CARNAL NATION

We're not shocked that politicians get caught in sexual indiscretions. As Marty Klein argues in his latest column, it's hardly surprising because politicans are, after all, human. The rest of the population does it just as often. We are, however, left wondering what on earth John Edwards was thinking when he, allegedly, made a sex tape with Rielle Hunter.  Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign as a videographer and, according to a New York Daily News story, she filmed Edwards "taking positions that weren’t on his official platform."

Former campaign aide, Andrew Young, who took responsibility for a child widely rumored to have been fathered by Edwards, claims to have found the tape while unpacking after a move and has provided details in the proposal for his new book.

Looking at the bigger picture, why do public figures make such huge errors in judgement when they have so many potential enemies just waiting to take them down? Political affairs aren't new. FDR had a mistress. JFK had multiple affairs. However, they lived in in times when, for a variety of reasons, such things were not reported. For a politician today, post Monica Lewinsky, to make a tape of themselves having illicit sex goes beyond poor judgement: it's just plain stupidity. We understand the celebrity sex tape. Celebrities live in a world where publicity is everything, and there is no faster way for a young actor/actress to get headlines than with a "leaked" sex tape (as opposed to making porn movies, which is seen as very bad career move).  

[Editor's Note: The author was staff photographer for the 2004 Dean for America campaign, a rival campaign to John Edwards'.]