The strangest thing about John Edwards’ admission ^[1] that he cheated on his cancer-stricken wife with a plaything on the his payroll is… that he says he “didn’t love her.”

There is a volume behind that line.

First, it is ungentlemanly and cowardly to say it. Even if he never loved her, in some important metaphysical sense, he should never say so. It means he thought of poor Rielle Hunter as an object to be used. And then thrown away. Plus, he paid her. That makes her a whore. Surely he has done her injury enough; why add this insult? Remember the Democratic Congressman caught in the ABSCAM scandal who refused to reveal the name of his paramour, even if doing so would shave two years off of his prison sentence? The quality of our rogues has dropped in the past few decades.

Second, it seems like the kind of thing extracted by his wife. A kind of desperate grabbing for the feathers when loyalty has flown. But, whimper, you didn’t love her, did you? Did you? No, of course not, honey. Still, why did he share this no-love verdict with the public? Because she demanded it, like one does a plea agreement. (He didn’t love her, he loves me!) That makes her complicit and it suggests that this was not the first time.

Third, it means that the feminist moment is over. When a man can have sex with a female employee, deny the paternity to her love child and, even, deny that he ever had a tender feeling for her–and the folks at the Feminist Majority and Ms. Magazine are not calling press conferences, not even batting an eyelash– well, it means that their credibility is gone too. It turns out that the Clinton wound was mortal.

All of his public life, John Edwards has acted as if life is a trial with a gullible jury. Maybe he was right.

UPDATE: A clever blogger ^[2]actually phoned a senior L.A. Times editor and asked him why the paper wasn’t covering the Edwards scandal, even advising their bloggers not to link to it. Seems even funnier now.