After the AffairMelinda Henneberger takes readers' questions about the John Edwards sex scandal.
Posted Monday, Aug. 11, 2008, at 4:49 PM ET
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StumbleUponWashington: What do you make of Elizabeth's statement that her relapse has made all this easier? I just don't understand that...
Melinda Henneberger: Maybe that everything, even this, is less important than the bigger picture; does an affair negate 31 years? No, thankfully.
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St. Louis: Seriously, John Edwards is no longer relevant as he is not running for anything. If the media is going to talk about "affairs," shouldn't you discuss John McCain's affair, given that he is the presumptive Republican presidential candidate?
Melinda Henneberger: Or, God willing, we could say gosh, this was so much fun, let's never do it again...
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Minneapolis: You debated with yourself about whether it was right for you to ask about the rumors when interviewing Mrs. Edwards and are glad that you did not. Would it have been better for her if you did? Is the way this has come out been any better? I guess the confusion that some may have in the press's role is that every night on the TV you have pundits arguing minute, piddly details, and yet something this large falls off the screen. I think that is where the disconnect comes from.
Melinda Henneberger: Elizabeth Edwards is a damn smart woman, and I guess part of my calculus was that she was not going to tell me anyway. In Candidate Spousery 101 they teach you this line: We don't talk about that! The American people care about ISSUES!
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Austin, Texas: Before this story broke, I thought it was interesting how many people were arguing that the reason people like Larry Craig deserved outing was because he had somehow worked to make life more difficult for homosexuals, so it was right to highlight his personal life. Setting aside the fact that Edwards tended to put his marriage front and center, as an attorney general or a poverty czar, Edwards almost certainly would have worked to make life more difficult for deadbeat dads. Did people (including journalists) lack the imagination to see that particular kind of hypocrisy?
Melinda Henneberger: Honestly, I guess I think we are all hypocrites about this stuff to some degree. We all but make them lie, we demand the mythic storyline, then off with their heads if they don't live up to it. There has got to be a better way!
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West Virginia: The overwhelming emotion I have about this story is sadness. He's not a candidate anymore, so I hate to see his family dragged into this. I even feel sad for John, who probably doesn't deserve it. He's probably had lots of women throwing themselves at him, and he's only human. Even good marriages have their stresses, and who's to judge ... but that's the world we live in today. And for people to judge Elizabeth too ... only they know what goes on in their marriage, and we have to respect it. I understand why the media had to report this story, I just wish they didn't feel they had to.
Melinda Henneberger: Me, too, West Virginia!
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Washington: His wife is dying of a illness that he did not cause or desire. Do dying people have greater rights than others? Is the tyranny of the terminally ill a form of power abuse that we tolerate? If her cancer makes his wife exceptionally miserable to be around, then why must Edwards be held to some standard of sainthood? Women traditionally have divorced men who return from war as permanently disabled heroes. At least he didn't divorce her or flaunt his dalliances. His biggest error was to deny the child ahead of a paternity test.
Melinda Henneberger: You came to the wrong well with this one; Elizabeth as tyrant I am not buying.
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Melinda Henneberger: Thanks for joining the conversation.
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Remarks from the Fray:
One participant said: "I vote for no coverage of politicians' sex lives. I don't care who is doing what—if it isn't illegal, don't report it. That's my new standard and I urge the mainstream media to adopt it. "
To which I heartily concur--but. The corollary is that candidates must not run on their wonderful family values (at least the part that is implicitly sexual fidelity).
If they run on something, the media must look into stories on that something--no exceptions. Since I dearly don't want to know about sexual history, past and present, of public figures, for consistency I must not judge favorably those whose saintly mien lets me think them better than most.
--Archae86
(To reply, click here.)
I disagree absolutely that because it's 'just' an affair, it's no big deal.
Someone who has repeatedly announced himself as fit Presidential material AND run on 'family values' as the moral arbiter for the rest of the country deserves to have his dirty laundry aired for public consumption, particularly as he seems hell bent on continuing to lie about it. I don't care who JE gets his recreation with--that's his wife's concern. I do however have a vested interest as a voter when a Man who Would Be President reveals himself to be a cheat AND a compulsive liar. […]
Also in the relative situations of the two wronged wives, Elizabeth Edwards comes out the far more pitiable figure. The woman is dying, for gosh sakes, and was willing to spend her last time on Earth getting her straying hubby into the White House. Foreknowledge on her part, if she had it, does not constitute a 'coverup'--this poor woman is entitled to save face any way she can at this point. A dying woman lacks the energy for divorce court, I'm sure. I hope she gets well, but if she does not, than the very last years of their lives together will have been marred by his deceit.
Public opinion hardly matters beside what John Edwards should have on his conscience. […] If he manned up and said, 'Yes--I cheated. I am the father of the baby and I hate myself; may my wife forgive me" I'd think better of him than with all these lies and obfuscations. 'Volunteering' to take a paternity test he knows will never happen is such brave and selfless move, eh? Caught dead to rights and he's still spinning. What a tool.
--hikari
(To reply, click here.)
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