Former presidential candidate John Edwards and his fall from grace because the “brain” below his belt exceeds the intelligence between his ears, has had a fall from grace as precipitous as any Republican Sexual Hypocrite, quite frankly. In a NYT article on Sunday, the latest series of events shows just how desperate the disgraced U.S. Senator from NC was to hide his affair with “campaign video consultant” Rielle Hunter — and the cascading consequences of lies that did him in.

That portion of the sordid tale has now, of course, resulted in a federal grand jury in Raleigh about whether Edwards may have committed crimes related to campaign finance laws (as in payments to a mistress to clam her up is considered a donation that has to be reported), and that, along with a book that will soon be published by a former aide, are going to force the former John Kerry running mate to answer even to more sleazy charges.

Mr. Edwards is moving toward an abrupt reversal in his public posture; associates said in interviews that he is considering declaring that he is the father of Ms. Hunter’s 19-month-old daughter, something that he once flatly asserted in a television interview was not possible.

Friends and other associates of Mr. Edwards and his wife of 32 years, Elizabeth, say she has resisted the idea of her husband’s claiming paternity. Mrs. Edwards, who is battling cancer, “has yet to be brought around,” said one family friend, who like others spoke about the situation on the condition of anonymity, pointing to the complicated and delicate nature of the issue.

But that’s just the start of it. The list of jaw-dropping acts of political stupidity and bad judgment is outlandish:

* Edwards had wealthy donors give Hunter a place to stay out of the public eye, and a shiny new BMW; Edwards still claims ignorace of the acts of his loaded patrons;

* He made former staffer Andrew Young (who is writing the tell-all) sign a paternity affadavit saying he was the father of Hunter’s child; as a loyal staffer who is married, he was willing at the time to fall on his sword for the campaign;

* Young alleges Edwards asked one supporter if he could find a doctor willing to falsify a DNA test (!)

* Young says he was the one who scheduled and set up the trysts between Edwards and Hunter;

and the drumroll please…Young says:

that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.

OK. That is so surreal and disgusting that it’s hard to imagine Young making that up, given what is already out there about John Edwards’ pathological quest to ascend to the White House at the expense of voters, donors and campaign workers who believed in his ideas. More below the fold…

He’s become a pariah:

Shortly after he withdrew from the race in January 2008, Mr. Edwards and his wife were given a huge ovation when they attended a basketball game at the University of North Carolina. But a few months ago, when the couple showed up for dinner at a Chapel Hill restaurant, diners averted their eyes and stared at their plates, according to a person who was there.

At the recent Boston funeral of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Mrs. Edwards walked several steps ahead of her husband, greeting people exuberantly. Far fewer people approached Mr. Edwards, who appeared ill at ease.

What makes this even more damaging to John Edwards is the fact that he has lied in public about so many aspects of this nonsense multiple times, that any attempts to refute what Young has to say is going to be met by the collective hand.

Elizabeth Edwards is still popular; she’s opened a furniture store in Chapel Hill. How she manages to ride this out is hard to imagine. So many shoes continue to drop. Rielle Hunter is moving to North Carolina, by the way, an indication that she intends to secure rights for her child.

When the scandal first broke (the stories about the affair), many defended Edwards on the grounds that it was a private matter within his marriage that is irrelevant to his campaign for president. While that may be what those who old that opinion want to be so, the reality is that it’s a campaign killer in this country, particularly after the cover-up stories emerged. Some just wanted badly to give him a pass because they couldn’t believe that he could screw over donors, campaign workers and voters.

What makes this all so outrageous for me in the end were John Edwards’s pious statements during the campaign about how “he couldn’t cross that bridge” to support marriage equality blaming of his Baptist upbringing. Here was an attorney knowingly and shamelessly (just as our current President is), conflating religious marriage and civil marriage.

The cherry on top, of course is that he was simultaneously boinking and procreating outside of his sacred marital bond. The disgusting level of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy required to step out in front of the cameras with a straight face to declare gay and lesbian couples are not worthy of civil marriage because heterosexual relationships have a special legitimate claim based on his bible-based notions is par for the course, just another political lie to tell.

Note to the White House: we have the same beef with using this political lie over and over by people who know better. It’s a more valid statement to say that the issue of marriage equality is a complex issue that will be difficult to resolve until DOMA is repealed and SCOTUS will ultimately the matter.

Note to Edwards: listening to the little brain is what gets our Republican Sexual Hypocrites in trouble all the time, but it’s clearly not a partisan syndrome.