Over the past few weeks, the world has learned quite enough about John Edwards -- from the lies he told in trying to cover up an adulterous affair to the compulsive vanity that left some people close to him questioning his judgment and even his grip on reality.Democrats who seriously considered making Edwards the party's 2008 presidential nominee could be forgiven for asking: Now you tell us?
The revelations about Edwards, contained in two best-selling books, have undermined one of the favorite conceits of political journalism, that the intensive scrutiny given candidates by reporters during a presidential campaign is an excellent filter to determine who is fit for the White House.
While the media "usually does well" in vetting candidates, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, "Edwards is a good case" in which it didn't.
And that failure is worrisome in a changed political world where politicians - be they Barack Obama or Sarah Palin - can burst upon the national stage and seemingly overnight become candidates for higher office.
The media, according to Beschloss, now has "a much bigger responsibility than it used to." In the past, he said, the political establishment "would usually have known the candidate for a long time, and if there were big problems, they probably would have known about those, and tried to make sure those people wouldn't be nominated."
That did not happen with Edwards, even though as a Senator he had run for president once before, in 2004, ended up on the Democratic ticket as John Kerry's running mate, and was a known quantity to many top Democrats.
In 2008, there were conversations among some Edwards staffers, according to "Game Change," the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, about the responsibility of coming forward with what they knew about Edwards, perhaps leaking to the New York Times or Washington Post, if it looked like he might win the nomination. But there is no evidence they ever did.
Two stories by the National Enquirer that ran before Iowa described Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter. But the mainstream media went to sources within the Edwards campaign to try to confirm the stories and got nowhere. No one in the campaign would confirm them.
Those staffers are the ones who should be held accountable, Marc Ambinder wrote in response to the question he posed on The Atlantic's website: "Should Edwards Aides Be Shamed And Blamed?"
"It's your responsibility to quit the campaign and not enable it," he wrote. "If you enable it, you are responsible in some ways for the fallout. Your loyalty isn't an excuse for that."
The failure to follow up aggressively on the reporting by the National Enquirer, which has nominated itself for a Pulitzer Prize for its Edwards coverage, has served as fodder for conservatives and others convinced the media has a double standard when it comes to vetting Democrats and Republicans.
"I feel sorry for the liberals who were duped by Edwards," said Cliff Kincaid editor of the right-leaning watchdog organization Accuracy in Media. "They were the real victims of the failure to vet Edwards."
"Now we know that Edwards was a phony in more ways than one," Kincaid added. "Our media, especially progressives in the media, were in love with Edwards because of his liberal views. But he wasn't in love with them. He was in love with someone else--and it turns out it wasn't his wife."