Ho hum. Another one. Has it come to that? Are we so inured to adultery, the public kind, that former presidential candidate John Edward's admission that he strayed elicits a mere snicker and a knowing nod?

Next.

In case you missed the salacious latest, let me bring you up to speed. Edwards admitted in an ABC News interview that he had had an extramarital affair with a 42-year-old campaign employee and that he repeatedly lied about it when The National Enquirer pit-bulled its way to the story.

Edwards met Rielle Hunter at a New York bar in 2006 and his campaign hired her soon after -- despite her lack of experience -- paying her $114,000 to produce website campaign documentaries. (I didn't realize that hanging out in bars got you well-paying gigs, but that just goes to show how out of touch I am.) In one of the videos, which still exists on YouTube, Edwards smiles at the camera -- at Hunter, really -- and says, ``I actually want the country to see who I am -- who I truly am.''

I guess we did. What a low-life.

Edwards joins a long, and probably growing, list of politicians and public figures who can't seem to keep their flies zipped. Think Spitzer, Clinton, Hart. Turn the pages in any American history book and you'll find a cadre of civic luminaries who enjoyed a little on the side as well: Thomas Jefferson, Warren Harding, Grover Cleveland, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy.

I don't know what exactly this says about the intersection of politics and sex, about the blurring of power and lust, but as a woman I sure hope our leaders' bedroom antics are not a reflection of the population at large -- nor a barometer of their administrative skills. Maybe they truly believe they're above moral expectations.

Adultery, while despicable under any circumstances, is more easily forgiven when it happens to someone else. Yet, I can't help but wince at the irony of Edward's fall. He was a candidate who enjoyed showing off his good-looking family, who used his marriage and difficult life -- son of a mill worker, father of a teenager who died, husband of a sick but adoring wife -- to make us believe in the strong values he embodied. What happened? Did he not learn from previous scandals?

Edwards blamed his philandering on ''self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences.'' No kidding. But didn't he ever think of his wife during one of his romps? His children? Do any adulterers?

There was something plastic and calculated in his admission, something that even this accused Ken doll couldn't whitewash with his earnestness. He did not, he said, father Hunter's baby and he did not pay her hush money, to the tune of $15,000 a month. What's more, he made it clear that wife Elizabeth's breast cancer was in remission when he was fooling around. So that makes it any less offensive?

Frankly, I'd rather not be privy to this family's pain. Let Edwards burn in his private hell. He doesn't affect our lives. Yet, I don't think we've heard the last of this political soap opera.

I just hope the next installment isn't a tawdry tell-all, with a six-figure advance and a 25-city book tour, authored by Hunter. Most writers, working in front of a computer screen and not flat on their backs, can only dream of such literary glory.

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