The public's right to know?

Sixteen years ago, I was took part in a Knight Center seminar on the business of sports at the University of Maryland's campus. One of the seminar's participants was tennis great Arthur Ashe, and he came to speak to us about what he found so appealling about Proposition 48, the controversial piece of NCAA legislation that largely tied admittance to college athletes to their performance on standardized tests.
Let me say parenthetically that I consider Arthur Ashe one of the great and heroic figures in modern athletics, but he and I couldn't have disagreed more on the topic, and I let him know both things afterwards. We had a spirited debate that would have gone on for longer than the 15 or so minutes it went on, except he had to leave to catch a flight.
In the process of leaving, Arthur dropped a bottle of medication. After he left, he called back to inquire if it had been found. It was, and the bottle was eventually returned. We learned a few months later during a press conference that he was an AIDS sufferer. Ashe was forced to call that press conference because a reporter had discovered his condition and was preparing to go public.
Now, it's possible that the medication Ashe left behind in that Maryland classroom was a part of the cocktail of drugs that many AIDS patients take each day, and to think, he left it in a room populated with journalists. I felt at the time of the press conference and still believe now that Arthur Ashe's medical condition was no one's business and if I had found the bottle, I would have returned it with no questions asked.
I say all that to wonder about the ethicacy of the quiet smear campaign that is going on about the possibility of former vice presidential candidate and two-time presidential aspirant John Edwards being the father of the baby of one of his campaign aides.
While I have some interest in the topic, strictly for its gossip value, I just don't see where this is anyone's concern, outside the people involved. Edwards is no longer a presidential candidate, and, as far as we know, is not under consideration to be Barack Obama's running mate.
Sorry, but having "former United States senator, former presidential candidate and former vice presidential candidate" serves as the welcome mat to protrude into a man's life, not to mention prying into the life of the mother, the life of the child and those of Edwards' wife, Elizabeth and their children.
But what do I know?