When Gary Hart got caught with Donna Rice I could take a look at her and kind of understand his decision. After all if you're gonna fornicate you might as well have good memories from it.
Rielle Hunter on the other hand barely looks a rung above trailer trash.
Along comes a younger, leaner, woman who tells him (and really believes) he's the next Ghandi and MLK. She is no where near as attractive and bright as he could get, but he thinks she may be easier to keep under control. Besides, crazy chicks have a more wild rep under the blankies.
I don't excuse it, but I'm not above understanding how it could have happened.
But what I could never excuse about him is his lifetime career of narcissistic histrionics. It took this tabloid scandal to FINALLY point his innate faults out to the general public (and fawning media).
It's ok to cheat on your wife as long as the mistress is HOT!
She's not attractive but she's not excessively ugly. And now that I'm middle-aged I can understand the dynamic.
Men who marry power women find that, by age 40, 45, and especially 50, the power women totally turn off in bed. Totally. The ladies were taught that sex is something that they control, not their husbands, and if they are not in the flippin' mood, well tough sh-t to him. There are lots of books out there documenting this. [Try the articles and books by Caitlin Flanagan.]
Flanagan says that this is the logical outcome of the women's movement and sexual freedom. The same women who did sexually risky things before marriage with countless partners -- which we'd think would mean a lifetime of sex for their husbands -- paradoxically turn off once they reach middle age, and actually take a perverse joy in watching their nice-guy, polite husbands beg for a little time in the sack once every few weeks. Based on their incidence of sex, today's power woman is more frigid than a 1950s housewife, who supposedly was the ultimate in frigidity.
Elizabeth Edwards is the ultimate in power woman. So if Rielle came on to John, and provided him some wild times in bed, like he had as a single man in his twenties, I can see why he did it.
The sad thought is that he probably WAS pretty faithful to Elizabeth all his marriage, until the 5-10 year dry period (Elizabeth's 58) and the moment Rielle got him excited. Because if there had been more affairs we would probably know. It's hard to hide the money trail, and gals who are dumped will talk because there's no shame in being a great man's mistress anymore.
“What I don’t understand is how Edwards found this woman attractive. Maybe she threw herself at him hard enough and he was weak willed.”
She stroked his ego and he ate it up.