Stupid People

Though I hate to do it, I feel like I should probably throw in my two cents on the whole Edwards affair thing. I can sum it up in one word: stupid. It was stupid to do, it was stupid how the thing got covered, and it's stupid how the media is now talking about it like it may make or break the election. But mainly it was stupid to do. Really stupid.

First of all, the rounds of media covereage now of how this affects Obama's chances or McCain's chances in the general election are pretty silly. I mean, neither of them had an affair. Democrats aren't going to bring this up against Republicans because it was a Democrat who did it. Republicans won't bring it up against Democrats because you know that the Dems would shoot back with Larry Craig/Mark Foley and they were worse. So that's all pretty much a moot point.

And no, it's not covering for a person not to report in the mainstream press everything the National Enquirer prints. So let's get over that right now.

Mainly though, I'm stunned at how stupid Edwards turned out to be. He was generally thought by people (including me) to be a good, decent person. A nice guy. He'd suffered tragedy, but was working to move on. He had two adorable kids and a wife with cancer. He just seemed decent. At least when the Spitzer thing broke we already knew he was kind of a jerk. That helped deal with the shock a little bit. This time, Edwards came out of left field and ruined the reputation and image he'd spent a lifetime building.

Edwards is a smart guy, I'm sure. He's also really dumb.