John Edwards

 When it turned out that those rumors about John Edwards having an affair turned out to be true, I didn't feel betrayed. Nor, as all manner of right wing troll wanted, to feel defeated. Not even hurt. But I was surprised at how sad I felt.

Despite the side observation that, if Maureen Dowd were capable of self-reflection, she might be bemused by her Breck Girl being outed for goatish behavior--it was  just a miserable business, made no better and no worse for its publicity.

John Edwards betrayed somebody--somebody I admire at least as much as  I did him. But he didn't betray me. 

To betray me, he would have to have sold out or compromised the political principles I felt vital and important. As far  as that goes Barack Obama betrayed me, and not John Edwards. And it shouldn't be incidental that John Edwards isn't running for anything, and Barack Obama is.

No, it didn't matter that the scandal was without political consequences: what was important was that a) it's a Democrat; b) it is a big violation of The Rules that can emphasize that running for political office has nothing to do with the real world problems and issues, but with the game as decreed by the media; and c) let's talk about anything but John McCain behaving badly.

But it's still a betrayal, and a bad one. It's breaking faith with a courageous woman who's dying of cancer. It makes me think a whole lot less of him. I would have abandoned him as my preferred candidate--even though he had dropped out long before I was able to vote for him. Among candidates who differed by slivers and shadows from each other, I would have disqualified him.

But when friends of mine divorce, or break up, or cheat on each other, I always know that the only people who can define what's going on is them themselves. Not my own standards--and certainly not clown media standards. 

Elizabeth Edwards can define the level of hurt; their children can. That's where the commitments, promises and vows are. But John Edwards is not my dad, nor is John McCain, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, or Barack Obama. Neither are Cynthia McKinney or Hillary Clinton my mom. That, of course, is a trope being pushed for decades if not centuries: that political representatives are leaders, that their virtues are not the virtues of workers, but of parents, and that the right thing to do is select your parents and lie back and defer to the adults. 

And so we're supposed to elect a father. And that fatuous word, 'leadership'. is nothing but that. Leadership is not confidence, or ability, or clear perception of the task at hand--those are worker's virtues. No, leadership is supposed to be comforting, assuring, to make us feel like children, and to make us children happy.

George W Bush is a dissolute and dim child, and the fervid and hysterical attempt to make him Dad didn't take, and was ludicrous in retrospect--but there's no denying the force of that campaign. And John McCain, the fumbling, venal, mendacious and forgetful geezer--why, you must choose him because he's better as your Dad than that younger, smarter, better informed and more confident blackamoor--because how, after all,  can he be your Dad? and preserve and further the adult status of the people in power and your right-and-proper powerless children's status?

John Edwards is not my father, not even at one alternative universe's distance. He's someone I know. He's done something reprehensible. My imagination can fill with contemplation of what it might be like foe a husband to sleep with a wife he loves, but is still Death--and the hunger for some undoomed lust--but, as with my friends, I defer my stories until they themselves can tell me what they are. And if Hillary or Elizabeth or Carol McCain don't want to tell me, I can't make up my own to please myself. 

The media's excuse is that he's our Dad, or, in Edwards' case, somebody who at one time wanted to be our Dad. And that makes it different, you see, from Brad and Janet and Angelina and Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards and Morgan Freeman and Christie Brinkley and Bill Murray and so on and so on and shoobie doobie do we...We're entitled to slip away from the actual none-of-our-business real life and into the orgies of tear-stained betrayal because we're supposed to be children sitting on the staircase and, clutching Mister Bear, watch with tear-stained eyes as Daddy and Mommy say terrible things to each other. (Long as they're democrats, of course.)

This campaign is getting stupider and stupider as the media wobble and whipsaw their way through up-is-down, rich-is-poor, popularity-is-bad and, of course, ignorance-is-strength. I knew long ago that the biggest challenge the Democratic candidate would have in 2008 would be a media in the tank for the Republicans--but the orgy of "see? It's yummy chocolate ice cream!" defies all mental preparation.

The only decent response to this, the only adult response to this, is to wish Elizabeth strength, and wisdom, and as much anger as she feels is proper. The yawping attempt to take that space from her and turn it into a national crying jag is about as disrespectful as can be.