THE Love Lips scandal was originally seen as tabloid trash, and thus not picked up by the mainstream media.
But then everybody heard from the horse’s mouth last week when former presidential candidate John Edwards admitted to an extra-marital affair with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, a “cougar”, as mercilessly labelled by some in the press.
Since the public TV confession, Americans have been fed with stories about Hunter’s endearment for Edwards – Love Lips – and the possibility that her five-month-old daughter is their love child.
Others speculated that a former campaign worker, who admitted fathering the girl, was a loyalist who was trying to protect Edwards.
They poured scorn on how a man, who received a “Father of the Year” award last year, could cheat on his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth Edwards.
“A lying skunk,” said New York Post writer Andrea Peyser.
This was the vain pot, they recalled, who once spent US$800 (RM2,700) for two haircuts in Beverly Hills.
Most editorials were unforgiving. “Sleaze,” one headline blared about the 2006 affair.
One breast cancer survivor wrote to a newspaper, questioning the manner Edwards defended his infidelity when he remarked that the affair took place only after his wife’s cancer was in remission.
(Incidentally, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is known to have discussed divorce terms with his first wife Jackie Battley at the hospital, a day after she underwent cancer surgery in 1980. He married again the following year, to the woman he reportedly committed adultery with.)
The Public Editor of The New York Times pointed out that Edwards’ story of sex and betrayal had been reported in the National Enquirer for the past 10 months; but it received scant attention from the mainstream press, although it had been hot on the lips of bloggers and talk-show hosts.
Following Edwards’ confession, many began soul-searching, why they failed to pursue the story with the same zeal and passion as the National Enquirer.
Bottomline, as someone explained it. The national media was reluctant to “recycle” or follow-up on a story which originated from a supermarket tabloid.
It would seem almost instinctive to ignore or dismiss news which come out from such publications.
Now, the news about Edwards’ adultery is all the rage on primetime TV and the national media.
Columnist Gail Collins, however, named US president Grover Cleveland, who ruled the White House during the 19th century, as her favourite American leader when it came to scandals.
Cleveland was a bachelor when he became commander-in-chief. And at the age of 49, he became the only president to have a White House wedding when he married the 21-year-old daughter of a friend.
But that was not the scandal. Cleveland, apparently, fathered an out-of-wedlock child prior to becoming president.
“The scandal almost cost him the election, and the baby inspired a famous political slogan then: ‘Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha’,” Collins wrote in her column last Saturday.
Infidelity aside, the manner that politicians tried to cover them up makes for compelling reading.
In 1978, Gary Hart was a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, but was constantly dogged by talk of his womanising ways.
“Follow me around, I don’t care,” Hart reportedly told the press then.
“I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.”
He spoke too soon. Miami Herald reporters spied on him, and eventually news broke that he took a model on a trip to Bahamas on a yacht appropriately named Monkey Business.
A week after photographs showing the model sitting on his lap were circulated, Hart quit the White House race.
For months, Edwards had denied everything. Until last week.
“Human nature being what it is, there will continue to be adultery no matter how many instructive scandals they’re exposed to,” Collins wrote in The New York Times last week.
But they should at least know how to make a decent public confession, she said.
The history of deception, scandals and infidelities always repeats itself. That much is true, at least.
