The prosecution has rested in a case that should never have been brought: the ghastly soap opera better known as the criminal trial of John Edwards. The testimony has been salacious, mesmerizing and revolting. Edwards has been proved to be what everyone already knew beyond a reasonable doubt: an egocentric cad. How big a cad? He let his daughter testify about his love for her late mother.
But a criminal? Nothing in the evidence so far has shaken my view that this case is an unfortunate instance of prosecutorial indiscretion.
Edwards' financial backers provided money for his mistress, Rielle Hunter; the cash served the dual role of keeping the affair hidden from Edwards' wife and maintaining the candidate's political viability.
It is possible to shoehorn this conduct into a violation of the campaign finance laws. First, the money was not disclosed as a campaign contribution - although, Catch-22, if it had been reported as such, it would have been illegal because it was used for an improper, noncampaign purpose.
Yet what is the larger goal served by prosecuting Edwards? Retribution? His career is in ruins. To keep future straying pols from misusing campaign funds? Surely that deterrent effect has been already applied - by the National Enquirer.
The irony - tragedy? - of this misapplication of government resources is heightened by an unsettling coincidence: Even as Edwards faces prison for taking outsized campaign contributions, such mega-donations have become the central feature of the 2012 presidential campaign.
Smart election lawyers seized on court rulings to create a dangerous creature known as a candidate-specific super PAC. This vehicle allows a politician's most ardent, and deep-pocketed, supporters to spend unlimited amounts in supposedly independent expenditures.
Thus, Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, could openly spend $20 million to try to help Newt Gingrich become president. Indeed, Gingrich, in withdrawing from the race, went out of his way to thank Adelson.
It's hard to imagine a more vivid illustration of the potentially corrupting influence of these mega-donors.
"We will not permit candidates for high office to abuse their special ability to access the coffers of their political supporters to circumvent our election laws," Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer said when the Edwards indictment was issued last year.
Noble sentiments, but hard to square with the squalid new reality of candidate-specific super PACs, which exist for the very purpose of letting candidates "access the coffers" of political supporters "to circumvent our election laws."
These are entities run by the candidates' former top advisers, blessed by the candidates and - as Gingrich outlined - essential to the candidates' political fortunes. President Obama sends his top campaign and White House officials to help his - oops, I mean, the independent - super PAC raise money for the re-election campaign. Mitt Romney does the same.
So this is what enforcement of campaign finance laws has come to in 2012: In a courtroom in North Carolina, jurors hear harrowing testimony about Elizabeth Edwards' deathbed fears.
Meanwhile in Washington, the real threat to "the integrity of democratic elections" that Breuer cited in going after Edwards grows unchecked. The Supreme Court opened the door to this flood of campaign cash.
The entities that could close it are hamstrung and unmotivated. Congress has no appetite for fixing the law. Something is very wrong with this picture.
Email Ruth Marcus at ruthmarcus@washpost.com
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