Several weeks ago, I read about the Edwards/Enquirer story at Perez Hilton. Now, I love tawdry affairs and have been one of the first in the fray to bash other political sluts. Hello, Senator Wide Stance! But I decided to keep quiet on this one for several reasons.

1) As soon as that story hit, Edwards was taken off the VP shortlist. Boom. His career was over. Therefore, this affair moved from being a public interest, fair game for ridicule topic to being a private, off limits story.

2) The way that Edwards got caught was so humiliating that I still cringe thinking about it. He was chased by Enquirer reporters into a bathroom. Ew.

3) I really did feel sorry for Elizabeth. She’s a highly likable person with cancer, and she didn’t need any more humiliation.

4) I was away on vacation when everybody started talking about it. (And wasn’t it killing me?)

So, let me talk about it now.

Edwards is a king sized dirt-bag. I just want to say that unequivocally. I read some bloggers who said that he wasn’t as much as of a dirt-bag as Senator Wide Stance. I would say that it’s pretty damn close. And then all the continued lying and parsing… Yuckeroo.

Like Gail Collins, I think that scandals should be relevant to the public. Collins says that "often a sex scandal suggests a politician has gone out of control in other ways."

There are other reasons why we should care. A politician who lies to his wife will lie to me the voter. A politician who cheats on his wife with cancer has no moral compass. A politician who thinks he can’t get caught has lost sense of reality. I don’t expect much from a politician, but a sense of reality could come in  handy.

What is with all the political scandals lately? Are politicians more dirtbaggish than the general male population? Are all men having affairs, but regular guys don’t have the Enquirer reporters tailing them, so we just don’t know about it? Is there something about political office that warps the male brain?