Our colleague Rick Brookhiser made an observation, some months ago: When Eliot Spitzer fell, he fell hard. Barely a week after he resigned, he seemed something like dead — gone. As though he had never existed. And he was governor of New York — a rising star in the national Democratic party, a possible future president. (Would have been the first Jewish president.)

Anyway, I thought of this when having a conversation today about John Edwards. Two seconds ago, he was a very big deal. For heaven’s sake, he was the last Democratic vice-presidential nominee. And he now seems — a thousand years ago.