A reader asks Matt whether he has read The Politician, the new exposé of former Presidential candidate John Edwards, whose political career was derailed by a sex scandal.

The reader asks whether Edwards’ risky behavior during his affair qualifies in some way as the kind of risk-taking Matt advocates.

Matt responds:

I haven’t read the book, and I won’t be reading it.  I find it a waste of time to read about this sort of thing when you can see it all on television in two minutes.

When it comes to the sanctity of marriage, I come from a very old school and a background that was inundated in the culture of “Till death do us part.”

But I also have children that are divorced and remarried, and I believe that was the right thing for them to do.  I’m of the school that “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

I think people do what they do.

There are many different kinds of risk-taking.  The risk of sneaking around behind people’s backs for sexual intercourse is a completely different risk-taking than the risk someone in Argentina takes when they take and umbrella and walk for peace in a military parade.  That’s the kind of risk-taking I’m talking about.

Or the teacher who, after school, asks the kids to participate in a peace project, knowing that maybe none of them will come to it.  Those are risk-takers.  Risk-taking has many different connotations.

I think it’s under the category of “Stupid Idiot” for somebody who’s campaigning for President to be running down the back stairwell after supposedly having an illicit encounter while his wife is dying of cancer.  That’s not a risk-taker.

My only comment on John Edwards is:  Thank God he’s not President.

There have been a number of Presidents who, after their Presidencies ended, were exposed for the truth of their relationships or sexual encounters.  There are arguments on both sides as to whether it did or didn’t matter to the safety of the public.  I don’t feel qualified to comment on those kinds of situations.

People are people.  I find that in all aspects, the human animal is a very strage creature, as lately demonstrated by the cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church of child abuse.  That is not risk-taking; that is irresponsible, detestable actions.

At least a hit-man is a hit-man, and everybody knows it, and they make no bones about it because they don’t put on special garments and ask to be called The Honorable This or That...  They take pride in being known as an SOB.

Although everybody has different tastes and ideas, these are the problems that we are going to face as a species when we get around to trying to figure out who we are and what we’re doing here and why we’re doing it.  No one said it was going to be easy.

Those who try are risk-takers and visionaries becoming known as foolish people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing.

Matt