I find it unnerving that a man this reckless, this self-indulgent, this irretrievably stupid came within a thousand miles of occupying the White House. Imagine if Ohio had gone blue in 2004. If being a failed VP candidate turned Edwards into a narcissistic fool, what would winning have done to him?

After reading Weiss’s report, it’s hard not to flash from the ring’s $1,000 an hour basic service—prices went up from there—to the $400 haircut. Wwe once thought indulgence captured the candidate’s habit of treating his presidential odyssey as a gaudy opportunity to gratify an overweening ego. It turned out that his hair was the least of it…

In Johnny Reid’s case, there also seems to be a bit of small-town-boy-can’t-handle-the-big-leagues at play. On the national stage, he went a little crazy and wound up damaging pretty much everyone around him.