Edwards Tells Barbara Walters: "I'm Far Too Handsome For Just One Woman"

In an exclusive, hastily arranged interview to air Sunday night, former Presidential candidate John Edwards told Barbara Walters that he was "too handsome for just one woman" and that there were "political motivations, and not just pure lust," behind his 2006 affair.

Edwards, 56, explained that as President, he would be subjected to intense temptations as "the most powerful, and potent, man in the land." His affair with a 44-year-old videographer was intended as a "trial run. I'm a trial lawyer, and I always rehearse important moments in trials before I go to court. This was in the same category."

Edwards said that he had gotten the idea for the affair from former President Bill Clinton, who had advised Edwards to practice "pick-up lines, making hotel reservations under different names, escaping from Secret Service minders, and making up stories about working late to tell the little woman, before I got into office, so I'd be prepared for the sex-related pressures of being leader of the Free World."

Edwards said that he had never intended to have an affair "because affairs are wrong, although many presidents, including Bill, of course, and Jack Kennedy, and Abraham Lincoln were famous for their infidelities that coincided with their term in office."

When pressed by Walters for specifics regarding Lincoln's alleged affairs, Edwards admitted "I don't have all the facts. But the reality is that Americans do not want a President who needs on the job training in any aspect of the job, and that includes having and denying affairs. My sole purpose in the extramarital relationship I had was to be ready to hit the ground running, and also various mattresses around Washington, too."

Edwards said that he felt remorse because he had not come up with a good cover line when the National Inquirer broke the story.

"Bill's line," Edwards explained, "about how 'I did not have sex with that woman' was a lawyerly masterpiece, and I wasn't ready with my own. I was thinking about 'I never laid eyes, or anything else on that woman' or 'Who are you going to believe, me or that lyin' blogosphere?' But the best I could come up with, of course, was, 'Yeah, I did it.' Lame, huh?"

Edwards also acknowledged that he was "far too handsome for just one woman," a statement with which Walters demonstrated her agreement by surreptitiously handing the former Senator her hotel room key, a pair of panties from the mid-1970s, and a love note/letter of recommendation from former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke.