Don’t you know that historians of the presidency will have a lot of fun c. 2050 combing through things that get released then — kind of like the endless stuff that comes out nowadays about the Kennedy years? Will they believe how close John Edwards got to the White House (or at least Number One Observatory Circle) and how willingly the media averted its gaze? What a scumbag. As far as I can tell, the real accusation here is not that he had a child by his mistress, but that in order to conceal it from his dying wife he tried to pay her off not with his own massive fortune but with money he was taking from supporters of his campaign. Scum.

Every would-be journalist should study this clip. This is what lying looks like. This is how a powerful, ambitious individual endeavors to push you back.

She refers to Congressman Weiner in full Shameless Liar-mode. Here’s her entry.
Actually, a course in “how liars lie” might be very interesting. It would be easy to collect lots of bi-partisan video of before, during, and after statements. Weiner is serving up the flavor of the week, though.
On a related note, here’s a beautiful diagram of why the “At least he’s not a hypocrite” defense is really not much of a defense at all, unless you want to be the Stupid Party.

Not that he’s ashamed enough to resign, like the shirtless Republican congressman from Western New York. But after all — this is a man whose wedding was performed by Bill Clinton.

From CNN: Weiner, a New York Democrat, said he is not resigning his seat, nor is he planning on separating from his wife. But he said he took responsibility for his actions — both the relationships and for lying about sending the photo of his bulging underwear on his Twitter account.

Will she separate from him? Well, she was a Hillary Clinton aide — so her role model isn’t someone who was willing to put up with a difficult husband in the interests of his (and her eventual) political career.
You may sex scandals don’t matter — but it’s pretty obvious that LYING does. Repeated lying to his wife, to colleagues, and to the press (that is, to us through the press). Oh well, all will be forgiven. I just hope he runs for mayor and people get to rake through all of this again! It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
CNN got someone in Congress to say so, too.

Many Democrats first rallied around the liberal congressman. But members of the House Democratic leadership have talked repeatedly in recent days to try to get him to end what has become an unwelcome political distraction, a member of the party’s leadership told CNN before Weiner’s press conference Monday.
“It’s frustrating because we’ll talk to him, and say clean it up, and then he goes out and does stuff,” said the member of the House Democratic leadership, who declined to speak on the record about private discussions with Weiner.

Megan McArdle has a thoughtful comparison to Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich — should we know these things about political leaders? Does it make them less fit to lead?

I don’t think that the good faith proponents of the argument for ignoring sex scandals actually believe that poor impulse control, accomplished lying, and a willingness to break one’s most solemn promises in pursuit of a covert thrill have absolutely no bearing on job performance. I assume they believe that this sort of sexual infidelity is so widespread among powerful men that it has absolutely no predictive power–and also that it’s not society’s job to punish people who break their marriage vows.