An attractive single woman friend of mine quipped over a glass of wine the other night that she was upset about John Edwards' cheating heart for two reasons: "On the one hand, it's horribly disappointing that he's that kind of man," she said, "but on the other hand, I'm upset because all this time I didn't know he was available."

Awful, but funny, right?

Such is our "love/hate/really hate because of what he did to Elizabeth" relationship with John Edwards, my former U.S. senator whose boyish good looks and earnest anti-poverty speeches were as refreshingly intoxicating as a limoncello mojito.

Which they drink a lot in Beverly Hills. Where John Edwards can visit his former mistress and their possible love baby if the "National Enquirer" can be believed. Which it can.

Face it, mainstream media, y'all blew it. You snoozed and loozed and now we realize that the political scandal of the year, if not the decade, was broken by the same supermarket tabloid that shares the news this week that Barack Obama's stepmother yearns to communicate with the ghost of Elvis AND, doing the math here, that exercise addict Kelly Ripa now officially weighs less than my left thigh.

Time was, I wouldn't have believed anything in the "Enquirer." Sure, it was fun to read; who can honestly resist a good story about a child who is born half boy and half bat or some such? No one, that's who.

But, exposing my former favorite millworker's son as a womanizer bedding a rather horse-faced hoochie while his wife battled cancer has changed all that.

Now, I am, to use poker parlance, ALL IN with the "National Enquirer."

Sure, they pay their sources and their sources are often anonymous and perhaps spend their days walking behind stolen shopping carts and believing that they're Elvis (settle down there, Mama Bama).

This time, the nut was Edwards, who must still be pulling out the very $400 hairdo that I defended to the point of exhaustion a mere year or two ago, and wondering how the heck his 44-year-old girlfriend ended up pregnant.

I mean, I know HOW, it's just that, don't you imagine Edwards thought that was one thing he didn't have to worry about? ("She said she was 40, she looked like she was 48 …")

So now the "Enquirer" says Edwards has dispatched hoochie and baby to a "secret location" via private jet. On whose dime is another question. Having donated to Edwards' various campaigns over the years -- I ate that "two America's" stuff up like it was a loaded baked potato at Outback -- I want to make sure my money isn't involved in this sordid business. Who will find out for sure? Who else? The newspaper with the ads for "removing evil spirit curses" in the back. I repeat: ALL IN.