On Edwards

by: Chris Bowers

Sat Aug 09, 2008 at 17:00


I don't have a single, overarching, coherent thought on the John Edwards situation, but I do have several smaller thoughts. I list them in the extended entry.
Chris Bowers :: On Edwards
On John Edwards:

  • Several people seem upset with Edwards because his decision to run for President despite the affair could have put the Democratic Party in a terrible position if he was the nominee. My feeling on that is that Edwards decision to have an affair between two runs for President is demonstrative of a lack of political ability that pretty much guarantees he would never have won the nomination. It wasn't a smart move, and poor political judgment like that can carry over into other areas of political decisions, too. He just wasn't a good enough politician to win the nomination, and so I don't think that is really a concern.

  • Some people are upset that bloggers like me would have supposedly jumped on Republicans in the event of a similar sex scandal, and so supposedly bloggers like me are hypocrites. To them, I say feel free to look through the 4,500 articles I have written at MyDD and Open Left. When you do, I am pretty sure you will see that they only sexual affairs I have written about with any disdain toward the accused are Mark Foley and Eliot Spitzer. The difference between those recent sex scandals and the other ones I have not written about are that Foley and Spitzer broke the law. Soliciting sex from minors when you have power over their employment is not just a question of ethics, it is illegal on multiple levels. The same thing goes with prostitution across state lines. What Edwards did, by contrast, isn't illegal.

  • Sex involving two consenting adults is none of my business. If it isn't illegal (it wasn't), and if it shouldn't be illegal (it shouldn't), then I am not going to condemn it. As for the lying about his private life, well I'm not Ken Starr, and so I'm not going to condemn that either. It is still none of my business. People shouldn't be asking, and I don't think anyone is under an obligation to tell the public the truth about their private lives. It is none of my frakking business.

  • It is pathetic that, as a nation, we are even talking about this. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, was divorced only four months after he took office. Within a year of taking office, both he and his wife had remarried. The net result was a seven-point drop in his approval rating, most of which wasn't even attributable to his personal life:

    The report coincided with the release of an opinion poll in the daily Le Parisien, showing a seven-point drop in Sarkozy's approval ratings, mainly because of concern over the economy but in part because of his private life.

    We really need to grow up as a country. Our collective lack of maturity about sex is pathetic.

  • There is a bit of hypocrisy involved, and that does bother me. Edwards used the image of his relationship with Elizabeth to try and forward his campaign. Once he did that, he made himself open to looking like a heel when the truth came out. And so, while I won't condemn him, I'm not going to defend him, either.

  • The other side of the hypocrisy comes, as Natasha notes over at MyDD, from a country and a media that selectively shames people for something that over half of the country does. Whenever selective enforcement of morality or the law is in play, then the people who are targeted by that selective enforcement are actually being targeted to preserve the status quo for more powerful actors. In this case, that a former Senator and former presidential candidate who has very little relevance to the current political situation is being targeted, it is, as clammyc points out, a distraction from the many far more serious problems that we face.

Does this make John Edwards a worse person? I don't know. If there is a baby involved, then maybe. It doesn't make him a better person. Also, I don't feel comfortable making judgments of that sort. Further, this has no bearing on what sort of Senator or President he either was or would have been. There are a lot of Americans who sadly think that it does, and that is something we must work to change. Democrats should start to present a united front on these matters (it would be nice if Republicans joined them, I'm not holding my breath). As long as no one is breaking the law, then this stuff is none of our damn business and bears no relevance to how effective a public servant someone either is or could potentially be. More people, and more candidates, need to start taking that stance. Hopefully, when they do, we can all grow up as a nation a little bit.

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On Edwards | 40 comments
Hmmm (4.00 / 4)
I hate to comment on something like this, but doesn't the case of Bill Clinton completely invalidate your first point? Or is it a case of different times (due to the rise of the internet) or the fact that Edwards could have drawn the lesson from the Clinton presidency?
All's I know is there is one serial adulterer still in the race ... (4.00 / 1)
and it's John McCain, who has admitted to extramarital affairs in the 1970s while his wife was recovering from a car wreck. He wooed Cindy Hensley, the beer heiress, while he was still married to Carol McCain and he married Cindy a month after the divorce was finalized.  
[ Parent ]
since this is a random thoughts re: edwards thread... (0.00 / 0)
here is my random thought:

why is it that politicians, who have to live entirely surreal lives in which they self-censor themselves basically 24-7 and in which they are constantly playing to the news media's camera, so often engage in extramarital affairs?  you would think that their power of self-control would be superhuman, and that their political ambition would basically dominate their persona, meaning that 'scandalous' actions would be virtually unthinkable for them.

maybe affairs function as an escape hatch for their otherwise imprisoned psyches.  

Perhaps (4.00 / 1)
But much study has been done in the type of a personality which gets into politics, and comparisons have been drawn to the personality type which cheats. Risk loving, sycophantic, needy of approval from others, lust for power -- it all fits into the same bag.
[ Parent ]
Also (0.00 / 0)
The ability to figure out what people want to hear, and then the gall to tell it to them, regardless of the actual facts.
[ Parent ]
Priorities (0.00 / 0)
They simply felt that the sex was worth the risk and would probably rather give up ambitions of the presidency rather than their affairs.


The liberal wiki
Send an email to terra@liberalwiki.com
[ Parent ]
Also, (0.00 / 0)
the blackmail talking point would be moot if we didn't constantly make such a big deal out of it when Democrats had affairs
I am sad about the whole thing (0.00 / 0)
I think Edwards does have many natural political gifts but he was not at the same level as Clinton & Obama. In a way, he reminded me of Gore -- very smart & capable but not the most effective campaigner. Not sure if it will happen, but Edwards is still the right & obvious choice for anti-Poverty czar. This country really needs one.
John Edwards..silence on the blogs (4.00 / 1)
Is it  possible no one is talking about John Edwards because we misjudged him in our rush to capture the White House with a progressive?

Clinton in '08. Or give Carter a 2nd term. Vote for Obama!
Who's this "we," kemo sabe? (4.00 / 1)
I think many in the netroots -- including both lead bloggers on this site -- were demonstrably skeptical of Edwards' claimed ideological turn.

FWIW, on the "nothing illegal" point, I would note that Edwards used money given to his campaign and to his One America Committee -- money intended to push progressive causes and his anti-poverty message -- to make his relationship with his mistress seem legitimate.  (I don't believe any of the public financing funds were involved.) Not illegal, but not good either.

[ Parent ]
Crazy (4.00 / 3)
Matt's insistance that this would have been no big deal politically for Edwards if he was now the nominee is contradicted by Chris who says that anyone who does something that politically stupid wasn't going to win the nomination anyway. Cheating on your beloved cancer-recovering, children-raising wife and having that fact come out in a closely contested race two months before the vote is either acutely politically stupid and acutely politically damaging or it isn't.

Call me crazy but I'm going with is.



John McCain doesn't care about Vets.


Like Gary Hart, Edwards Can Still Contribute (4.00 / 2)
As a former staffer in Gary Hart's 1984 run the current Edwards matter really seems like deja va.  There are a few differences but both involved lying and were between a presidential run.  As Chris said about Edwards, I think that Hart's rather brazen affair also signaled a lack of political skill on Hart's part.  What he did have was a powerful new vision for the country and we were the ultimate losers in the Hart affair.  Hart was too damaged goods for Clinton ever to spend political capital by appointing Hart to something.  I guess Clinton did not want a "Adulter Appoints Adultier" headline.

But Hart contributed a lot to this country anyway.  He is one of the leading thinkers and leading writers on national security and America's role in the world.  Hart's Commission foresaw 9/11.  No one in the Democratic Party is wiser on security issues.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if Edwards ends up doing the same on Economic issues?  What if Edwards really devotes himself to ending poverty?  He won't ever be President, but nether will the rest of us.  Jimmy carter's political career ended in 1981/  It sure did not keep him from serving.

Politicians lie about sex -- I think it is the norm, not the exception.  They think they are smart enough not to get caught.  They have overflowing hubris.  It will never change.  Edwards can still contribute a lot to this country.  

I notice you omitted the group of posters (0.00 / 0)
who were upset at you for automatically assuming the story was wrong simply because it came from the NE. You badly confused prescription with description on this.

That's because the NE is a piece of crap paper (4.00 / 3)
and yes people should ultimately assume that the NE is full of shit given that it's the NE. A broken clock is right twice a day, but you shouldn't use it to tell time.
[ Parent ]
This is ignorant (4.00 / 1)
Sorry, but it is. I don't like the Nat'l Enquirer; I think there are all kinds of reasons to oppose its existence. But with this particular type of story, they are 'good'. Maybe 'skillful' would be a better word. Whatever you wanna call it, the NE has a track record of breaking big politically scandalous stories. Not since the late 80s has the equation NE = Weekly World News = The Globe been accurate. The by now pretty old news that the NE breaks stories for whatever reasons appears to be causing some cognitive dissonance for some folks.

Of course we should be skeptical. Just not automatically dismissive. I suspect, though, that this communal denial was just partisan wagon circling -- I don't remember such levels of disbelief, gnashing and wailing when they exposed Rush's pill addiction. But this in itself shouldn't be surprising. The Netroots echo chamber phenomenon has this effect. You've employed a classic echo chamber tactic in your post -- using the 'stopped clock' cliched crutch to counter anything inconveniently correct.

I've been truly surprised by two related things in this sordid episode: that posters here have a dated view of the NE and the extent to which they are stubbornly tied to this view despite evidence to the contrary. It's kind of fascinating, actually, to witness so many people so routinely ignoring inconvenient evidence, like the many scandals the NE has accurately broken over the past 15 or so years, which have been listed in these threads by multiple posters multiple times.  

[ Parent ]
As I keep saying- this is more telling just how fucked up this country (4.00 / 3)
remains than anything else this cycle. The example I give is would you stop to talk about a couple having sex on the lawn while knowing that someone else in the same yard is being beat to death. What's the priority? Apparently sex is more important than the fact Russia attacked a neighboring country for some people.
Entitlement and commitment (2.67 / 3)
Chris writes,
Further, this has no bearing on what sort of Senator or President he either was or would have been.

I disagree.  This incident calls into question his empathy and commitment

  • Empathy: The Republican venom machine painted him as a spoiled, rich "Breck Girl" who could afford $400 haircuts and a zillion-square-foot mansion.  The message was that a guy with so much more was a phony representative for those who had so much less.  

    Now we know that he didn't just treat himself to fancy haircuts and a nice home -- none of which directly hurt other people -- but that he treated himself to bonus nookie at the expense of his own family.  If he has too little empathy for his own wife to do the right thing, how sincere is his empathy for the rest of us?  The infidelity raises the spectre of the spoiled Breck Girl by at least a notch.

    And learning that a candidate's empathy may be insincere does have a bearing on what sort of President he would have been.

  • Commitment:  We've had eight long, horrific years of a president who took an oath to protect the Constitution, and then proceeded to betray that oath at every opportunity.  

    Learning that Edwards didn't uphold his marriage vows makes it a fair question whether he'd take his oath of office seriously.  So, in this respect, it has a bearing on what sort of president he would have been.

This isn't just about "selective morality".  See, here's the difference:  Rudy Giuliani was a sleazy, womanizing scumbag, but he made his campaign all about 9/11 and those horrible brown boogeymen, and his private life didn't undermine that message, so your claim that it's "none of your frakking business" would have had some merit where Giuliani is concerned.  

But John Edwards made his campaign all about the Natalie Sarkhesians and James Lowes of the world; he leeched contributions from students, low-wage laborers, single parents, and other people just squeaking by based on a promise that he could put their needs before his own.  In fact, though, John Edwards needs came first.  He couldn't even do for Elizabeth what he promised he'd do for the rest of us.

"He couldn't even do for Elizabeth what he promised he'd do for the rest of us." (0.00 / 0)
This is your business why?
[ Parent ]
Because: (4.00 / 1)
Because John and Elizabeth made their marriage an issue during his candidacy, appearing together at various events; John appearing at the LOGO/HRC forum to pronounce his opposition to equal marriage rights; Elizabeth speaking as a proxy on his behalf at various events.

Why did their marriage suddenly become a private issue now when it wasn't private during their campaign?

[ Parent ]
Wrong (0.00 / 0)
Standing beside a spouse says nothing about the state of their sexual relationship. John Edwards never unzipped his fly and showed everybody his boner. Therefore, we don't need to hear your opinions on it.
[ Parent ]
One, two. (0.00 / 0)
John Edwards never unzipped his fly and showed everybody his boner. Therefore, we don't need to hear your opinions on it.

Bwuh?  John Edwards has to show people his peepee in order for me to have an opinion on it?  

One, that's a ludicrous standard, and two, he did unzip his fly and show someone his peepee.

Please, ergotist, go back to playing Nintendo or whatever kids your age do.

[ Parent ]
Correct (0.00 / 0)
Someone had sex once. Therefore, the entire world needs to hear what you think about it.

Please let me know when it's time for me to share my ideas with the entire world about your sex life.

[ Parent ]
Please do... (0.00 / 0)
...I suspect you'll get it about as right as you've gotten everything else tonight.
[ Parent ]
let me be more clear (0.00 / 0)
in this line, you're using a woman's situation (who has specifically asked you not to) in order to illustrate a political point.  This, as we say in the trade, is f@#ked up.  Let "Elizabeth" decide what her husband could or could not do.

Your point about his political hypocrisy on the institution of marriage is well taken, though.

[ Parent ]
Let me repeat the question: (0.00 / 0)
I asked,

Why did their marriage suddenly become a private issue now when it wasn't private during their campaign?

John Edwards has used his marriage to further his political career.  It was fair game, for example, for Elizabeth Edwards to appear on Countdown to advocate John's health care plan. It was likewise fair game for John to hold a press conference to announce that Elizabeth's cancer had returned -- something that would have deserved respectful privacy had the family asked for it.  

As long as their relationship benefited John Edwards, they were public figures; now that something uncomplimentary has been revealed, they're asking for privacy.  That strikes me as awfully self-serving.

Are you prepared to grant the McCains the same privacy when unflattering news is revealed about their marriage?

[ Parent ]
hmmm (0.00 / 0)
As long as their relationship benefited John Edwards, they were public figures; now that something uncomplimentary has been revealed, they're asking for privacy.  That strikes me as awfully self-serving.

It's more about us than them ;)

[ Parent ]
Once again: (0.00 / 0)
Are you prepared to grant the McCains the same privacy when unflattering news is revealed about their marriage?

[ Parent ]
Dude (0.00 / 0)
For all you know Elizabeth gave him permission. It's hardly unheard of.
[ Parent ]
Gave him permission? (0.00 / 0)
These are her exact words:  

John made a terrible mistake in 2006.  The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006,...

(source)

Doesn't sound like she gave him permission.

[ Parent ]
Let It Drop (0.00 / 0)
She might be lying because the public's acceptance of polyamory is nonexistent.

Dude, nobody cares. Let it drop.

[ Parent ]
Bullshit. (0.00 / 0)
If she were a polyamorist who publicly opposed same-sex marriage rights, that would, in my eyes, make her even more hypocritical.  

It's hard for me to believe your claim that "nobody cares" when at least three different front-pagers have commented on the matter.

[ Parent ]
Apples And Oranges (0.00 / 0)
Discussing the political ramifications is one thing. Indulging your imagination about the sexual state of the Edwards' marriage is quite another.

Nobody wants to hear about what you imagine that the Edwards family are doing in bed. It's irrelevant and skeevy.

[ Parent ]
I didn't have to "imagine" . . . (0.00 / 0)
I don't have to "imagine" what I can read in the news.  You're the one who fantasized that Elizabeth Edwards may be a closet polyamorist.  (Talk about skeevy!)
[ Parent ]
Past patterns (4.00 / 1)
The pattern among recent or semi-recent Presidents is rather amazing.  Adultery is common, as it is among the general population.  At least four of the past 12 Presidents cheated on their wives: Clinton, Kennedy, Eisenhower,FDR.  All four were better than average Presidents.  It was widely rumored, in addition, that at least one First Lady cheated on her husband (Barbara Bush).  There were rumors, in my mind not very substantial, that a fifth President from the period cheated on his wife: Lyndon Johnson.

That leaves us with George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan (divorced and re-married which was widely unacceptable among conservatives until Reagan came along),Jimmy Carter,Gerald Ford,Richard Nixon and Harry Truman.  And that is one heck of an argument that this whole nonsense about using people's personal lives as the rosetta stone to decode their presidential potential looks in retrospect like (at the least) a bunch of crap.

We don't have as good a notion about the earlier Presidents. I can't say much about William Howard Taft's private life, for example.  Or Martin Van Buren's, James Garfield's or that of most of the Presidents before FDR.  Certainly scandals were apparent in the lives of some of our Presidents and their wives.  Opposition politicians tried to use sex scandals to derail the careers of Jefferson and Cleveland and it backfired.  

The substantial contributions in a person's life or the candidate's political views are meaningful.  At worst, the private lives of politicians are not a meaningful indicator; more likely private piety and correctness is actually an indicator of a poor President.  Go figure.  

[ Parent ]
I'm glad you replied. (0.00 / 0)
I don't think my original comment merited a troll-rating, but it helps that you've shed some light on it.

For me, as a one-time Edwards supporter, I don't see this as an issue of piety, but as one of courage:  Can I trust this candidate to stand up and do the right thing while in office?   That means not pandering to the middle just to score points (for example), but it also means being honest about hard truths.

I think a candidate can admit to personal shortcomings and then draw the distinction between their personal conduct and their professional conduct, and the public can respect that for the most part.  I can respect the candidate who says, "I smoke, I fool around, I drive too fast, but I balanced the budget and cut unemployment in half while I was governor."

But John Edwards concealed his personal shortcomings -- and at the same time used his marriage to advance his campaign (making it fair game for scrutiny, IMO).  What I see is a candidate who lacked backbone and then engaged in prolonged, premeditated deception about it; that sounds like a "meaningful indicator" to me.

At worst, the private lives of politicians are not a meaningful indicator; more likely private piety and correctness is actually an indicator of a poor President.

Quick -- tell Obama to sleep around!

[ Parent ]
Rating (0.00 / 0)
Unfortunately, I can only rate a 4 or a 0; not a 2.  Doing this seemed like the better option than ignoring things.

Edwards behavior is somewhat different than the issue as a whole.  If he was still running it might have been a problem considering the way that Elizabeth's illness figured in his campaign.  Ike never made fidelity to Mamie the centerpiece of his campaign nor did FDR make his marriage to Eleanor the main focus.

As for Obama: lighten up.  Have a good time again on the TV and use your famous smile to advantage.

[ Parent ]
Chris, excellent point (0.00 / 0)
This is true, I believe.  Despite his many gifts, he did underachieve.

"My feeling on that is that Edwards decision to have an affair between two runs for President is demonstrative of a lack of political ability that pretty much guarantees he would never have won the nomination. It wasn't a smart move, and poor political judgment like that can carry over into other areas of political decisions, too."

And yes, we gotta grow up about sex.  I doubt that's gonna happen that soon.  

Why MUST liberals waste their energy trying to rationalize this? (0.00 / 0)
what's the point of spending energy trying to say the moral sexual behavior of politicians doesn't matter when it clearly does for the vast majority of americans?

why do some liberals have a mental road block that prevents them from seeing this as a character issue? and that character is one of the core items voters vote on (see numerous liberal discussions about how republican understand this better than democrats).

and ultimately what advantage is there to grassroots liberals in coming to the defense of cheating irresponsible people like John Edwards? what's in it for us not to rebuke them in the most extreme terms.

Edwards wasted a lot of good grassroots money and energy for his own selfish wants. its unforgivable.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

no obviously not (0.00 / 0)
When Edwards or McCain or Gingrich of Clinton or any of these other powerful men talk about the sanctity of marriage or use morality as a way of jailing people or depriving people of economic benefits, I think it's fair to raise evidence that they quite clearly speak one way and act another way with regard to the institution of marriage, the ways in which human beings work, the role of forgiveness and grace.  But the question is really for what purpose and with what potential harm and to whom do you do so.  i would use the same train of thought to try to understand McCain's situation and if i were incapable, I would keep my mouth shut (which is what i do right now about McCain's personal immorality on sex and gender).  

For example, if Bush evaded the draft, but then sent other people to die, then it would be legitimate grounds for raising a charge of hypocrisy-- not to destroy the man, but destroy the grounds on which he acted and understand the situation in a different light.  To change the context in which we talk about things in a direction that actually improves them.

In this case, what is the benefit of continuing to talk about Edward's affair in a way that renders judgement?  What are you attacking and how are you going about doing it?  If you believe in the moral majority agenda or that politicians should be held to extraordinary norms in their personal lives as well as their public lives, maybe it makes sense.  If you believe that people shouldn't be judged in a draconian way, that issues that are small in terms of public impact shouldn't be blown out of proportion, that celebrity culture is destructive for all involved, then it doesn't makes sense.

Chris is very busy (0.00 / 0)
I see him reporting on the ITF website today  

Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.  
On Edwards | 40 comments
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