John Edwards Caught With Mistress

[Cancel 2016.2]

Thanks for your kind welcome, Darla.

I guess I just don't make the connection between the private, sexual behaviour of a politician and his or her public relationship with the people. Where a politician links the private realm to the political by, for example, running on a "moral majority" or "back to basics" platform and is found to be hypocritical in his private behaviour than I would agree that this would be a legitimate cause to withdraw support for them. But outside of that, I am much more interested in their wider political record. I don't see the close connection between private and public trust that you do, sorry!

I take your point, however, about the fact that it is more often a case of male politicians treating their female partners shabbily than the other way around. It's unpleasant and can be disturbing, but I don't hire and fire people at work because of their private morality. Likewise, I wouldn't hire or fire a politician for their private morality.

I think the connection, so to speak, for myself is in that if they would betray the ones closest to them, how can we trust that they will do what is in our best interest when in one of the most powerful positions in the country?

 

[PES Activist]

We differ in that the people I surround myself with don't lie and cheat others. If you consider that type of behavior to represent the people you associate with, I feel sorry for you.

Please don't feel sorry for me, tinfoil, that's just not nice! I have friends who make bad decisions .. I make many myself. I have friends who can sometimes be untruthful ... I can be untruthful myself. I have friends who sometimes hurt those they love .. I somtimes do that myself. If you are surrounded by people who never make bad decisions, never lie and never hurt those they love then either you are living a quite unique human existence or you're spinning me a bit of a line there, tinfoil.

Do you think people who lie to the closest people in their lives are going to be trustworthy when employed to work for people they don't know or care about?

Yes, I do think that, because that is my direct experience. Life can be beautiful and uplifting and noble and kind, but life can also be shitty. People make mistakes - often and repeatedly. People often make those shitty mistakes most often with respect to their nearest and dearest. It doesn't mean that those people, me included, are bad people never to be trusted. It does mean that we should not set standards for people that are impossible to sustain. Because when we do, and when we lecture others on their behaviour, we are inevitably shown up to be frauds and cheats oursleves.

 

[PES Activist]

I think the connection, so to speak, for myself is in that if they would betray the ones closest to them, how can we trust that they will do what is in our best interest when in one of the most powerful positions in the country?

I understand what you are saying, Superfreak, and have some sympathy with your position. However, I start from the premiss that I don't trust my politicians in anything like the way I would trust a friend or family member. Similarly, I would not choose a politician on anything like the basis that I would choose a friend. The dynamics of trust in my relationships with friends and family are utterly different to the dynamics of trust I have in an electoral relationship with a politician.

I think the problem arises when we conflate our relationships with friends and family with our political relationships with our public representatives. Trust is important in both sets of relationships, but it's a totally different quality of trust and it is maintained in very different ways. That's why a breakdown in trust between a politician and his/her partner does not present a problem for the relationship of trust (assuming one exists) that I might have with that politician. The connection between the private world of trust and the public world is tenuous to say the least.

That's why I view character debates between politicians as the cynical charades they really are.

 

[Socrtease]

We let philander's run our major corporations ALL the time. The US is just another big corporation. That being said, cheating on your cancer ridden wife if so low you see the snakes belly.

 

[Cancel 2016.2]

We let philander's run our major corporations ALL the time. The US is just another big corporation. That being said, cheating on your cancer ridden wife if so low you see the snakes belly.

you said you had seen potential other sources verify this???

Also... the US is hardly run like a corporation. No corporation would ever survive the inept bullshit that takes place within the halls of Congress and the White House.

Side note... he is a trial lawyer... of course you are going to see a snakes belly

 

[uscitizen]

I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm really quite a nice person once you get to know me. Alternatively, I'd advise climbing down off that high horse of yours.

I expect politicians to be slippery and difficult to pin down in what they say - that's what politicians do. I expect politicians to show the same weaknesses and make the same sexual choices, good and bad, that people in every other walk of life show. I'm therefore much less likely to be surprised when a politician is exposed for being just like the rest of us.

However, what I won't tolerate is being lied to. I won't tolerate cynicism and hypocrisy in a politician. And I won't tolerate a politician preaching sexual morality to me or anyone else. Such people are invariably frauds and liars and are easilly found out - as recent history on both sides of the Atlantic has demonstrated.

If the reports about John Edwards are true, then as I understand from what little we know so far, he has neither lied to the American people about his sex life nor preached to the American people about their sexual morality or the evils of adultery. The worst he can be accused of, as a politician, is employing his wife as a stage prop in his campaign for the Democratic nomination. That's not nice and could even be described as being unpleasant and exploitative of his spouse, but is pretty much par for the political course both in the US and here in Europe.

I'm surprised you are surprised by that, but on second thoughts I don't think you're that surprised at all.

don't sweat it PES Tinfoil has no friends anyway.

 

[uscitizen]

you said you had seen potential other sources verify this???

Also... the US is hardly run like a corporation. No corporation would ever survive the inept bullshit that takes place within the halls of Congress and the White House.

I don't know about that, look at what the inept management in the investment industry has done ?

 

[Damocles]

Welcome to the board.

I know. It's really a nearly indefensible position. I cringe to see myself writing it. But, as I said, I must be getting old, because I'm just fed up with it. As far as the Carla Bruni thing, I think that's a horse of a different color. Who cares if she was a bit of a slut? Or if he was. The fact is, his wife left him, and he was available. No one was betrayed.

I think when it involves, as it almost always seems to, the public humiliation and betrayal of a woman, it's a bit different. I'm tired of it. And don't forget that Elizabeth Edwards has cancer. I guess I feel that if you can go home night after night and lie to your cancer-ridden wife, why the hell would you be telling me the truth?

I think this pretty much ends any idea of having him as VP.

 

[PES Activist]

don't sweat it PES Tinfoil has no friends anyway.

Thanks for the heads-up US citizen and thanks for the welcome also on the introductions thread.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

I think the connection, so to speak, for myself is in that if they would betray the ones closest to them, how can we trust that they will do what is in our best interest when in one of the most powerful positions in the country?

Having a mistress = being a bad president.

You ought to tell every president since 1776 that. Besides James Buchanan.

 

[Kamala Trump]

I have not seen anything to indicate its true.

Al gore said is was true. That's enough, ain't it?

 

[Mott the Hoople]

We differ in that the people I surround myself with don't lie and cheat others. If you consider that type of behavior to represent the people you associate with, I feel sorry for you.
Do you think people who lie to the closest people in their lives are going to be trustworthy when employed to work for people they don't know or care about?

Tinfoil, we should feel sorry for you. You're niave. If you don't think the people around don't lie or cheat, than that is exactly what you are. You show a poor understanding of human nature and sometime in your life, you're in for a really big surprise unless, that is, you grow up.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

We let philander's run our major corporations ALL the time. The US is just another big corporation. That being said, cheating on your cancer ridden wife if so low you see the snakes belly.

How about not only cheating on her while she has cancer but also serving her divorce papers while she's in the hospital receiving chemo? That's what Newt Ginghrich did.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I understand what you are saying, Superfreak, and have some sympathy with your position. However, I start from the premiss that I don't trust my politicians in anything like the way I would trust a friend or family member. Similarly, I would not choose a politician on anything like the basis that I would choose a friend. The dynamics of trust in my relationships with friends and family are utterly different to the dynamics of trust I have in an electoral relationship with a politician.

I think the problem arises when we conflate our relationships with friends and family with our political relationships with our public representatives. Trust is important in both sets of relationships, but it's a totally different quality of trust and it is maintained in very different ways. That's why a breakdown in trust between a politician and his/her partner does not present a problem for the relationship of trust (assuming one exists) that I might have with that politician. The connection between the private world of trust and the public world is tenuous to say the least.

That's why I view character debates between politicians as the cynical charades they really are.

Welcome to the board PES. Don't take some of these yahoo's to serious. Some, like Tinfoil, are just cynics while others (Have you been warned about Dixie?) consider anyone slightly to the left of Torquamada as being a die heard commie pinko liberal.

I know many Euro's don't understand why Americans look to their political leaders as moral authorities. It's rather like looking to a used car sales man for honest answers. Bush is a good example. Here's a man who is popular because he claims to be very religious yet is as unethical and as amoral as the most cynical politician around. I know some of my French friends were completely baffled by the Clinton impeachment. They viewed it as normal for a rich and/or powerful man to have a mistress. They just could not relate to the American provincial brand of puritanism.

 

[Cancel7]

Welcome to the board PES. Don't take some of these yahoo's to serious. Some, like Tinfoil, are just cynics while others (Have you been warned about Dixie?) consider anyone slightly to the left of Torquamada as being a die heard commie pinko liberal.

I know many Euro's don't understand why Americans look to their political leaders as moral authorities. It's rather like looking to a used car sales man for honest answers. Bush is a good example. Here's a man who is popular because he claims to be very religious yet is as unethical and as amoral as the most cynical politician around. I know some of my French friends were completely baffled by the Clinton impeachment. They viewed it as normal for a rich and/or powerful man to have a mistress. They just could not relate to the American provincial brand of puritanism.

Mmm, hmm.

 

[Cancel7]

Having a mistress = being a bad president.

You ought to tell every president since 1776 that. Besides James Buchanan.

LOL. Therein lies the rub Water, you are right. Even FDR, the greatest president of the past hundred years, had a mistress. I know. Maybe as women take more and more powerful seats, and they eventually have affairs with men much younger than their balding overweight, and comparatively powerless husbands, and further humiliate them by pressuring them, while in a state of shock, to stand by them and smile sickly at press conferences, this will all be easier to swallow

As it stands, there is no free pass for a "rich and powerful" man not to have some goddamned decency. You know, monogamy is a bitch, over the long haul. For everyone. Not just men. They are the only ones who are excused though.

 

[Cancel7]

I think this pretty much ends any idea of having him as VP.

If it's true, and we really shouldn't all be assuming that it is (that's cynical), then yeah, he's out.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

LOL. Therein lies the rub Water, you are right. Even FDR, the greatest president of the past hundred years, had a mistress. I know. Maybe as women take more and more powerful seats, and they eventually have affairs with men much younger than their balding overweight, and comparatively powerless husbands, and further humiliate them by pressuring them, while in a state of shock, to stand by them and smile sickly at press conferences, this will all be easier to swallow

As it stands, there is no free pass for a "rich and powerful" man not to have some goddamned decency. You know, monogamy is a bitch, over the long haul. For everyone. Not just men. They are the only ones who are excused though.

Darla you really know how I feel about this affairs shit. I just couldn't care less. Edwards has not violated my trust. I never vote for someone based on whom they insert their sexual organs into. That is not my "trust" in them. Obama has violated my trust much more tremendously and in a way that will greatly harm this nation by basically becoming a Republican over night.

Maybe this is why dumbass stupid fat lazy Americans are always in such a shithole - they actually vote based on trivial shit like this.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

At least we didn't nominate Edwards for president.

We shouldn't have nominated that bald-faced liar Obama.

 

[PES Activist]

Welcome to the board PES. Don't take some of these yahoo's to serious. Some, like Tinfoil, are just cynics while others (Have you been warned about Dixie?) consider anyone slightly to the left of Torquamada as being a die heard commie pinko liberal.

I know many Euro's don't understand why Americans look to their political leaders as moral authorities. It's rather like looking to a used car sales man for honest answers. Bush is a good example. Here's a man who is popular because he claims to be very religious yet is as unethical and as amoral as the most cynical politician around. I know some of my French friends were completely baffled by the Clinton impeachment. They viewed it as normal for a rich and/or powerful man to have a mistress. They just could not relate to the American provincial brand of puritanism.

Thanks for the advice, Mottleydude, I'll bear it in mind. If I offend Dixie, then at least I'll be able to produce my membership card of the Party of European Socialists as evidence that I am indeed a "die hard commie pinko liberal."

Just another note, by the way, I laughed out loud at your used-car salesman analogy. Very good, indeed. Your comment about Europeans not understanding why Americans look to their political leaders as moral authorities is right on the button. If a politician starts talking sexual morality or family values then, IMHO, that's the time to take out the pitchfork and torches and have us a bonfire.