Required Reading: The Dam Breaks on Edwards

By Dean Barnett
Published August 8, 2008 7:53pm ET
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From HotAir.com, “Edwards Admits Affair” by the Allahpundit It’s been a long week of blogging, and yet I still can’t seek safety on the golf course – I must say something about the John Edwards affair. As is so often the case, Allah has the best and most insightful rundown. If you’re keeping score at home on what a sleaze John Edwards is, Allah’s got all the angles covered. Allah’s post also includes an insightful rundown on Edwards’ various enablers. Edwards campaign manager David Bonior is one among many who has some explaining to do. Back in early 2007, ridiculing Edwards’ narcissism was one of my favorite hobbyhorses. Shortly after the news of his affair broke, Roger L. Simon aptly described Edwards as a “reprehensible schmuck.” Given that someone had already beaten me to the perfect phrase to convey the essence of Edwards and I had pretty much declared a semi-ceasefire on the guy ever since his wife’s cancer recurrence was announced, I figured I’d sit this one out. So it is with no joy that I waddle back to this particular fray. I liked having John Edwards and his pathetic narcissism and phoniness in my rearview mirror. Thinking back on Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer recurrence and the couple’s announcement of that sad news, here’s what I wrote on Hugh Hewitt’s blog at the time:

I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW BAD I FEEL FOR ELIZABETH AND JOHN EDWARDS. I’m familiar with the body-blow of a sudden diagnosis that turns your world upside down. It’s incredible – you walk into a doctor’s office and within a span of minutes you find out your life will never be the same. In the back of your mind you nourish the hopes of miracle cures or that you might be like that guy in Dubuque who got the same diagnosis but oddly enough lived forever, but the reality of the situation sits there in your mind. You can’t shake it – it just won’t leave. But you try to carry on. I think I may know some of what the Edwards are feeling. They’ve been running for the White House for seven years now. And make no mistake – as Hugh points out in his book, running for president is a family affair. It’s more than a dream and an ambition for them. It’s a big part of what defines their lives. So they walked out of that doctor’s office refusing to let her disease take their lives away. Some people are calling their decision courageous; others find it puzzling. Having been in a situation analogous to theirs, I think I have some understanding and I know I have some sympathy. They’re working through all of this. Their first instinct is not to surrender. That’s good, and it’s what you would have expected. People who seek the presidency aren’t the types who give up or even compromise easily. THROUGH THE YEARS, I’VE COME TO VIEW SERIOUS and progressive illness as an ever constricting circle with oneself at the center. The interior of the circle represents the contents of one’s life. As the circle gets smaller, things that were inside get forced out. Some of these things are dearly missed; other items that were once thought precious get forced to the exterior and turn out to go surprisingly unlamented. At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: Family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day that you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they’re all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end… The Edwards have begun their own journey (to the center of their lives). Whether they still find presidential politics there a few months from now is an open question. Regardless, the journey is theirs, and one would have a heart of stone to wish them anything other than good luck and Godspeed.

What I didn’t write at the time but kept to myself is the certain knowledge that bad things sometimes happen to jackasses. Since Edwards had always struck me as the perfect jackass, I expected him to handle this situation like every other situation in his life – as a scheming narcissist looking to leverage the situation to forward his own ambitions. Bob Shrum’s book came out a few months later and grimly detailed how Edwards used an anecdote about his son’s death to convince John Kerry he should be his running mate. The incident, according to Shrum, left Kerry shaken. I didn’t publicly question Edwards’ decision to continue to seek the presidency with a mortally ill wife and two small children. Now we know that in the journey to the center of his life, John Edwards found his own wants and desires, a selfishness so towering words truly can’t do it justice. At the Daily Kos, the erstwhile beau idea of progressive politics has officially and deservedly been tossed under the bus. “John Edwards,” wrote Kos front-pager BarbinMD, “is an embarrassment to his Party, and of course, to Elizabeth.” Obviously, progressives don’t have a monopoly on filthy politicians. But this is one you could have seen coming.

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