Meghan , Susannah , I think we have to give Elizabeth Edwards some credit for what she does do. That moment where she portrays her husband as the victim of the vixen Rielle is really the only blind spot in an otherwise brutally honest-cringingly honest-account. Whether or not this counts as a public flogging, as Maureen Dowd suggests, is really beside the point. The typical thing for a political wife is to cover for her husband, stand by him on the stage the way Eliot Spitzer’s wife, Silda did. And for that we liberated feminist types gave her a public flogging. I suppose Elizabeth did that to some degree, by standing by him during the campaign. But then she undid it, by writing this book which is a tick-tock of the entire affair, including his lies, the cheesy come-on line she has to know will make it to late night TV (“You are so hot”) and more lies. And then she goes on Oprah and says she doesn’t even know if she loves him anymore. Mixed in with whatever we fault her for is some serious moxie. What other political wife has ever done that?
