Seems like we have a bit of a pattern here. First, it was Bob Packwood, sexually harassing a slew of women but then trying to escape condemnation on the grounds that he was a consistent champion of women's rights.

Then Bill Clinton took advantage of his office, both as governor or Arkansas and then president of the United States, to have a series of sleazy affairs. He too tried to cover these up and then excuse them on the grounds that they were minor private offenses, small distractions from his noble dedication to the causes of equality and global uplift.

Eliot Spitzer took time out from his crusade against Wall Street malefactors to indulge himself in high-priced prostitutes. He too saw himself as excused from the normal canons of morality because of his commitment to the cause of common man.

And now Edwards. By all accounts here is your typical legal sleazebag, who got rich through ambulance chasing tactics and had a sordid affair while his wife was battling cancer, possibly producing a little bambino in the process. Even the term "love affair" is inappropriate here: Edwards himself says he didn't care about the woman, so he was apparently just using her for the same reason that Clinton said he used Monica Lewinsky: because he could!

Secret meetings, financial payoffs: is there any limit to how low this gets? Yet John Edwards has, at least until now, been considered a wonderful, upright, admirable guy. How is this possible? To put the question in its broadest form: How does the liberal sleazebag come to be viewed so favorably?

The short answer is that the liberal tries to cover up his despicable character by appealing to his virtuous political stances. Shameless and reprehensible behavior is dubbed "private," as if it were nobody else's business, and contrasted with public social stances. "Yes, I cheated on my wife and abandoned my kids, but this is of little significance compared to my environmental work and my donations to the United Way!"

There are many problems with this, but perhaps the most obvious is that there are certain jobs, like governor and president, where being an example and representing a dignified office are part of the job description. Unlike a carpenter or a broker, a president doesn't just do things but he also stands for things. Pastors and presidents cannot afford to be moral reprobates because then they dishonor their position and the people they lead and represent.

Still, the liberal morality-evasion scheme does on, and it has been going on for a while. In fact, the inventor of this liberal scheme was Rousseau, whose autobiography presents himself as a wonderful and sincere guy even though the man fathered five children out of wedlock and abandoned them all to an orphanage. Lacking personal moral decency, what Rousseau appealed to was moral opinions and moral posturing.

The good news is that the American people, who fell for it during the Clinton era, aren't falling for it any more. We shouldn't feel sorry for people like Spitzer and Edwards, nor should we fear that their causes will suffer. Poor people in America could use a more decent champion than the lecher with the $500 haircut.

The Web can be liberating. "It's about bypassing the sieve of the mainstream media," says Elizabeth Edwards, wife and confidant of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards. "The idea that you have people standing between you and the voter is diminished, and the capacity to speak directly empowers candidates to trust their own voices." With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hogging media coverage, campaigns can push their messages without paying for ads.

"In some ways, it's the way we have to go," Edwards says. "We can't make John black, we can't make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fundraising dollars. Now it's nice to get on the news, but not the be all and end all."

John Edwards' presidential candidacy is based on the idea that he is the champion of the poor man and the littlest guy. In reality Edwards is no friend of the poorest of the poor, and his policies would actually end up making poverty worse. It would be one thing if John Edwards courted the union vote by saying that he wanted to defend the interests of guys who make $15 dollars an hour. This is basically what Pat Buchanan says. Buchanan's argument is that he cares about working-class Americans and not particularly about anyone else. This, however, is not Edwards' position. Edwards speaks of the elimination of poverty as a moral ideal, and he portrays himself as the candidate most compassionate and most committed to the ideal.