In the age of reality television, watching someone squirm with embarrassment is as much of a national past time as baseball once was. And in the simultaneous age of bitter partisan politics, politics can often mirror television.

That brings me to the trial of former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards — which began in Greensboro, N.C., on Monday.

Edwards is charged with conspiracy, making false statements and four counts of receiving illegal campaign contributions.

The allegations come from Edwards’ failed 2008 presidential campaign when he allegedly used illegal campaign contributions — totalling almost $1 million — to cover up an extramarital affair that he carried on with a campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter.

The affair with Hunter produced a child in February 2008 and the National Enquirer ran photographs of Edwards holding his illegitimate daughter in July of that same year.

To make things worse, Edwards’ wife Elizabeth was (very publicly) battling cancer throughout the whole ordeal. She passed away on December 7, 2010.

I was a fan and supporter of John Edwards from the first time he ran for president in 2004.

I always liked his message of “Two Americas,” one where the more affluent people live and one where the working poor and middle class scrape by.

I still wish that someone would take up that platform as a mantle. I would love for our country to have an actual discussion about the differences in the living conditions of the residents of those two Americas, and what our unwillingness to lift each other up implies about America’s overall social conscious.

Ah, but that is just a dream, because this is 21st century politics, and who someone is sleeping with (or trying to sleep with) is more important than actual ideas and solutions for America’s problems. As a former supporter, I read Andrew Young’s book about the Edwards affair, titled “The Politician.”

As one of Edwards’ most trusted aides, Young was at the epicenter of the storm when Hurricane Rielle blew through North Carolina.

In fact, when the news that Hunter had given birth broke in the media, it was Young — who is married with children of his own — jumped on John Edwards’ grenade and claimed paternity of Hunter’s baby.

That was, of course, before he changed his mind and wrote a tell-all-book about the Edwards/Hunter affair.

Edwards maintains that the money he spent to cover up his affair with Hunter was not campaign contributions, but monetary gifts from personal friends, made to him, not his presidential campaign.

Young is expected to be the key witness in the Edwards trial and in today’s political climate I will not be surprised if Edwards is sentenced to serve jail time for this.

But why? Who benefits from John Edwards going to jail?

I’ll tell you who definitely does not benefit from a possible Edwards’ conviction: his two young children, Jack, 11, and Emma Claire, 13.

These children just lost their mother to cancer a little over a year ago; it doesn’t seem right to me to now take away their father, too, even if he is found to be guilty on all charges.

If John Edwards did in fact commit the crimes he is charged with, hasn’t he already been punished through the embarrassment of his fall from grace in the public eye? The fall took him from the heights of being a potential vice president of the United States to the cover of the National Enquirer and caused him to lose all credibility on anything political or otherwise.

Most of the time I am the first one to advocate for not letting rich hucksters off with a slap on the wrist, but in this case I think it makes the most sense.

Force him to pay back the money, if convicted, and let him go home to his children.

Why should they be punished for Edwards’ lack of judgment?

All they are doing now is trying to humiliate Edwards even further, for the sake of political grandstanding and watching him squirm.

And isn’t that what reality television is for?

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