Johnny, we know too much of you
CNN, in a story two days ago about our adulterous former senator, posed this question: “Can John Edwards make a comeback?” I’ll respond with a question of my own: What have we done to make him think he should even try?
After three months in self-imposed exile, Edwards made his first post-scandal public appearance this week, speaking to students at Indiana University on Tuesday. CNN reported that he’s scheduled to make two other appearances within the next few days. Clearly, Edwards believes that serving a 90-day sentence of hanging around his house and enduring his wife’s glares is sufficient punishment for his fling with a campaign videographer. He’s ready to get out and start talking about the two Americas again.
Problem is, we’re one America now — a country united in our collective loathing for Edwards, who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife (while running for president!), lied about the affair when asked about it, employed lawyerly evasions when confronted with the hush money paid to both his paramour and the man who conveniently announced that he was the father of her newborn child, and generally conducted himself in a despicable and loathsome manner.
Even his own former staffers think Edwards should stay out of sight. As CNN explained:
“I wish he would keep himself locked in a cave for a year,” a former senior staffer to Edwards’ campaign said. “The best strategy he could adopt right now is to stay below the radar and just be quiet and let people move on.”
There was a time when disgraced people took honest stabs at rehabilitation. They spent a decade working in the Congo, for instance, or moved to the inner city to help improve the lives of others. Those things were done quietly and privately, not for the sake of public approval but as a simple effort to recover their self-respect.
What they didn’t do was pop back up almost immediately and implicitly announce, “OK, I’m back! That disgrace thing? C’mon, that was sooo three months ago.”
Go back home, John. You’re not that vital to the national conversation. You’re just a sleazy guy whose sense of self-importance has overwhelmed your sense of decency — or what little bit of it you ever had.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:19 am
I don’t agree with the primary thrust of your post. Actually, I do agree that Edwards “conducted himself in a despicable and loathsome manner”. Yes, three months is too short, but I think John Edwards has strengths and can contribute positively to the nation’s discussion. We absolutely do have two Americas, and though our recent election has shown promise, we are not, yet, together. John Edwards can contribute toward the eliminating the divide.
I’m still angry at him for what he has done to Elizabeth, and to the national discussion, but I’m willing to forgive, because it’s both the right thing to do and because I think we need everybody we can get to help us grow together.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:21 am
AMEN. Couldn’t have said it better myself
November 13th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Setting aside the question as to whether or not John Edwards should bother being out there at all, it doesn’t much matter in terms of John Edward’s narrative whether he goes back onto the stage now or in 9 months. People may forget the affair, but our cultural memory will be restored whenever he hits the limelight again: after how much he sold the story of his familial relationship through his wife’s illness, his act of cheating on her is simply too dramatic a fall to be washed away by time.
From a cynical standpoint, it’s tacky and distracting to come onto the collective stage while the nation is holding its breath to see what kind of person we elected in Obama. But maybe that was his plan — hit the stage again while other, bigger, more notable politicians had stolen the show.
November 13th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Did anyone else hear that he has moved out of the family home and that Elizabeth no longer wears a wedding ring?
November 13th, 2008 at 11:04 am
“Did anyone else hear that he has moved out of the family home and that Elizabeth no longer wears a wedding ring?”
Who gives a flying fig?
This is a nauseating thread in response to Dan’s post.
Are people really this dumb?
Or gullible?
Dan hit all the right points and he also speaks for most of the country—as well as most inside the Demo Party—that John Edwards is an inauthentic ambulance-chaser, of which there are already a multitude, and his exit from the stage would have been welcome even if he hadn’t produced a bun in the oven on the side and embarrassed himself.
By the way, producing that aforementioned bun might just be the only authentic thing Edwards has produced in quite some time.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I don’t think Elizabeth is “glaring” at him as mutual friends told me she kicked his sorry ass out. As to the earlier posts, why should we “forgive” him when he has never apologized publicly, admitted his “true” transgressions and oh yea … asked for forgiveness? Because he’s a lawyer who splits hairs, parses his words and has fellow sleazebags who’ve been doign his bididng for him. If you want somebody to forgive, why not identify a poor soul who truly has done worthwhile things and not some egocentric, lying philanderer with overblown political ambitions.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am
And don’t insult other women by continuing to play Elizabeth Edwards as a “victim”.
She is just another self-serving, phony opportunist who tried to cover for her husband’s private life ’til the end—which is the antithesis of the “family man” image that both tried to perpetrate on the public—in order to place herself in a position of power.
Elizabeth Edwards knew about this affair since 2006.
She showed up on every talk show with that sick smile and self-righteous attitude where she was allowed to spew any left-wing logorrhea she chose.
She attacked other women—Hillary, Lynn Cheney’s relationship with her lesbian daughter, and anyone else who criticized that bean-headed fraud she married.
We all wish Mrs. Edwards good health, but we also wish that she and her family would discontinue using her health as a political tool.
Millions of women are afflicted with the dreaded disease, cancer.
And so many do not have adequate health insurance, or none at all.
Elizabeth Edwards can rest easy with the untold millions her husband has brought to their marriage by running good doctors out of business with his pure dishonesty and shenanigans in the courtroom.
Uneducated and ignorant NC juries were swayed by the show put on by this dressed-up hick.
As a result, women in this country must pay much more for their health care. Doctors’ fees have gone through the roof in order to cover their skyrocketing insurance premiums to stay in business.
All this is a result of people like John Edwards.
Tort reform, anyone?
November 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am
That slimy cretin keeps workin’ it.
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1292776.html
Today, he’s relying on Karl Rove….someone he railed against earlier.
LOL!!!
Edwards must now crawl onto any stage that will have him.
ROTFLM-T’s-O !!!
November 13th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I don’t think she knew about the affair. She appears to me to be a pretty decent and strong woman who wouldn’t go through the motions of a campaign knowing what would happen if the truth came out.
I saw a picture of her the other day speaking at an event and she was not wearing her wedding ring. If she kicked him out, good for her.
I just feel bad for the kids.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
come on debrah, how do you REALLY feel?
don’t hold anything back….
November 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Elizabeth Edwards admitted that she had been told about the goofy Hunter woman back in 2006.
She has changed her story every time she thought it would help them politically.
Edwards’ former campaign manager David Bonior can tell you the real story.
He was sickened by both John and Elizabeth Edwards and the danger in which they put the Democratic Party.
The way they used donors.
The way they used trusting volunteers.
And you guys worry about Elizabeth Edwards?
She’s a fraud who will use her illness so that the hard questions of her true character will not be raised.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Debrah - lets step back and look at Elizabeth Edwards as a human being, not this evil political figure as you see her. She had cancer - it left - and came back. All the while, your husband is cheating on you and may or may not have a child with another woman. Sounds to me like she deserves a little sympathy.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Meghan–
Rest assured, Elizabeth Edwards has had sympathy.
Her condition simply does not mitigate the fact that she has very little character…….(when she thinks no one is looking).
If a bank robber has pancreatic cancer, you can most certainly feel sorry for him and hope for good health for him—as you would any human being.
But, fundamentally, he’s still a garden-variety bank robber whose choice of actions must be acknowledged.
Elizabeth Edwards’ self-serving and systematically planned dishonesty is there for the world to see.
Just as their former campaign manager David Bonior openly acknowledged.
Illness absolves none of us of bad behavior.
Lastly, lots of small children as well as teens and college-age youth have the bad behavior of parents to deal with.
The Edwards’ offspring do not need, nor do they deserve, any special sympathy.
Look at it this way, they will have their private schools and that big, pieced-together, overloaded “compound” outside Chapel Hill in which to find comfort.
Feel sorry for these urchins?
Please.