If Edwards is disqualified from running for office because an affair, isn't McCain as well?"

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003837486

John Edwards' Affair Also Brings John McCain's Marital Split to the Surface

By E&P Staff

Published: August 08, 2008 10:20 PM ET

NEW YORK Reaction from across the political spectrum has been strong to the news of John Edwards admitting he had an affair in 2006, with many condemning Edwards' actions and denials. But it may also produce an unwanted aftershock for John McCain, reviving references to his own extramarital affairs back in the mid-1970s.

Steve Chapman, the generally conservative Chicago Tribune columnist observed today, "Not that Republicans would be able to make full use of this exposure had Edwards been the nominee. Their prospective nominee, after all, was guilty of the same sin during his first marriage.

"But that was 30 years ago. Good news for Edwards: Come 2038, he may be viable again."

Edwards himself, in his interview on ABC's Nightline, referred to McCain admitting that he had made many mistakes in his first marriage.

Cenk Uygur, in his regular blog at AOL News, observes, "Now that Edwards has admitted to an extramarital affair, everyone will now condemn him and say he has no political career left. I want to ask all of those people, how is Edwards' affair any different John McCain's? If Edwards is disqualified from running for office because of this, isn't McCain as well?"

Tod Roberson, an editorial writer at the Dallas Morning News, blogs at the paper's site that while what Edwards did was wrong, voters should not express selective outrage -- and recall what McCain did back in the 1970s.

An excerpt follows.

And while we're all feeling holier than thou, maybe we should use this occasion to re-examine the past behavior of John McCain: His first wife, Carol, was beautiful enough to be a swimwear model when he married her in 1965. He went off to fight in the Vietnam war while she stayed home to raise their three children. He was captured and spent five years as a prisoner of war. When he was freed in 1973, he came home to find that his wife had been disfigured in a car wreck three years earlier. So he dumped her and married a much younger woman (who might be our next first lady).

"My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn't the reason for my divorce," Carol McCain told the UK's Daily Mail in June. "My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does."

[Toucano]

1. He's disqualified because few people voted for him.

His political tombstone was written long before this revelation.

[Cleita]

2. And how about Arnold Schwarzenegger whose sexual escapades both

before and after marriage are too numerous to recount. Yet there are those who are trying to change the Constitution so that he can run as President.

[stray cat]

3. I suspect Bill Clinton really wasn't squeakly clean before he became president

Guiliani was certainly guilty of affairs and he left his wife for a mistress. McCain definitely had an affair and married his mistress.

[NNN0LHI]

4. Rudy attempted to move his mistress into the the mayors mansion with his wife and kids

Now that is some Republican family values for you.

Don