John Edwards: All I have to say
This will be the only post I write about John and Elizabeth Edwards. I am writing it in response to the frenzy in the press, the judgment I see pouring forth everywhere (including my own earlier on Twitter), and to express what I see as the point of view less expressed but which is still part of the dialogue. Or should be.
Not one of us knows what goes on in anyone else’s marriage, much less in their head. But this whole sordid story is not as simple as the narrative being played around the blogs and broadcasts. Like everything else, there are complexities, nuances, backstories we can only guess at but not know.
It’s easy to say that he was an idiot who risked much – too much, perhaps -for some whispers in the dark and a roll in the hay, even a few rolls. Easy and yet maybe unfair.
The argument against Edwards goes something like this: he lied, therefore he can be expected to be corrupt, indeed he is corrupt simply because of the fact of the lie. That’s a myth of the righteous and the naive. Fact: politicians screw around all the time and still remain passionate about their causes (and are effective,too).
My initial sympathies were with Elizabeth, but as the story has emerged, I have sympathy mingled with disappointment for both of them.
At the time this all happened, Edwards had just come through a whole maelstrom of turmoil. It wasn’t that far off from the 2004 election, Elizabeth emerging from her cancer diagnosis and treatment, he had left the Senate, and still had a real desire to accomplish something lasting in areas he cared about.
Look, take some pol-sized ego, a bunch of adoring fans, and mix that with pressure, the need to always have one’s life under glass, a family looking to you for strength and support and it’s a sure-fire mixture for the need to escape somewhere – into a bottle, willing arms, pills…whatever the vehicle, it’s still about escaping for just awhile.
We might wish he’d found another way to escape, we might wish he’d jumped into a bottle rather than a bed, but until we have walked in his shoes it might be best to withhold judgment. On all parties, because we are as much at fault for our disappointment as he is for his affair.
We’re responsible because we expect infallibility from them. John McCain may be the only pol I’ve seen that has gotten a pass on the infidelity indictment from the voting and reporting public. Otherwise our elected officials start on a pedestal and wait to be knocked off.
Edwards didn’t hold himself out to be perfect, just passionate about health care and poverty. We somehow take these people and try to deify them as if there is some magical connection between being perfect and passionate despite the likelihood that passion is most often connected with flaws and humanity, messy as it is.
All those words to say this: Edwards’ choice is destructive to his cause because we, the people, expected more from him than we do ourselves. We may not commit adultery, but all of us slouch through life with our own flaws, secret escape hatches, and failings. Quite often those flaws are far more destructive to the fiber of our society than the urge of a man to steal a few minutes away from being under the beam of finely-tuned superhuman expectations.
It takes a certain type of person to stand in front of a group and argue his or her fitness to make policy, to lead, and to take on the business of trying to make the world a better place through the political process. The sooner we understand that those people will prove themselves as human as the next guy, the better.
What frustrates me most about this so-called scandal is the distraction it creates from the real immorality rampant in our government today.
Did you know that so-called violent detainees were put into casket-like crates as part of their interrogation? Did you know that DOJ documents released last year and augmented recently prove that the Bush Administration intentionally corrupted and politicized our justice system?
No, you heard that John Edwards got in bed with someone who wasn’t Elizabeth and screwed himself silly and then dared to try not to have that news be public. How downright rude of him. How immoral. Really?