In defense of Elizabeth Edwards

[liberalpragmatist]

Many people are criticizing Elizabeth Edwards for (a) standing by John Edwards and campaigning alongside him during his presidential bid, and (b) dragging this whole affair into the public eye again.

I admit that I don't entirely agree with those decisions either, but I think it's worth considering a couple other perspectives.

Regarding (a), we don't know that she knew the whole story during the campaign. She said all John told her was that he had a one-night stand with Rielle Hunter. And as devastated as she was by that, I think it's understandable why she, ultimately, agreed to go through with the campaign with that understanding. Telling someone to drop out of a presidential campaign because of a one-night stand one year before is a very different prospect from telling someone to drop a presidential bid because of an ongoing, year-long affair that may have resulted in a child and lots of hush money. If it really HAD been a one-time thing, it's plausible that it could have been kept a private issue between the two of them. The truth was quite different.

As for why she's replaying this whole thing in the public eye, you can debate whether it's best for her children or her marriage, but keep in mind that Elizabeth has ALWAYS been an extremely public person. She has grieved in public, shared intimate details about her life, and has always had a reputation for being a no-holds barred type of person. Witness this profile of her from a couple years ago:

Elizabeth has such an affinity for bloggers because, temperamentally, she is just like one. For a political wife, she is unusually free with personal confessions. Since her husband ran for Senate in North Carolina in 1998, few of the family's most painful memories have remained sacred and private. We know that their son, Wade, died at 16 when a freak wind blew him off the road. We know that she had two more children, Emma Claire and Jack, at 48 and 50, respectively, after many IVF treatments. We know that she found a lump in her right breast in the shower, around the end of the last presidential campaign. We also know that she recently discovered her cancer had returned and spread to her bones when she and John were lying in bed; he put his head on her shoulder and "reached his arm over me to pull me close," she writes in her book, and then she winced and heard a pop--a fractured rib.

This stream of revelations has had an entirely different effect on both of their reputations. For Elizabeth, it's bolstered the voters' impressions that she is genuine, trustworthy, like a best girlfriend or even an Oprah figure, whose confessions of personal weakness only increase their admiration and awe. For John, it only seems to confirm suspicions that he is the slick trial lawyer adept at packaging pain and using it to his advantage. No matter how many times he puts on jeans and a work shirt, John Edwards can't shake his image as the "spoiled candidate who looks too good," as one middle-aged man confessed to Elizabeth at the house party in New Hampshire. The man later apologized to Elizabeth and explained that he'd only brought up the subject because he felt comfortable asking her anything. But this only raised the more important question: Is Elizabeth the perfect surrogate, or the person who makes it impossible to forget that her husband is the pretty one?

Link: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6cefa6aa-10fa-45a6-8fad-b80d70889c15

The article goes on to describe on she was very public with her grief over her son's death with her friends and even with perfect strangers. For her, this type of public grieving may be her way of dealing with it. And she may also feel that she can reach out to other women who have been in similar situations - cheating husbands, terminal illness, or, as is too often the case, both.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Elizabeth Who?

[ShortnFiery]

5. The wife who keeps putting herself in the spotlight to defend her cheating husband and

BLAME the mistress as a succubus.

No, she's no innocent and her 15 minutes of fame have run due course.

Is she still "on stage"? Someone get a hook ... PLEASE!?!

[Mike 03]

2. I agree and have defended her on these same grounds: PTSD, not knowing what was right,

and also, SHE DIDN'T DO THE BAD THING; her husband (who I was suckered into voting for in the primaries) did. It's like blaming Eliot Spitzer's wife for his infidelity.

In general, when someone finds out his or her partner has been unfaithful, in my experience at least, there is a fairly long period of disbelief and paralysis.

Plus, she's going through fucking cancer!

I'm with you.

I wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't angry at her; I was disgusted with her husband.

[ShortnFiery]

6. Yes, but instead of laying the blame where it belongs, these "wives" misogynistic blame

the other woman ... AS IF these "harlots" made their chaste husbands cheat on them. :crazy:

[Mike 03]

10. Oh, no, is that what she is doing? That wasn't why I had heard.

No, I agree with you 100%. The spouse who has been cheated upon should blame his or her spouse for the decision to cheat.

Absolutely.

But I believe the damaged spouse should be alloted some latitude in his or her interpretation of the disloyalty, because it is such a traumatic thing to lose a lover. It's been, what, two years since it happened?

That is nothing. It's hard to accept infidelity, for some people, ten years after the fact.

[ShortnFiery]

11. Well, you're thoughtful but NO, the celebrity wronged spouse should be mindful of all parties.

Nobody comes out "smelling like a rose" in this sordid little tale.

It's sad that Ms. Edwards wishes to foist herself into the spotlight once again.

I've had enough of their PERSONAL woes. :(

[WorseBeforeBetter]

12. Reille (or whatever the fuck her made-up name is) is to blame, along with...

Two-Thumbs-Up John Edwards. Why is this so difficult for people to grasp -- two to fucking tango?

I've been propositioned by married men, but the answer is always the same: "Not interested, I don't do sloppy seconds." I wouldn't want to screw over another woman, and wouldn't want it done to me.

There's something very wrong with what's-her-name: Edwards was married, married with children, and married to a woman with cancer. That's just fucking WRONG.

I don't like any of this played out in the spotlight...enough.

[knitter4democracy]

20. It's not like they're pure and saintly, though.

A woman who choses to have a relationship with a married man (who isn't in an open marriage) isn't exactly a candidate for sainthood. She knows that what she's doing is wrong and still chooses to do it.

I'm not all that happy with STBX's mistresses, but given that he's got a history of cheating more than once during our marriage (which I didn't know about until last fall), it's not like I blame them entirely. If it hadn't been those women, it would've been someone else, but the reality is, they still knew he was married and chose to have a relationship with him anyway. I wouldn't call them harlots, but I do think they deserve some blame.

[EFerrari]

23. It's not misogyny if the other women bears some blame as this one does.

[Sequoia]

7. One night !?!! No way.

What a liar he is. One night. "She told me I was hot, so what could I do but submit to her sultry ways."

[Mike 03]

9. Did I say something about "one night"? I actually don't know any details of the affair. NT

[Sequoia]

14. No you didn't, but I read that yesterday online.

"But honey, it was only one night, and, and I was drinking Kentucy bourbon and I had jet lag. And she was hot and soft...oops...shouldn't of said that!" (okay, I'm making up this conversation). When was the "ONE NIGHT" and when was the baby born?

[pleah]

3. K&R

[xchrom]

4. OMG -- REALLY? elizabeth is smart enough, rational enough

and goddamnit -- grown enough to make up her own fuckin mind.

some people should really really line up and kiss her ass shiny.

[rwheeler31]

8. I see what she is doing as confused, vengeful and sad.

This makes no sense on any level.

[FarCenter]

13. People take sex way too seriously

[stray cat]

17. and vows of fidelity not seriously enough

[knitter4democracy]

21. Having been cheated on, it's not about the sex.

It's about the trust and the myriad lies the cheater has had to tell to cover it up.

[Adelante]

15. Changing the sequence slightly

(a) standing by John Edwards

-No problem. This has all to do with their married life and nothing to do with me. There is a lot to be said for trying to keep a family together. I respect her decision just as I respected Hillary's.

(b) campaigning alongside him during his presidential bid

-There are simply no excuses for the deception they played on the voting public. None. Even if they made the bad decision to enter the race initially, that they did not drop out when her cancer recurred, when nobody on earth could have blamed them or connected it to the affair, is just stupefying. Elizabeth and John share responsibility for the scam they ran on the public.

(c) dragging this whole affair into the public eye again

-I think this was wrong. The whole shabby story had receded in the mists of time. Elizabeth could have left it there with dignity. I think this was extremely selfish given that there are children involved who may be haunted by this scandal throughout their lives. The past would still have existed, of course, it did happen, but having this public exhibition by their mother (or wife of the baby's father) gives it that much more high drama content. I hate that she did this. The only good I can see coming of it is if a paternity test proves one way or another that the baby is John's. Any child deserves that much.

[Diane R]

16. I thought the entire Oprah interview was all about twisting the knife in John's back...

...and I think John thought so, as well.

JE looked decided displeased when the interview began, and he excused himself to leave with the children. He looked furious when Oprah 'interviewed' him in the hallway, but covered it up with his slick political persona.

The most disgusting thing was that EE had the children present. They welcomed Oprah to the house and knew when they left the room with their father that their mom was going to talk about the 'family problem' for the enjoyment of a national audience. Why on earth would Elizabeth want to put her young children through that?

I think her need for revenge is so great, her anger so deep, her need for public sainthood so great, that she doesn't care who is colateral damage.

[Big Blue Marble]

18. I saw the same interview you did.

I interpreted it much differently. Except I agree with what what you said about JE. You are right on about that.

Firstly Elizabeth said during the interview that her kids know, as if they could have missed it.

I did not see a woman wanting revenge. I saw a woman who wants healing. She is a woman who does not yet understand
why this happened to her, but wants to understand. She is a woman who is facing her mortality head on and who must
sort all this out in that context.

There was nothing enjoyable about her interview. I found it moving and painful. She is as most women would be still in turmoil
about this family crisis even though she has worked to move on from it. I know that many women who had faced this
betrayal watched with special interest to see how a woman of her stature would deal with this.

Elizabeth Edwards is no saint. She is a real flesh and blood woman whom I do not always agree with but whom I hold in high regards.

[LiberalHeart]

19. That's exactly how I saw it, too.

[knitter4democracy]

22. He's an admitted narcissist, though.

He called himself one when he admitted it all. No narcissist is going to be okay with any of his/her failures or flaws being made public.

[SeattleGirl]

25. Excuse me, but I think that John didn't care about collateral damage.

He's the one who started this whole debacle.

Stop blaming Elizabeth so much.

I just hate it how women so often get the blame.

John could have and should have kept his damned zipper zipped.

The fact that he didn't is not Elizabeth's doing at all.

And I don't blame her a bit for being pissed.

I don't buy into the "good little woman" thing.

Do you think she should just sit on her feelings? Smile? Grin and bear it?

Fie! She is NOT to blame for his infidelity.

[Avalux]

24. Elizabeth's Edwards's need to write a book and do a dirty laundry tour makes me wonder...

I can't help but think she is doing it to keep John from ever having a political career again. Vengeance? Yep. Sad really, cause it only hurts the kids.

[tblue37]

26. I was an Edwards supporter until he dropped out, so perhaps I am more bitter than most.

But all I can think about is that if our hard work and money had actually gotten this guy nominated, then our chance at getting a Dem elected this time would have been completely scuttled.

He knew this, and, as much as I hate to say it, I am sure she knew this, too. I just can't believe that they were so willing to risk the whole country's well-being, as well as to abuse the trust of those who contributed time and money, just to give John his shot at the big time.

And a lot of us who sent money didn't have all that much to spare. I know I sent more than I could comfortably afford, and I am sure many tightened their belts even tighter than I did to help John Edwards' campaign.

She should have pushed him to drop out. She had it in her power to do that, I believe. Some things are way more important than personal ambition. Getting a Dem elected this time, and not taking advantage of supporters' time and money are a couple of those more important things.