John Edwards' marriage, personal life, and relationship with the Creator are absolutely none of my business...provided that he remain a private citizen.
If he wants to run for President, however, that's a different story.
If he's going to lecture the country about morals, judgement, trust, and his family values, the 2007 Father of the Year has to walk the walk.
Also, as I've written about before on this blog, he also ought to not engage in any activities that could be used against him a blackmail-type scenario. Things that are out in the open -- McCain's past marital indiscretions, Obama's cocaine experimentation, etc. are rightly taken off the table from that perspective because they're, well...out in the open. Also, they didn't happen at a time when either man was considering a job that could mean his hands on the nuclear briefcase.
If I had the chance, I'd tell John Edwards to just spare me the anguish about how no one can beat himself up worse than he has done to himself, how he was a victim of an arrogance fed by others, etc. I just see it much the same way I saw the whole Eliot Spitzer thing.
John Edwards: Don't go away mad. Just go away.
3 comments:
um, last I checked the candidates list it would appear he already has... My question, at this late date and hour, and observing that none of this is news to his family, is why it has to be news anymore to us. (He doesn't now, nor hasn't for four years, held elected office, and his presidential bid ended more than six months ago). Given none other than his wife has pleaded for privacy, I'm most embarrassed that she can't get it because of everybody's posthumous and completely misplaced outrage. I'm all for pursuing the $114,000 paid for web videos nobody can locate, because that's campaign finance fraud. But the private and personal stuff? That's the Inquirer at its worst, and we've sunk to that level if we repeat it.
Just my 2 cents...
In the interest of what I *DO* think is news, as opposed to what I find deeply and personally offensive that it would appear in our tabloid-esque national press, here's a link to the Huffington Post story about the questionable campaign spending:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/26/edwards-mystery-innocuous_n_66070.html
Why is this not the news instead? Why are we all about the "moral outrage" and how this situation differs from the excused infidelities of one remaining presidential candidate, not to mention the extra-curricular drug usage of another, and not re-reading the history of things like the Keating Five and the largest financial fraud in this nation's history, and who might have been party to it.
Kad barma,
I agree with your overall sentiment that there are many issues more scandalous and pertinent to our interests than the sexual affairs of John Edwards, or any particular candidate. That said, I think the really important issues should receive really serious attention, but stories like this should still be told.
Here’s why: candidates like John Edwards make their personal life—their story—part of their campaigns. They brand themselves as such. Candidates from both sides of the aisle use their personal lives to court support.
John Edwards has not exploited or abused the illness of his wife or the death of his teenage son in a cheap or callous way, but he has cited both tragedies as transformative events in his own public life. Furthermore, Elizabeth Edwards has been more than a campaign staffer—she has been a testament to her husband’s character . For politicians, or anyone in public life, character cannot be a private matter. Since he has relied on Elizabeth’s presence to affirm certain of his vote-garnering qualities, he must then expect people to want to believe the “story”.
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