HE WAS ALWAYS A FAKE

By Kirsten Powers
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/
Posted: 3:54 am
August 9, 2008

John Edwards "shocked" the political world yesterday by admitting he'd cheated on his wife of 30 years with a campaign aide, Rielle Hunter.

If it looks like a phony, walks like a phony, quacks like a phony, it's a phony.

There's nothing particularly shocking about a politician cheating, and there's even less shock in learning that Edwards has been lying through his teeth about his own affair. In fact, we should assume that his detailed timeline about the affair is likely just another lie.


Edwards: Philanderer shamelessly ran as a family man.

As is usual with people who've been unfaithful, he's already told a string of lies. On July 23, Edwards denied the recent allegations and called the National Enquirer story "tabloid trash."

Last October, he said: "It's completely untrue, ridiculous. I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years and, as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false."

There are many honorable people in politics who aren't cheaters - but the ones who rise to the top have a disproportionate problem with staying true to their spouses: FDR, Bill Clinton, John Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson, Lyndon Johnson to name a few. Even the "honorable" John McCain cheated on his first wife with his current wife Cindy - earning him the ire of the Reagans, who excommunicated him from their circle of friends.

But something about Edwards always seemed uniquely phony, even by the standards of politics. Actually, nothing about him seemed authentic.

Who was he? Apparently, whatever he thought people wanted him to be. In 2000, he helped found the "New Democrat Coalition" for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) along with Sen. Joe Lieberman and others. Then, for his 2004 presidential run, he staked out the populist "Two Americas" theme. By 2008, he'd completed a total morph into a class warrior who pandered to the farthest reaches of the Democratic Left.

The poor suddenly became a great concern to him after his 2004 loss - yet he saw no disconnect in building a massive mansion as he crusaded for the poverty-stricken. He discovered New Orleans when he wanted to make his 2008 campaign announcement, but was nowhere to be seen back when the tragedy occurred.

In campaign focus groups, people would say something about him was "too perfect," that there must be "something wrong with him." A YouTube clip of him obsessing over his hair captured what so many felt: He was more concerned with appearances than anything else.

Edwards' statement yesterday explained: "In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic." Is he really past the narcissism bug? In an ABC interview airing last night, Edwards took great care to explain that he only cheated on Elizabeth when she was in remission - not when her cancer was full blown.

What a relief.

By the way, Edwards isn't the only one dishonored. The media accepted his denials of any affair - while holding at least one other candidate to a different standard. The New York Times insinuated in a front-page story that McCain had had an affair with a lobbyist - an allegation utterly without evidence. And MSNBC's Keith Ollberman broke into scheduled programming to hawk the story.

But it's Edwards who most deserves our disgust.

Normally, cheating on your spouse is a private matter. Many Americans wind up facing it; many families stay intact and recover. I hope that's so for the Edwards family.

But this is not a private matter: Following his affair, Edwards chose to run for president, using his family as a centerpiece for his campaign. In June of last year, he accepted the Father of the Year Award from Father's Day/Mother's Day Council. Shortly afterward, he renewed his vows with his wife and provided pictures to People magazine.

And in December, Katie Couric asked the candidates about the importance of marital fidelity in assessing a presidential candidate. True to form, Edwards said that it was a "fundamental" way to "judge people and human character" - but shouldn't be a "controlling factor" in choosing a president.

Unfortunately she didn't ask him what it would tell you about a politician if he used his family as a campaign prop and then lied to the public repeatedly about an affair.