John Edwards hits the speaking circuit: Can he repair his image?

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) is hitting the speaking circuit in June, just a year after his campaign corruption trial. Edwards was acquitted on one count of campaign finance fraud, but the jury deadlocked on several other charges related to his alleged use of campaign money to hide an extramarital affair — and his mistress' pregnancy — during his run for the presidency in 2008. Edwards has kept a low profile since the trial. Is this the beginning of his public comeback?

It's just one speaking gig — he is scheduled to appear June 6 at a private retreat in Orlando, Fla., for lawyers who are clients of the marketing firm PMP. But there's another sign that Edwards is slowly emerging from his self-imposed exile: A records check by the Associated Press found that Edwards had reactivated his license to practice law with the North Carolina State Bar. It had been inactive for more than a decade.

Sexually tinged scandals used to spell political death, but recent comebacks have led some commentators to at least entertain the possibility that Edwards could return to the spotlight.

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"Mark Sanford is now a member of Congress two years after he stepped down as governor of South Carolina following a highly publicized extramarital affair," says Ben Wolfgang at The Washington Times. "Anthony Weiner appears poised to run for New York City mayor not even two years after scandalous photos of the ex-representative hit Twitter." So we shouldn't be surprised, Wolfgang says, that the similarly disgraced Edwards "is plotting his own comeback."

There is also the question of whether the public will have him back. Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly says Edwards may have agreed to this one speaking engagement — so far, he doesn't appear to have any others lined up — simply because he needs the money after all his legal troubles. "You do have to wonder, though..." Kilgore says, "if there's some slight glimmer of hope in the Son of a Mill Worker’s mind of becoming the ultimate Comeback Kid and resuming a public, if not political, life."

Some people, however, think Edwards is beginning a determined effort at rehabilitation — and predict it will pay off for him, whether he deserves it or not. Mary Katherine Ham at Hot Air finds the prospect as inevitable as it is distasteful. "This guy. Go try to make things up with your children and leave everyone else alone," she says. "I guess they're counting on him being a draw, but yuck, why have him speak?"