There isn’t much good that can come out of the sordid infidelity Trifecta of John Edwards, Tiger Woods, and Jesse James, but maybe there will be this: Perhaps after the public has observed and measured all the pain and suffering the outrageous conduct of these three men has inflicted on innocent third parties, especially those who depended on them and trusted them, it will not be so quick to accept the facile argument, perfected during Bill Clinton’s ordeals, that adultery is “just sex.”

The latest flagrant celebrity dog, Jesse James, is an especially powerful case for leaving the Clinton Excuse with Clinton. He had a wife who clearly adored him, the late-marrying Sandra Bullock, who touchingly paid a tribute to her supposedly devoted husband in one of her several Best Actress acceptance speeches this year by saying that she knew he “had her back.” Now tattoo models and strippers are coming out of the woodwork to say they had affairs with the chopper-maker, and the revelations may end up sending his six-year old daughter back to her porn star mother, though James and Bullock had been awarded custody.

Destroy a family, devastate the woman who loves you, uproot your child. But hey, it’s only sex.

Adultery causes real, tangible damage to people and lives. Few things are wrong in so many ways: a violation of trust, a breach of loyalty, a failure of fairness and respect, a broken oath, a trail of lies, an irresponsible act, cruelty, selfishness, and, naturally, a rejection of the Golden Rule. The “everybody does it/it’s just sex/men are like that/who are we to judge” mantra has been emboldening cheaters like Edwards, Woods and James for centuries., and it is long overdue to call their conduct what it is: the worst sort of betrayal, the betrayal of those who have built their lives around them.

We can’t stop them, that is more than clear. But at least we should stop pretending that they are better than they are, and make sure they know it.

[And while we are at it, can we make a cultural rule that we will not reward the media for making celebrities out of the “other women”? Rielle Hunter’s GQ spread was revolting enough, thanks; spare us the star treatment for “Bombshell” McGee, the first Jesse James playmate to surface. Perhaps when there’s no money and reality show exposure to be gotten from having a marriage-killing fling with an adulterous celebrity, the groupies will be less eager. Well, probably not.]