He must have been the brightest kid in school but, in three years, John Edwards has gone from a leading Presidential candidate to a pariah now charged with violating federal law.
Yet, in a season of reminders that brains alone are not enough to navigate the world safely and successfully, to lump Edwards with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and even Bill Clinton as just another victim of unzipped desire would be an oversimplification.
More to the point may be what social scientists call “emotional intelligence”–skills that promote self-awareness of one’s feelings and how managing them or not may affect others in pursuing goals in a social context–in short, an antidote to the inflated sense of ego and entitlement that leads public figures into private follies that eventually destroy their careers.
Before John Edwards was taken down by a sex scandal, there were clear signs that he did not understand the consequences of failing to rein in his greed. Between running for VP in 2004 and President in 2008, he collected $479,512 in one year for consulting to an investment group specializing in profit from selling subprime mortgages to the unsuspecting poor.
Oh, Edwards loftily assured voters, it was only a part-time job and educational in his mission to fight for the victims of poverty. His supporters bought that rationalization as readily as they did when he explained away the sexy videographer always with him as documenting his campaign
Now, as the former negligence lawyer faces his day in court, Weinergate goes on with a bright and aggressive Congressman acting like a tanglefoot in a farce that should have ended with a firm denial that he tweeted the offending picture instead of fueling endless speculation about whether or not his underwear was ever photographed.