Edwards
Posted by Thomas Nephew on August 16th, 2008
While I was on vacation last week, the Edwards extramarital affair story finally broke out into the open with Edwards admitting a 2006 relationship with one Rielle Hunter in a CBS interview. It may be better to be silent about the story and be thought a fool than to write about it and risk removing all doubt. But it seems to me more is at stake than just the political career of one flawed but also good and talented man. That’s because the grounds for his dismissal from the national scene, even by many progressives and liberals, diminish us at least as much as — perhaps more than — his own conduct diminished him.
What is apparently not at stake is the Edwards marriage, or the specter of John Edwards running off with a younger/richer/all of the above trophy wife once he got tired of the older model. Instead, Elizabeth Edwards says John told her of the affair, and that while that was painful, they are obviously still together.
What is also still not provably at stake is a child’s need for John Edwards to take responsibility for her as a father. While I can’t be sure, it seems to me Ms. Hunter’s refusal to allow the paternity testing John Edwards says he wants speaks fairly clearly about this angle of the story.
In the decent society many of us claim we would prefer, this would and should end our interest in the matter. At the most, we have some claim on wishing our candidates to keep their promises, and marriage promises are a clear example. But at bottom, those are promises to stay with one another “for better or for worse,” and John and Elizabeth have done so. Of the two scenarios (a) affair - reconciliation and (b) affair - breakup - wife replacement, I should think that even social conservatives would prefer the former — at least as long as we don’t call that “the Edwards model” and the alternative “the Giuliani/Gingrich/Hyde/McCain model.”
The question boils down to this: should an embarrassing episode from the past disqualify someone from running for higher office? At the Huffington Post, John Lumea (a writer I was not previously familiar with), got upwards of 6,000 visits in that site’s “OffTheBus” section for a piece arguing yes, it should. From the portentously titled “The John and Elizabeth Edwards Affair”:
It’s all very nice to wish that we Americans could be more “Euro” about the private lives of our politicians. I, too, wish that we did not believe that infidelities of the sort that Edwards and Clinton engaged in necessarily should have any bearing on our trust in — and on the effectiveness of — our public servants.
But that’s not the country we live in. [...]
…private is never entirely private in American politics — least of all, when it comes to sexual indiscretion.
That John and Elizabeth Edwards pretend, even now — even after Bill Clinton — that the real problem is that the United States is not France just adds insult to the injury they were all too willing to inflict on the country they proclaim to love.
It seems to me this kind of reasoning — far more than anything John or Elizabeth Edwards did to us — is the very working definition of hypocrisy: yes, between you and me, it shouldn’t matter, but it does matter, so they betrayed us. No, they didn’t. Something embarrassing that was none of our business became public, and like a bunch of idiots we took our lead from the National Enquirer that this signified moral failure and crippling scandal.
The real scandal — and one I suppose I’m prolonging in a tiny, tiny way with this piece — is that this story got so much attention in the first place. Betrayal? Bush’s betrayal of Americans in his deceitful case for the Iraq war, his deceitful approval of torture, and his deceitful warrantless wirtetaps are far worse. Obama’s 180 on the FISA Amendment Act was worse — it contradicts a clear pledge made to the electorate during the campaign, and it affects millions of Americans now and in the future. And yet here we are (or were, maybe the story is dying down) acting like John and Rielle’s 2006 affair was the gravest story on the domestic scene. Of course, making stuff our business that’s none of our business seems to have become the American way, from wiretapping and surveillance to Iraq to John and Rielle.
We get the democracy we deserve, as the saying goes. At times like this, that’s not a promise, it’s a threat. Is John Edwards finished? Yes, I suppose he’s probably finished. I just think it’s passing strange people on the left are joining in that verdict — and in crowing about it.
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UPDATE, 8/20: Ezra Klein writes “In partial defense of John — and Elizabeth — Edwards“, arguing that Edwards’s political drift to the left set up a lot of schadenfreude when the affair became public.
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August 19th, 2008 at 4:37 am
I wasn’t pissed at John Edwards for *having* the affair, but I was pissed at John AND Elizabeth Edwards for not *disclosing* the affair (and taking their lumps and whatever political consequences ensued) *before* they decided to press ahead with a presidential candidacy.
Regardless of whether the affair “should” matter to voters, the fact is that it *does* matter to a lot of voters, and the failure of the Edwards to disclose the affair publicly before John started his campaign is in my view tantamount to “voter fraud,” “contributor fraud, and “campaign volunteer fraud.”
The story also proved to me that Edwards is absolutely willing to look the public in the eye and lie his ass off. That’s not an attractive trait in a public servant. And his comment about how he was being “99% honest” had me rolling on the floor laughing.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I disagree. If they felt the story was over — no further effect on their marriage, and none of anybody else’s business — then it was. Turning your argument upside down, regardless of whether this kind of thing *does* matter to others, voters or otherwise, it *shouldn’t*, and it’s legitimate for anyone to make that the determining factor in their decision. The Edwardses were right to feel it’s their business and their business only. I might feel differently if the affair was ongoing, but as I tried to write, I think the matter is a proxy for John’s behavior in office mainly if he broke up the marriage over it, and/or if the child really is his.
I particularly question the eagerness of some Obama supporters (e.g.) to figuratively bury Edwards. By contrast, Obama’s 180 on the FISA Amendment Act was (a) on something he said during the campaign on (b) an issue of national importance really affecting millions of Americans for the worse that (c ) helped camouflage him as indistinguishable from other contenders at the time. I think it was distinctly worse.
Also not to quibble, and you’ll probably be able to cite chapter and verse on this, but I don’t know exactly when/where Edwards lied, unless you count by omission of stuff he felt wasn’t other people’s business. I think that’s what he meant by 99% — even if it was a singularly inept way of putting that.