Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

This Friday, August 8, 2008, Sen. John Edwards, once a Democrat presidential candidate, now a repentant philanderer, announced that he did indeed have an affair with a young lady who filmed his campaign. According to an Associated Press front page story in the Journal Inquirer Edwards has “denied fathering a daughter born to the woman with whom he had the affair, and offered to be tested to prove it… After the story broke Friday, Edwards released a statement that said, 'In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment… I recognized my mistake and told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. I was honest in every painful detail with my family. I took responsibility for my action in 2006, and today I take full responsibility publicly.'” The cause of Edward’s infidelity was that ol’devil hubris, according to the AP report and Edwards’ statement: “In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingl...

Now that former Sen. Larry Craig's political life has been terminated, public opinion in some quarters appears to be shifting in his favor. Colin McEnroe , a Hartford Courant columnist, blogger and radio talk show host, appears to be having second thoughts. ‘The Larry Craig deathwatch is ticking down to its final tock as I write this, and -- now that we've all had our hearty laugh over his plight -- I have to ask what the man did that warrants expulsion from the Senate. Is he gay? I think yes. Has he been a bit of a phony? I think yes again, but if you're going to set the bar there, we have a lot of senate cleaning to do.” And Courant columnist Bill Curry wants to wring some valuable lessons from Craig’s ordeal, principal among them that Craig is gay; that his gaiety was suppressed as a child, not an unusual occurrence in homophobic America; that the humiliation of being gay in straight Idaho caused psychological perturbations; wherefore Craig, in serious denial, wandered ...