John Edwards. Sigh. You all know I was a huge Edwards supporter, and now I'm just disappointed. I do have a HUGE problem with Edwards' affair; I can't help but feel that way. I don't know the exact circumstances between him and Elizabeth, and I don't really need to. An affair such as this is a private matter, it's true.
But it's also true that this man was running to be president of this country, and I think an affair shows a marked lack of integrity. I don't know how else to see it. I've been around this time and again in my own life, in terms of friends who have cheated (and having been cheated on myself, though not by Sam, just so you all know), and I just....don't get it. I don't know how you can...do something like that, no matter how miserably unhappy you are in a relationship. I guess I sort of think...if you need to cheat, you need to break up with your partner before you do it, so it ain't cheating. So obviously, John Edwards wasn't going to do that, because that would harm his political career--although, errrr, an affair wouldn't? I guess leaving a sick wife to sleep with a younger woman would look bad. But um....cheating on a sick wife with a younger woman? Errrrrrr? Still bad.
I honestly, after all this, can't believe that he had the balls to run for president. I mean, what the fuck was he thinking? That he'd get a free pass? Can you imagine if he was the nominee right now? Nobody cares that John McCain was an A#1 asshole in his treatment of his first wife and his subsequent marriage of the plastic heiress, but I guarantee the affair would sink Edwards like a big fat stone. I mean, I wouldn't vote for him. Like I said, I feel like there's a lack of integrity to a person that would cheat. It's a private thing, yes. But armed with the knowledge of it, I can't help but think less of a person for it. It's tricky. You know, and then he lied about it. That makes it 500% worse, I think.
I don't know. It's muddled in my head, a bit. I just....well, I think less of Edwards now. And I'm sad for it, but even sadder for his wife, and the woman he slept with who wasn't his wife. Sad.
Um, aren't you forgetting something? What the fuck were he AND Elizabeth thinking? She's complicit in the public aspect of this. He told her in 2006, and the overwhelming ambition of these two led them to ignore the potential harm to party and country and run for president anyway. What if he had gotten the nomination and this broke in September? It would have inevitably come out, and they didn't care. She's getting a free pass, presumably because she's ill, but the whole thing is ridiculous. I was a big fan of his as well, and I think it's pathetic that they would risk so much for so many people in order to satisfy their own personal ambition.
Posted by: tim | August 11, 2008 at 12:49 PM