! Keep it coming.

doodledoo August 10th, 2008 7:28 pm

Socialism would do no such thing. pissantnobody would love to get a discussion going. We can't seem to find any successful examples of a socialist nation though.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

Character does matter and John Edwards claimed to be an honest man of the people. I never believed it and this only further undermines his credibility.

Hedges is spot on when he says,
"There is something sad and pathetically human about Edwards' affair and his cowardly attempt to lie about it. I never liked Edwards. He is all flash and sparkle with his boyish $400 haircuts and oily sincerity. He preached a faux populism, one at odds with his record in the Senate, to sell himself to voters. But, even as I do not condone what he did, I feel sorry for him. He is being crucified by journalists and politicians, and a public, who often behave no better.'

You can get off the hook for murder in this game, but never for hypocrisy once it is revealed.

dubet - Oh lord we have a lady's man here female CD bloggers. A genuine grade A american beefcake. Watch out!

Hey I get smiles from women too - ya know. Mostly because it the polite thing to do. Although I must confess to being a good looking male. many sex partners would be great if more women were willing to remain momogamous to me and I was allowed to SPREAD my love around. What Say ye.

I find my primary motivation, all day, every day, is the potential sexual attraction created by chance meetings with the random women I encounter...it happens instantly, is generally reciprocal and mutually understood by both parties, and ends quickly, usually without reference beyond acknowledging looks or smiles...this continually spontaneous, frequently secretive and mostly positive evaluation of women as potential lovers, and theirs of me in return, being the case, even when we're with our established lovers, it follows that monogamy is a constant and great struggle...whether this struggle is a higher purpose admirably challenged and survived, or a cruel joke disappointingly won or lost, the fact that I want to sexually engage such a large sampling of the women I encounter randomly certainly indicates a way of life that features more mating with more partners is not too terribly foreign...my own history would include periods of promiscuity interlaced with monogamous relationships of varying duration...the way we're viewing this subject right now seems ripe for an overhaul, but I don't know what to recommend...I will read the Engels work The Origins of the Family that PissantNobody referenced...a new lover might be a better aphrodisiac than Big Pharma's options...

I believe sex is a human RIGHT and we should all be entitled to have it with whoever we want and whenever we want. Marxistsocialist does not take this matter far enought - its not just a basic need - ITS A RIGHT - like health care. I bet if more people were having better sex a lot of problems in the world would disappear! Take that!

Edwars was the epitomy of the UBER capitalist. Don't think for a minute he's going to give away one thin cent of his wealth and fortune. The messenger was shot, yes - but the messenger also did the right thing and admitted to his all to human shortcomings. The message, however, lives on - its earliest teacher, now over 2000 years old, still guides his flock.

oisin, this is just for you, DUDE . . .

Here in the U.S. victims of child sex predators often carry a sense of shame for the rest of their lives. This is unfortunate for people like oisin, who was molested in the fourth grade by his teacher and his teacher's German Shepard.

Now, I KNOW you won't mind me making this outrageous, and completely gratuitous and unnecessary claim about you -- because I made it in the context of social criticism. I simply said that in a better world, victims of child sex predators shouldn't have to feel shame. (And, people who read this know "how to read a text," right?)

I know how to play Hedges' game too.

Shoot the messenger and the message dies. That's why the corporate media are having a field day with the Edwards story. How better to discredit the class based war on poverty?

Imagine what the world population would be without monogamy. Edwards was a TV whore who got off on seeing his pretty face on the idiot box. And I'll take it one step further - he never gave a rats turd about the poor or poverty issues. Lastly, I always though he was a deep in the closet gay - no kidding around I always thought he was gay. I mean who else spends so mauch money of a haircut and spends hours grooming?

@baruch says this is ..."timed perfectly to distract"... Hm. I suppose when there is a lull in the issues that we find of more importance we will actually have achieved the peace of which we speak so earnestly. Until then, in a complex real world, every moment (for the rest of your life, I bet) will offer up both serious and salacious bits of news. That the average person finds it far easier to relate to stories of marital infidelity rather than budget talks on housing and homelessness, analysis of international intelligence, and urban planning cannot really be that hard for you folks to understand, can it?

And now we can be obsessed with how obsessed we are with sex...

A few posters have this pegged right...the Edwards business is a red herring, timed perfectly to distract, and it works, every time. Like P.T. Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute.

If it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. The guy is a very egotistic trial attorney. How many egotistic trial attorneys do you know that don't think they can get away with anything? They just didn't want him to be VP. It was a political hit, not some random excuse for a media circus to placate Christian fascists.

First off to Pissantnobody: boy am I glad that I'm not married to you!

I agree with the author...I want someone competent in politics, I care less about his fidelity. We are all so hypocritical and shallow. That said, couldn't the guy just keep it in his pants while he was in the public eye? I don't care about the act, itself, but I would have LOVED to see him as VP for Obama...that won't happen now. What is it with men and power? Is it really that difficult to turn down some woman when it is SO not in anyone's best interest? I understand men think differently...but is short term willpower really that hard? (no pun intended!).

Monogamy sucks, unless it is truly voluntary. Monogamous marriage is a form of slavery. It is rooted in capitalist property 'rights', superstition, and insecurity, not love. Some fine day, the brightest of CDville will dust off Frederick Engels' "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", and realize that there is no way out of the stifling ness we are in short of international communism.

Oisin, thanks. That needed to be done, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. lol

Bo K. wrote,

"Hypocritical! The media should report about important issues rather than "salacious sex scandals" — with the exception of the Clintons' marriage, which SHOULD be the subject of disparaging press reports?"

Wow, dude, you need to learn how to read a text! How in the world could you put that interpretation on what Hedges wrote? Hedges was there criticizing the fatuous need of the American public to see their politicians as Ozzies and Harrietts. In a better world, he is saying, we wouldn't care if the Clintons' marriage sucks, and we would be spared the spectacle of the couple having to pretend it doesn't.

Looks like you're the ass, Bob.

"Adolf Hitler, after all, was an abstemious and monogamous vegetarian who loved his German shepherd."

**
Rynn Berry wants to set the record straight about Adolf Hitler. "There's absolutely no evidence he was a vegetarian. It simply isn't true." Berry, a 54-year-old raw-foodist and "vegetarian historian" who is the author of Food for the Gods: Vegetarianism and the World's Religions, is on a mission to dispel the commonly held view that the 20th century's most notorious mass murderer was also an adamant herbivore...Berry's new book, Hitler: Neither Vegetarian nor Animal Lover, is an attempt to clear the table on what we know about Hitler's diet. ..In his book, Berry cites written accounts—mostly articles and history texts—that show the instigator of World War II on occasion indulged in carnivorous delights. A 1937 New York Times profile called "At Home with the Furher," for example, describes Hitler as a vegetarian, though notes that he "occasionally relishes a slice of ham." (Hitler apparently celebrated Germany's 1938 annexation of Czechoslovakia with a slice of ham, a Prague specialty.) And in her 1964 book, The Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook, Dione Lucas, who worked at a Hamburg hotel that Hitler frequented, writes, "I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab, but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite with Hitler. ... Let us not hold that against a fine recipe though." salon.com

His cook, an enormously fat man named Willy Kannenberg, produced exquisite meals and acted as court jester. Although Hitler had no fondness for meat except in the form of sausages and never ate fish, he enjoyed caviar....(The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler (Praeger, 1973)(p. 346)

Hitler was fond of dogs, especially German shepherds (he considered boxers "degenerate"), whom he liked to control and dominate. At the front during World War I, he befriended a white terrier, Fuchsl (Foxl), who had strayed across enemy lines. Later, when his unit had to move on and Fuchsl could not be found, Hitler became distraught. "I liked him so much," he recalled. "He only obeyed me." Hitler often carried a dog-
whip and sometimes used it to beat his dog the same way he had seen his father beat his own dog. In the Fuhrer headquarters during World War II, Hitler's German shepherd, Blondi, offered him the closest thing he had to friendship. "But with his dogs, as with every human being he came into contact with," writes his biographer Ian Kershaw, "any relationship was based upon subordination to his mastery."

Even if Hitler wasnt a meat eater(Stalin was and he killed many more than Hitler) its rather irrelevant. Like saying people who help the homeless are gangsters because Al Capone started the first soup kitchen in Chicago.

Do your homework Chris.

BTW
Lincoln allegedly said: show me a man without vice and I will show you a man without virtue.

I have a very strong suspicion that there isn't more than 10-15% that haven't had at least one affair or didn't have one only because of lack of opportunity. I found the article to be "right on."

Actually, there was a lot of female adoration of JFK in 1960. I was twelve at the time and had a crush on him, but so did others of my sex who were twice or three times my age. Even if they didn't tear their clothes off. (Nixon also had some worshipful teenage fans, believe it or not.) Edwards was very handsome, but I'm glad he never became another Elvis.

That said, I was for Edwards during his presidential campaign, and when he dropped out of the race I grieved for him for about a week before throwing my support to Obama. I do believe, even now, that he was shafted by the media. They made him the Invisible Man except when they could trot him out as an effete dandy.

(BTW that $400 haircut accusation is another red herring. A candidate's barber must travel with him, forgoing the broad-based clientele that a neighborhood barber might have. Somehow he must earn a living at the same time.)

Now I'm grieving for him again. I was hoping he could find a place in Obama administration (assuming we'll have one) as VP, AG, or in some other important position. That's not going to happen. I grieve not only for him and his family, but for all of us as a nation.

That the media went wild with his adultery is not just because of the eternal appeal of sex. The business establishment feared Edwards--see another article that appeared earlier on this very site:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/13/6352/

What makes me sick at heart is the way that even progressives, who should know better, have joined the sanctimonious braying, condemning Edwards as a jerk and a bum. I too ask, what's sex got to do with it? Look at the presidents this country has had over the course of the 20th century; there is absolutely no pattern suggesting that a man's sex life, or even his truthfulness regarding his sex life, has any correlation with his record as president.

If we persist in having false standards, we needlessly shrink the pool of those who can make a difference for good. Not messiahs, just those who might do good in public office. And I don't believe for a moment that sanctimony equals public virtue.

The Edwards Story is textbook example of the grocery counter system of control that keeps the population asleep and sedated, and unable to critically or objectively measure the relative importance of so-called "news" to their lives.

If you go to HuffPo, they are going crazy over this issue, which goes to show you that liberals are just as given to tabloid distractions and hypocritical moralizing as conservatives. This story plays right into that and I am disappointed how many people have fallen for it.

It's depraved when you think about it, and a true reflection of those who would cast the first stone without pausing to remove the mote in their in own eyes. That unfortunately includes the majority of humankind in your suicidal global civilization.

Well said.

Were all human.

annabelle 2:59 pm wrote:

I for one would like to hear some Serious Dialog about health care, workers benefits, living wages,an honest accounting of misdeeds. less war, less military might, a cleaner environment, better education, an updated infrastructure, humanitarian services and a reverence for science and the arts. I suppose that is asking too much.

-----

Socialism would provide everything you're asking for in one neat package annabelle, but there seems to be little interest in discussing this interesting subject here on CD.

German women used to tear off their clothing in a frenzy during Adolf Hitler's speeches. Or so I've heard. At least we didn't have American women tearing off their clothing during John Edward's speeches. I don't think American women even tore off their clothing during John Kennedy speeches. Now Elvis Presley and Tom Jones, that's a different story.

canuckchuck, thanks for that great post. I had never thought about it like that, but you're exactly right that running for President only makes sense if you plan to get rich off of it somehow once out of office.

They recently passed a Lobbying bill (Bush has yet to sign it), one of the three provisions of which is that a member of the U.S. congress cannot take a job with a company which contributed to his campaign or lobbied him for one full year after leaving office. One year!! I don't think you exactly have to be a Stalinist to believe that they shouldn't be allowed to for *life*. Is that really so restrictive of the freedom of ~400 individuals, who claim to represent 350 MILLION, to say they cannot work for a certain handful of companies in the latter half of their lives?

Also, you said: "democracy requires a well informed public..something that the US educational system and corporate media have made impossible.

The safest bet would be to select politicians though a random lottery, and make it a requirement to serve the term, much like jury duty…"

Or do what I would definitely favor and ban private schools for K-12th grade. Make the rich people send their kids to the same schools the rest of us send our kids to. See how long it takes for the U.S. to have a world-class public schooling system then! Also, make the public school system funded on a nationwide or statewide basis so the rich counties don't have better public schools than the dirt poor ones.

That being said, I always thought Edwards was a very slick politician and didn't think his rhetoric matched his presentation.

I think this piece is right on point and well executed. The search for a "saviour" is of course key here.

We love to set people on absurd and unnatural pedestals, and then we are so stunned and angry when they fall. Maybe it is time to stop being in the saviour-seeking business. This is what happens when civilizations are based on making their spiritual and public redeemers into non-humans. They must transcend our own supposedly'flawed' natures.

It is all so offensively kitsch and Sunday schoolesque. That being said, I always thought Edwards was way too slick anyway. No surprises here.

PF - you beat me to what I wanted to say: "It's not about either-or: If given a choice between a Bush-Condi affair, OR being lied into war, and the destruction of our constitution?"

Why IS it "either-or"?

This event IS about character, and I believe Edwards is still lying. He IS paying her. And there's a little baby who he seems to be dismissing way too easily.

Yep. This one's about character.

WILMOOR: I'm waiting for the sex researcher who links Viagra usage with an upsurge of war on less than probable cause.

I don't know what's worse, really, picking up guys in an airport while pretending to be antigay or cheating or your wife while she's being treated for cancer. Take your pick.

Yet, for Lesser Evilists, Edwards' privacy must be respected, this is just about sex but Larry Craig MUST be burnt at the stake.

Democrats are the most despicable type of hypocrites ever born. Not only do they kiss Bush's behind every chance they have, they also have double-standards for every issue imaginable.

LUCKY LEFTY: Good point about the pervasiveness of porn by any other name(s).

CANUCK CHUCK: Excellent point!

MIFTIN: A friend of mine was in Japan and told me a naked female was part of a sushi platter. I find the Japanese a SEX-less people. They are like automotons. I think the incapacity to BE sensual and just to HAVE sex degrades the sex. A lot of people are NOT in touch with their feelings, and I would suspect that a lot of US citizens, especially those who abuse substances, including food, are incapable of fulfilling sex. Thus Porn and sex in MSM becomes their VICARIOUS capacity to know physical communion.

When Maughm used the phrase, "Lives of quiet desperation," he alluded to that awesome ineffable something missing from a great many lives. This void I believe is what people seek to fill through a variety of substances and neurotic behaviors. The focus on sex, that someone else may be WRONG perhaps takes the onus off the viewer from being otherwise in painful touch with all that's missing from his/her life.

I remember a fabulous guy who tried to seduce me... he put porn on his VCR. I looked at him and said, "Honey, better odds if you can find ballet." (Never did have THE consummation with that one. Sometimes I wish I had altered my standards...)

Well said canuckchuck August 10th, 2008 5:12 pm. The only additional suggestion would be that lobbyist live in a barrack, are paid minimum wages and face imprisonment should they collar a politician outside a public forum.

The problem with modern "dumbocracy" is that anyone who desires to be in a position of power should be automatically disqualified from serving....who in their right minds spends millions of dollars for a temporary position that pays $100,000 a year?? Unless they have ulterior motives and plan to use their new found power to enrich themselves in other ways.

also democracy requires a well informed public..something that the US educational system and corporate media have made impossible.

The safest bet would be to select politicians though a ramdom lottery, and make it a requirement to serve the term, much like jury duty...

Otherwise, if you only can select for office those who will happily wade in the open sewer of politics, you will always have the stench of shit on the results.

The reason these stories stay in the news so long is that they are pornography-lite in themselves. Americans spend lots of money on porn and these "naughty" news tidbits are welcome into the American home without paying for it or making excuses for watching and listening.

And they've always made such a big deal out of women's PMS being grounds enough to keep them from important positions such as the presidency! Maybe it's time to make it manditory for serious male politician wannabe's to become eunuchs.

Actually, the scenerio depicted in the first chapter of this article would be amazingly easy to ignore.

If we weren't dangling over the sharp rocks of an abyss that appears to have no bottom, this would be funny. Venal. Prurient. Irrelevant. 3000 years old. The Players and the Played. Essential to the function of Empire. When you can see that our tv violence is pornography, no different from the films that made the internet, you will see the pornography that is American society; degraded, debased, and degenerate. Very likely beyond hope of recovery. We won, right? These are the fruits of successful genocide and an Empire built on racialized forced human labor, a society based on exclusion and constant war. Now, we are the excluded. It's our turn on the wheel. We forgot, Master doesn't share.

I would love to see an American politician who admits to having affairs, drinking, not believing in any of the 'popular' gods, and being able to do the job, he or she had been elected into, well. There may be a lot of things wrong in Europe, according to some Americans, but in some parts we start having openly gay politicians, and that's a start, and it shows that lots of people don't really care about some aspects of a politician's personal life.

When the newspapers found out that Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland had had a love child while unmarried, the supporters of Republican presidential candidate James G. Blaine used this ditty against Cleveland:

"Ma, ma, where's my pa?"

Cleveland won anyways. The Democrats came back with, "Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!"

http://www.orange.k12.oh.us/teachers/ohs/TJordan/pages/gclevelandscandal.html

This article points not only to the media, but also to the consumers of those media, without whom they would not exist. The mainstream media are powerful and wealthy because the populace, by and large, patronize them. I can smugly declare that I don't have access to broadcast or cable television, by choice. The media reflect the consciousness of the public and vice-versa, but the media will never reform themselves until the public abandon them in their current form. I'm not holding my breath.

"But Edwards' political career has been cut short, unlike Bush's, because he had the bad luck to get caught out of character behind the curtain."

It's not like Bush hasn't been caught. His offenses are gleaming in the spotlight. But the only remedy for those offenses has been taken off the table by the Democrats. Why does this story have legs, but for example, the story of Cheney and the suicidal prostitute just disappears?

Chris Hedges would have made a stronger point by recognizing that virtually every society is obsessed with sex. When I was in Japan in the 1970s, their late night TV talk shows, their Johnny Carson equivalents, regularly had pretty young female guests who sat there pulling down their tops and showing everyone their breasts. The host would sometimes reach across the desk and start playing with them. Or two or three young women would stand there comparing the size of their breasts while men wearing business suits sat there grinning. Prominent American starlets would go over there and do TV commercials where they would bare their breasts while selling products. Even well-recognized serious American actresses did it.

So what you're saying is we really want to elect Ward and June Cleaver. "Ward, don't you think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night?"

Chris,

Along with others here, I have to agree this piece is really on point. Our culture is really obsessed with sex. Go see an R rated movie and you can't believe the sleaziness and cheap (unimaginative and unfunny) sexual "humor" that gets by and is deemed OK for young adults. Hell TV makes my skin crawl, with casual "jokes" about oral and anal sex and infidelity and everything that festers on your average porn site, but is somehow believed to be "sanitized" enough for quasi-general "adult" (18 and not much older) consumption.

But why does it consume the political dialogue? I think it's just so much easier for the beleaguered average American to watch news about things they understand and find familiar - like infidelity and sexual misconduct – especially when it's written by people who (as you accurately point out) are also familiar with it all as well.

It's easier to condemn Edwards for a sin than to try to understand what the hell's going on in Georgia today, or ever went on in Iraq.

But mostly, in characteristically self destructive behavior, Americans hate politics and politicians and partake of great joy in taking these guys down.

But there's one thing that really bothers me about the article. You wrote:

"Bill and Hillary continue to act out their sham roles of committed husband and wife. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, people continue to believe in the Clintons' charade."
As Bob K says that's "Hypocritical! The media should report about important issues rather than "salacious sex scandals" — with the exception of the Clintons' marriage, which SHOULD be the subject of disparaging press reports?

Aren't you doing the very thing that you are trying to condemn here?

I'm not even a Clinton supporter but get serious. Besides you KNOW their marriage is a sham? Do you know how many couples go through major infidelities (Monica was nothing) and still remain married? Hypocritical? Aren't you being a little Puritanical here?

Really dumb man. Really dumb.

Like I said I'm not even a Clinton supporter, but this knee-jerk mindless trashing they get really is annoying.

Philosopher John Dewey was speaking strongly against the potential for hyper-commercialism and low-grade sensationalism in U.S. broadcast media back in the 1930s. The fight for responsible and public service U.S. media was lost long ago. How many Americans even know (or care) who John Dewey was? I would like to leave this country, but I have two dogs and a cat and a houseful of stuff. Besides, the last time I was in Europe, when they realized I was an American, they just laughed and treated me like a stupid dolt. They were constantly saying the same things to me that I've been saying for decades. A couple of people even made it a point to inform me that what we Americans call soccer, everyone else in the world calls football. Eventually it got to the point where I just shut up and looked at them, just like I've learned to shut and look at most of the religion and TV blinkered flag-waving freaks I encounter on a daily basis around here.

This is pretty much common sense. It's only because the press (and pulpits) constantly bombard us with their obsessive focus on personal behavior that we no longer intuitively put things into perspective. That's my $.02 anyway.

War is not the only "Force that Gives us Meaning." Sex does too. And there are obvious connections between the two, regardless of the title of this non-brilliant essay. Why are we so programmed to dismiss the energetic aspects of sexual behavior ? Remember Slick Willey on the phone ordering bombs to be dropped on Serbia while Monica was allegedly under the table . . . yeah right, what does sex have to do with it indeed ?

Oh and it seems to me that in this instance there is a child involved, a child who most likely will never know for certain who her father is. Why don't you ask her 'what sex has to do with it ?'

I often like Chris Hedges' articles, but I think he sadly comes very close to, but misses, the point here.

It's not about either-or: If given a choice between a Bush-Condi affair, OR being lied into war, and the destruction of our constitution? Wait a minute.

Maybe what we can learn from this is that even if we get a politician who advocates getting out of Iraq (just following the polls?) and universal, single-payer health care (polls?) as Edwards did, we might be getting just another slick politician who is playing the game, grasping for power, and who might, at some point, display a more troubling lack of moral backbone than he did in his little affair.

Maybe we can also learn:

- Don't make idols out of the human beings who run for office, and mistake spin-doctored image for reality. You'll always be disappointed.

- Pay attention to the way the media, except in the case of a few Republicans who have had homosexual liasons, tend to be kinder to Repubicans about their affairs than to Democrats (consider Grampa George H.W. Bush and his long affair with Jennifer Fitzgerald, which was largely ignored in the MSM, unlike Clinton's sex life; or claims of W's affairs and womanizing).

There's a bigger picture here that has nothing to do with the either (sexual affairs) or (widespread corruption) view.

so, how come you are differentiating and pointing out 'homosexual encounters' as if that, in and of itself, is a dastardly deed????

other than that, i think chris has some valid points...it's not just the sex, it's the infidelity, the trust to which one has sworn him/herself...of all the candidates, edwards appeared to be the most genuine and sincere...'appeared' is the operative word here....

i think laura should be charged with lewd and lacivious behavior for letting W penetrate her!!!

jade (honkin' big homosexual)

CH is spot-on, but he's missing the bigger angle: there is no way that the Edwards story wasn't used to defect attention from Anthrax Killer Humiliation Week With The FBI, and Suskind's latest "they knew there were no WMDs" revelations.

The first story's already vanished from all Big Corp Media, and the second never even got a foothold.

Instead, we got another horny lying Dem and President Crazy drooling over Beijing beach volleyballers...

Rove continues to prove he's got "us" right where he wants us...

Somewhere, someplace, somebody is rolling around in knee deep self gratifying satisfaction, having put someone else down and thus raising themselves to a higher plateau. When you live in a glass house it is probably not a good idea to throw rocks at someone else. What ever happened to issues important to the American public, or were they never any issues to begin with? I for one would like to hear some Serious Dialog about health care, workers benefits, living wages,an honest accounting of misdeeds. less war, less military might, a cleaner environment, better education, an updated infrastructure, humanitarian services and a reverence for science and the arts. I suppose that is asking too much.

I always enjoy hearing from you, Chris.

What a brilliant essay!
Thank you for your perspective, Chris!

Well thats TWO democrats that I was interested in voting for. Edwards & Obama. I was THINKING of going forward with Obama if he chose Edwards as his running mate (even after Obama turned into a republican), now Edward's loose penis seals it for good. What a dumb-s--t.

Add another liar/lowlife to the pack.

Vote Nader.

Please, please remember: media units are businesses, in the business for profits. Profits are made by selling advertisement time/space. Profits are secured by manipulating as much of your business environment as possible. There are now about 5 entities [individuals or corporations] that own most media in the world and in the US. It is no longer in the best business interests of major media to report truth and important issues. It IS in their best interests to own as much of their business environment as possible. Thus, to think that major media will report what should be/needs to be reported is truly a delusion. Secondly, what sells in human affairs is sex, violence, prurience, the ability to point a shame finger at others. These, then, are the basis for modern reporting in America. Plus, any reporter who goes against the agenda of the employer will be looking for a job. [No surprise here, I fired people who refused to build according to what I considered good building practices, when I was a contractor.] The system has rotted, the result of citizen fixation on television programming and on consumerism. It's over.

I'm surprised nobody is mentioning the role of Brian Ross in all of this (other than cygnusx1isahole yesterday in a comment to the original article exposing Edwards who snips from a Salon blog from Greenwald).

Jay Rosen has picked up on this.

"The Whole Anthrax Case Would Make For a Good Journalism Class." Brian Ross Responds.

http://tinyurl.com/6napkz

The main point made here, that could easily be overlooked, is the role of the press/media in the demise of our political and national lives - as an educated and informed populace is necessary for the democratic form of government to function well. The government itself has pretty much destroyed our educational system. And, the media has pretty much conditioned (even proagandized)the public over the past number of years to focus on the wrong things.

This dumbing down and distraction is exactly what has allowed Cheney/Bush to take the nation to the precipice - on so many fronts. But previous Congresses and Presidents have allowed and even enabled the coalescing of independent media into huge, corporate-controlled conglomerates that spew out only what keeps Americans distracted while they rake in the big bucks and destroy our nation. Unfortunately, we can't throw them out of office.

Hedges is right, then right again, then a braying ass.

"We hear more [in corporate media] about pricey hookers and the bathroom code of cruising homosexuals than the revoking of habeas corpus, the use of torture as an interrogation technique, and the plundering of our country by rapacious corporations."

Right.

"Reporters often know the sins of which they speak. They can shame John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Larry Craig and Bill Clinton and then head off to a hotel bar to do the same thing."

Right again.

"Bill and Hillary continue to act out their sham roles of committed husband and wife. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, people continue to believe in the Clintons' charade."

Hypocritical! The media should report about important issues rather than "salacious sex scandals" -- with the exception of the Clintons' marriage, which SHOULD be the subject of disparaging press reports? Now we know the sound of a braying ass in print.

Spitzer had made an issue out of busting and prosecuting escort services exactly like the one he used. He deserved his public humiliation; and in that instance, the media did the state and the nation a service by exposing his hypocrisy.

Senator Edwards Affair
It is remarkable that such an incident can dominate the news for the last three days (and counting). Not only has it displaced newsworthy topics, but it has unnecessary added to the humiliation of this ex senators family.

Such dysfuctioinal reporting reflects badly on our media as well as the public for supporting it.

Fuck this whole society for being so anti-sex. Sex is a basic need indeed. Besides USA as a whole has a double-morality, it preaches anti-sex and at the same time there is ranpampt lesbianism, bizarre sex and all sorts of immorality

I was in Cuba in November of 2003. If I spoke Spanish, I would probably rather be living there than where I'm now living, yes. The United States is a madhouse. And to live in an area of the U.S. where the people are somewhat saner, it would take a lot more money than I have. And in order to get that additional money I would be required to lie, step on people's faces and kick them in the teeth in a figurative sense.

But to bring this statement around to the current topic, a high percentage of Cuban women are very easy on the eyes, unlike around here, where most look like walruses. In Cuba I'd probably also be doing what I do best--which is playing drums. I'd be employed by the government to entertain tourists, and it would not be necessary to be somebody's brother-in-law to get a gig.