The John Edwards Saga's New All-Time Record Low

The ickiest detail in The New York Times story on John Edwards? Well, according to the paper, a book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young says the onetime senator, onetime Democratic vice presidential candidate once promised Rielle Hunter they would marry on a New York City rooftop with the Dave Matthews Band making a special guest appearance. (While bands love publicity, I can imagine the DMB cringing at this particular association.)

If I knew my husband was making plans with a girlfriend for wedding No. 2 – after my death – he could cancel any festivities because he would surely be the first one to die; I would kill him!

I've criticized Elizabeth Edwards in the past for writing and touring and telling almost all in a book and on "Oprah." But hey, whatever it takes to get you through another day married to John Edwards. You want to open a furniture store in Chapel Hill? Why not? You're a wife, a mother and you're battling cancer with the albatross named John hanging around your neck.

I talked with John Edwards at a Charlotte, N.C., appearance shortly after the Kerry-Edwards ticket came up short in the 2004 presidential election. Elizabeth was undergoing treatment for cancer and he was worried and concerned. Yet even when a recurrence of her illness gave him an out – and who knew how much he really needed it? – in his quest to win the 2008 presidential nomination, he still didn't take it.

A successful politician has to believe he or she is the best person for the job. But John Edwards actually thought he could – with the help of complicit friends -- hide a truckload of secrets while pursuing the most public job in the world.

(Was he really trying to rig a paternity test?) Maybe now that everyone knows what pure ambition looks like, a minor-league hypocrite like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will stop insisting that God wants him to remain in office.