Not that he doesn't deserve it. If you don't ask for grace you're gonna get stuck with karma. And it's a b----.
By Charles Hurt
A normal, compassionate human exposed for the first time to the debauchery that remains of John Edwards' dishonest life and career could be forgiven for feeling a little sorry for the pathetic cad.
The world now knows just what a self-absorbed lunatic he is married to. He has dealt with terrible tragedy in his life. He juggles two families.
Opulently ensconced in one of the Two Americas he told us so much about, he built himself and one of his families a 28,000-square-foot mansion fit for a king, with a built-in squash court.
But he is exiled to the doghouse.
He is a failure as a father and a husband and even managed to disgrace the business of being a politician, which is pretty hard to do these days.
Today, he is completely isolated, wandering the planet with his work gloves and T-shirt, building houses for the poor as he searches for something.
Or someone, perhaps, who might cheer for him again and think he is as great and beautiful and charitable as he reveres himself to be.
Perhaps he should have held on to that little vanity mirror seen in that famous YouTube clip as he fussed for long minutes with his hair. No doubt he was the object of his first and greatest love affair.
Now his is a sad and lonely existence.
Reporters lurk outside the hotels he checks into. They take pictures of him through lacy curtains and chase him into the bathroom, where he locks the door -- all alone. They prowl around and rummage through his garbage in search of more dirt on him.
But here is why a normal, compassionate human being would be wrong to pity the guy.
One of the most sordid and shocking little details from the whole sordid and shocking saga was Edwards' effort to deny that a little girl belonged to him -- a little girl he had conceived shortly after announcing his wife had incurable cancer.
According to Andrew Young, the former staffer who has penned an upcoming book about the whole sordid affair, Edwards urged him to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do his own DNA test to determine whether the child was really his.
And once it became clear the child was his, he offered a fix only the sleaziest of lawyers could think of.
"Get a doctor to fake the DNA results," he said, according to this disillusioned loyalist.
After all, who minds a little perjury? It is not like you were not warned.
This is a man who made millions as a legendary personal-injury lawyer, destroying honest careers and bankrupting good doctors before turning to politics.
When the shoe that everybody knew was coming finally dropped yesterday, Edwards was hiding again.
In his place, he dispatched one of his longest-serving flunkies to make his apologies on camera.
The timing, also, is curious, coming tightly on the heels of Democratic annihilation in Massachusetts and the arrival here of Scott Brown, the next rising heartthrob politician.
When Edwards finally did surface yesterday, he was in earthquake-shattered Haiti. In his work gloves and T-shirt, still searching.
And he proved once again that he still has a future as a personal-injury lawyer, for there is no tragedy or misfortune that Edwards will not exploit for his own personal advantage.
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