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If scandal were an Olympic event, the John Edwards version would be a decathlon. Rarely does a story have so many moving parts, and we may be learning more about parts of this one for some time to come.

We are sinners, each of us, but very few of us run for president while actively engaged in the cover-up of a still-smoldering adulterous affair, during which we might well have fathered an out-of-wedlock child and used campaign funds as hush money. Extra points for cheating on a widely popular, cancer-stricken wife, who got dragged into the mire when it turned out she knew about the affair during the campaign.

When Edwards copped to "a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe you can do whatever you want," he was being more than 99 percent honest, to use his own newly coined metric.

Do I sound bitter? I am a little bitter.

I'm angry at the hubris, stunned at the stupidity and hurt for Elizabeth Edwards, who I like and admire. I'm embarrassed as a North Carolinian and horrified to think what might have happened if Edwards had won the nomination. And I wasn't even a supporter of his presidential run.

If you want real, personal lamentation, head over to the Blue NC Web site, a hotbed of Edwards fans. People there use words like "betrayed" and "swindled."

John Edwards did some good things during his career in public life, starting with the removal of Lauch Faircloth from the Senate, even if he didn't do much once he got there himself. I admire him for not pulling up the ladder when he made his fortune; his focus on poverty was a welcome change in a wealth-worshipping culture. And the economic populism with which he helped inspire a wishy-washy Democratic Party may prove to be his most important legacy.

All of that is now overshadowed by the mess he's made. He's a relatively young man, maybe some form of redemption awaits in the future. Once the lingering questions about paternity and payoffs are answered, of course.

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The press has taken a beating over its reporting, or lack thereof, on the Edwards affair. Some of the criticism is justified. Where was the curiosity about the original report of an affair, which broke last year, and the unusual details of Rielle Hunter's business arrangement with the campaign? Various news outlets have come forward to say they were investigating the story when Edwards finally fessed up, but that was late in the game. But the media criticism includes an element of partisan warfare, with the familiar bogeyman of the liberal media (yes, that would be the same New York Times that rah-rahed us into Iraq, but let's not get stuck on details) blamed for protecting Edwards out of political sympathy.

It's hard to believe that a press corps that thrives on scandal and lapped up stories about John Edwards' expensive haircut just gave the guy a pass. Maybe a degree of sympathy for Elizabeth stayed their hands, but that, too, seems out of character. Whatever the reasons for the failure, a failure it was.

And some of the analysis is just muddled, like the Los Angeles Times piece by Tim Rutten that proclaims "an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism," as if Drudge hadn't broken the story of the blue dress a decade ago, and the major papers are going to start running National Enquirer stories as wire copy. (Maybe they'll go back to the lawsuit the Enquirer settled over false allegations that Ted Kennedy had fathered a child out of wedlock, or pick up the 2005 Enquirer gem about George W. Bush drinking again. Sample copy: "His worried wife yelled at him: 'Stop, George.' ")

Newspapers were right to move slowly on the recent Enquirer reports, especially when the tabloid dragged its feet on releasing corroborating evidence. The Enquirer does break some stories, but it also violates a basic rule of reporting by paying sources for information, which it did in this instance.

Think about the disastrous rush to judgment in another North Carolina story, the fraudulent charges against the Duke lacrosse team, and a degree of caution makes sense.

That's not to say that the rules for press coverage haven't shifted, just that it's not time to abandon the principles that led to those rules in the first place. What was the appropriate moment to report on the allegations? Once the story seeped into popular culture via blogs and late-night television and became news unto itself, without credible and specific pushback from Edwards, the veil began to lift, and ultimately Edwards was forced to make his confession. We should have found out about the affair last year. Barring that, it was worth waiting a couple of extra weeks to get the story right.

Edward Cone (www.edcone.com, efcone@mindspring.com) writes a column for the News & Record alternate Sundays.