Zipper denial

I guess male politicians with zipper problems just lose their good sense along with it. They never seem to learn that, in today's goldfish bowl and with the marketability of scandal, nothing is going to stay a secret. The lies and coverup will bring you down when the truth might not.

John Edwards. What a disappointment. I was a strong supporter and contributor early in his presidential campaign. I believed in his sincerity. I especially believed in Elizabeth and felt that she gave him credibility that made up for the suspicion of excessive narcissism that his pretty boy image created.

But I did not at the time suspect that he had a zipper problem.

Even more, he has a problem with telling the truth. How many lies has he told about the affair with Rielle Hunter and about the now-almost-certain fact that he is the father of her baby? He has involved not only his wife in the cover-up, but he apparently induced one of his close associates, Andrew Young, to claim to be the father. This young man was himself married. So what must have been his reward for falsely claiming to have fathered someone else's child?

There is now a grand jury looking into whether campaign funds were used in the affair. We know Hunter was paid by the campaign for documentary filming, which makes it easy to hide money for other purposes. But the big payoff, apparently, came from a wealthy Texas trial attorney, Fred Baron, who was the campaign's national finance director. He has said that he made secret payments to both Hunter and Young from his personal funds. Sounds like a deal to me.

And now this twist: apparently one question the grand jury is looking at: if an individual makes such hush money payments to prevent a scandal from destroying a political campaign, does that constitute a campaign contribution? If so, then this would have been a violation of campaign finance laws.

The big problem for Edwards now is that Young is shopping a book proposal that retracts his fatherhood confession and seems to be "telling all." Book advances trump silence money, I suppose.

Wow !! This is far worse than anything Bill Clinton was ever accused of. Here's what I resent most in my fallen hero.

He let his self-importance and blind illusion of invulnerability put at risk the chances for the Democrats to win the presidency.

Suppose he had been nominated? And then two weeks before the election, all this came out? We would have lost the election.

I still think Edwards has done a lot of good in fighting poverty and working to help the underdog. And I think he was right on most of the big issues. But he is unqualified to be president -- not because of his zipper problem but because he would risk so much for so little and be so blind to that risk. For me, it's not so much a moral issue as one of judgment and perspective and maturity.

Such is the power of a zipper to change the course of history. I'm glad that Edwards' lack of success in the early primaries led me to switch my backing to Obama as having a better chance of defeating Hillary. We are so much better off with Obama as president than we would have been with Edwards.

Ralph