John Edwards’ Future: Reality TV Awaits
It’s a shame that William Shatner existed. If he hadn’t so thoroughly inhabited the character of Denny Crane, the vain, arrogant lawyer with an equal fondness for women and impropriety on TV’s Boston Legal a few years back, then there might have been some space now upon the prime-time landscape for John Edwards.
Still, Edwards, now that he’s acquitted on one charge and unlikely to face a retrial on the others, is going to have to do something. While F. Scott Fitzgerald’s assertion about American lives lacking second acts is still frequently quoted, we also know that modern life (and cable television) has disproved it. Indeed, Edwards has been so extensively humiliated that his only option may lie in that programming desert between TLC and E! The man who once was viewed as an heir to Bill Clinton now holds more pop-cult symmetry with Britney Spears. He may want to consider ditching Rielle to marry himself a Kardashian.
Politics, of course, is a non-starter. Not only will Edwards never again seek public office, no one would be surprised if the entire Democratic Party sought a restraining order to keep him at least 500 yards away from any candidate. Nor is the Edwards brand likely to hold much sway in the nonprofit world or philanthropy, even if his sustained legal battle has likely made the one-time rainmaker more familiar with income inequality than he ever was when he was a major league trial lawyer. It’s doubtful he could even find work as a talking head on a cable news channel, unless he wants to flip his polarity and become an Obama-bashing Republican. (That actually would be sneakily brilliant, which means Edwards has already thought of it.)