Dear wOw readers:

I’d like to answer some of you today – actually I’d like to answer all of you, but I only have one life to live. So just to hit the heights. 

I’m in the news business and in the commentary business. So I would say to those of you like NP — if you don’t want to read comments on the Edwards story, go directly to The New York Times and follow "the issues of the day." Don’t keep reading when you see the word "Edwards." The press is never going to serve up only issues stories and you know it, but some of you wouldn’t miss a thing as long as you can read it and keep deploring it, as if that lifts you above it. OK. I happen to think John Edwards’s hypocrisy is an "issue" story. The man was running for president when all this happened. He was as culpable as Clinton in the White House.

And Kelly Kelley who is so tired of the Edwards story — well, honeychild, it’s only been in the major media for about six days. What kind of shelf life would you like to give to major public figures in trouble where all the facts don’t come out at once?

JJGB asks if I would admit to adultery in public and I can only say that during the times I was married I wasn’t important enough for anyone to care. I was faithful during my marriages but I have had plenty of other scandalous negatives to talk about before and since. Read my memoir Natural Blonde if you want the lowdown and dirty on Liz. I tried to tell it all without involving innocent persons who might prefer never to have encountered me.

NP asks why I would be glad that Edwards wasn’t the Democratic nominee. Because it has been revealed that he is a lying hypocrite. And as for all of you who now want me to attack John McCain, I don’t know for sure the truth of any bad things I’ve heard about the McCains. I try not to get into hearsay; I never wrote about the Edwards story even though I had heard all about it. But because I couldn’t prove any of it, I never mentioned it until after he spoke himself on "Nightline" last August 15. By then, even The New York Times couldn’t avoid dealing with this.   

And I do think Mrs. Edwards was unwise in "enabling" him to go on campaigning when she’d had his bad character revealed by his confession to her. They could then have easily dropped out of the race with no explanation other than her illness, thereby saving themselves and their children from the current unpleasantness. I am betting that Mrs. Edwards now wishes that is what she had insisted on.

I am not at all "focused" on John Edwards. I never was. I always liked her having met her, but I didn’t care for him from the beginning. Too slick and self-regarding. But believe me, now he’s toast.

And my main consideration wasn’t that he "unzipped his pants" as one reader says.  It’s just that his hypocrisy, bad character, disregard for wife and children and his own legacy, and his lying to the American voter have been revealed. 

I have tremendous sympathy for Elizabeth Edwards and will say again how much I like and admire her. But she was wrong to let him go on attempting to be president of the U.S. And she would have better protected his children by convincing him that she wouldn’t go along with his campaign to achieve that goal, given what she then knew. 

This is very much like the criticism received when we write about Madonna. It only makes me wonder why, when you see a headline about Madonna and you don’t care, you bother to say, "Who cares?" and then attack the press for what it reports. Just ignore what you don’t care to know about. My love and good wishes and my hope for tolerance from each and every one of you.

Liz Smith

Click here on this text to read my nationally syndicated daily column.