I was very disappointed to hear yesterday that John Edwards admitted to having an affair on his wife, Elizabeth. Worse, he did it when she was in the midst of battling cancer.
It was just a few months ago when another such scandal forced the then governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, out of office. Edwards isn’t going to face anything like that, but I think he can pretty much forget Obama naming him as his choice for vice-presidential running mate.
I happen to like John Edwards, so I’m really disappointed to hear he’s joined the ranks of cheating politician husbands. But what I’m now really curious about: How the heck do they have so much time for extramarital nookie anyway?
Obviously they have way too much time on their hands. It’s seems to be the rule rather than the exception for politicians to cheat. Heck, it’s just about become a cliched scenario. That’s very sad.
I was reminded of an article I wrote after watching an episode of Today where they were discussing the psychology of why married men cheat. Specifically, the panel explained what a common fatal cheating trigger is for most men: they’re weak and selfish.
After having cared for my mom, I get how consuming being sick is. Even if my mom hadn’t had the dementia, the lung cancer wore her out. Her only focus was herself. Even though Elizabeth Edwards was trying to support her husband as he made a run for the presidential nomination, she was sick. There had to be a plethora of times she had to put herself first and ignore John’s needs.
So he strayed… Maybe not only for physical reasons, but emotional too. Okay, I get that. I can see how it happened. It’s no excuse though. He should have been stronger than that. He had a chance to set an example, be better than all that, and he failed.
Why wasn’t he devoting the time he found to roll around with Ms. Rielle Hunter to campaign strategy? Or spending time nursing Elizabeth? Or solving any of the myriad problems facing our country? How is it he even had time to cheat? How is it any of these politicians do?
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