Rod Dreher gave his inexplicable support to the growing Edwards Derangement Syndrome of Mickey Kaus. Kaus has a near monomanical obsession these days with credible rumors that the failed presidential candidate has had his Little John in both of the two Americas and is now the father of love child. Kaus’s case rests largely on the hypocrisy angle since Edwards has made a public show of devotion to his cancer-stricken wife. And it is certainly true that if he was tomcatting around while his wife is gravely ill, Edwards is a total sleazebag.

But what Kaus and Dreher don’t acknowledge is the nature that media coverage would have to take. It is not as if the woman is standing in front of ABC or the New York Times building demanding a press conference. So presumably, Kaus/Dreher wants the media to shove camera and microphone into the face of a mother and infant and demand to know who the little girl’s father is. It occurs to me that they both are employed by organizations with the resources to pursue such a story, so I don’t see why they are waiting around for other media outlets to do what they could be doing.

I also noticed that Dreher is upset with the tone of comments on his post: “It is impossible for some people to engage in a rational critical discussion of the point. Another reader just wrote me privately to say I should shut down all the comboxes for a while, because the tone has gotten so nasty he doesn’t want to visit them anymore. I’m not going to go that far, but I am going to shut down this one. Sorry, screaming mimis!” Unless he deleted some before I read the post, he is wildly overreacting, since there is nothing nasty and no screaming that I can see.

Perhaps Kaus and Dreher will get the tawdry sex scandal that they want, but it won’t affect me. Other than scanning a few blogs and headlines for about two minutes a day, I avoid following election coverage and turn off the TV when the news turns to politics. The older I get, the less tolerant of the shallowness and stupidity of America’s political culture.

I can’t understand why anybody takes Kaus seriously anymore, but I enjoy Dreher’s blog and his longer articles, as well as his book; but I would advise that he won’t find the Permanent Things while rifling through the Silky Pony’s panties.