Democrats Can Show Some Moral Decency by Not Kicking Edwards Under the Bus
The reaction was swift, brutal, and yes hypocritical from Democratic Party big wigs to the public talk about John Edwards love tryst. Dan Fowler, former Democratic National Chair, minced no words and flatly said that if Edwards can't satisfactorily explain his conduct he won't be allowed to deliver a major talk at the Democratic national convention. Fowler punctuated his Edward's slap down with the demand that Edwards meet high moral standards in explaining his conduct.
What gibberish! The Edward's affair has to rank at or near the top of the worst kept secret in any top politician's love life. The National Enquirer had the story a year ago. Every top news dailies had the story. Political gossip wags had the story. And most importantly, Edwards campaign staff, Democratic Party insiders, and probably Republican operatives had the story. Yet, now it's a big deal and the Democrats are hoisting themselves high on their moral high horse and demanding that Edwards do a very profuse penance and very public self-flagellation. One reason for this has much to do with Edwards as potential VP candidate. The other has even more to do with Edwards as the one Democrat who actually talked about and believed that the time was ripe for a return to populism in politics. Neither set well in some very heavy weight public and political circles. To be blunt, Edwards made a lot of friends but he also made a lot of enemies.
He made enemies because he did something that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, nor any other top Democrat dreamed of doing. He made poverty no longer a dirty word in the mouths of many. But Edwards didn't stop there. He relentlessly pushed the envelope on America's next greatest crime and sin, the absolute refusal of the nation to provide decent health care for more than fifty million persons no matter whether poor, working class, middle class and even some with a few bucks to spare. He didn't stop even there. He hammered corporate and special interests for their shameless and unabashed pillage, loot, and rape of American consumers.
Edwards was truly a modern day Jeremiah crying in the wilderness against poverty, corporate greed, and the health care abomination, and predictably was slandered, slurred, and ridiculed, and ultimately marginalized as a bare after thought, a warm up act to Clinton and Obama.
Edward's much needed and almost never heard populist message didn't mark him as a threat. The bare possibility that many Americans actually got his message about poverty and neglect made him a threat. The seeds of the attack were there from the start. He had barely stepped out of the barber salon early in the campaign when the pokes and digs started. He was the butt of laughs and late night TV talk show gags for committing the unpardonable sin of blowing $400 on a haircut.
The barbs and the taunts didn't stop even after he shrugged it off as fun and games stuff. Months later David Letterman took another hair shot at him when he grabbed at his hair and tried to muss it up during his appearance on Letterman's late night show. This slapstick silliness wouldn't have raised an eyebrow since he is a wealthy guy who made millions as a corporate lawyer. But it was the poverty thing that raised the hackles of his rich pals. This was not just a cheap campaign ploy to give him an edge over the other candidates. He made the case that nearly forty million poor people in the world's richest country is an abomination that nobody seemed to want to talk about it, let alone do anything about it. It was irksome enough that the GOP presidents and presidential candidates would stay silent on the plight of the poor. It was downright infuriating that his Democratic opponents would also stay mute on the issue.
His poverty crusade stirred a mild flutter for a couple of months with Obama and Clinton. But again it was only a mild flutter. Any talk of a crusade against poverty disappeared from their campaign lexicon faster than a Houdini disappearing act when he dropped out of the White House hunt.
Edwards became the first Democratic presidential candidate to go where no other Democrat has gone in four decades and talked up poverty, universal health care and economic democracy.
Edwards apologized to his wife, apologized to the party, and did his public mea culpas for a hardly damnation of the ages private misstep. But he also did something else. He bucked history, negative public and political attitudes, and of course ridicule for championing populist causes. If that's not real moral decency, than the term is empty and meaningless. Democrats can show some moral decency by not kicking Edwards under the bus.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).
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What exactly have you missed? It's NOT the affair, it's the cover-up. It's the maneuvering of Barton, a big Democratic fundraiser. It's the absence of MSM investigation of possible collusion between Edwards and Barton. Funny, ever since I started posting about some of the comments on his wikipedia entry yesterday, a flurry of edits went in .... yesterday.
Thank you for a well written voice of reason in the midst of the gossip mongers calling themselves journalists and the high and mighty who ought to watch their own glass house. This topic is between John Edwards and his family.
John has shown he is human and like the rest of us, not elitest. If Elizabeth can forgive him, who are we to judge? His career is not over unless he chooses it to be.
Bringing this out now only shows the fear in people, stooping to dirty politics to win, pathetic. These people are just losers we dont need in corporate or political arenas. Those that once worked for John showing unprofessionalism in their statements only shows they will go where the paycheck is, not caring for the issues they say they support.
Dems need to take care of their own. If they shunned all who messed up there'd be no Obama, Clinton, and so many more. The halls of government would be empty. Where's loyalty for one who 's done so much for people in need?
Edwards has many supporters. In blog areas people still care about Edwards and the issues and keeping the issues alive! To heck with disloyal, scared Dem/political and corporate fools, the PEOPLE are going to carry John's message, ensuring it continues!
Hopeflully money greedy gossip mongers and the high and mighty will stop ranting so healing can begin.
Thank you, Earl!
Reagan had an affair with Jane Wyman when she was married.
Anyway Bush has screwed the whole country. I just want Edwards to be the Attorney General that takes on the republicans.
The brain and sexual organs use a lot of blood flow. They don't work at the same time.
Reagan also got Nancy pregnant while he was married to Jane Wyman. I didn't know about the affair with JW before they married. Couldn't this man leave other men's wifes alone.
As a Democrat, I thank you for this article.
Many who are posting on this blog and other Democratic blogs are republicans who want Edwards totally anniliated, but there are some self righteous Democrats that want him gone too.
Excellent article.
Sir, John Edwards threw himself under the bus by betraying not only his family, but all his staffers and those who supported him! As MLK asked to be judged by the content of one's character, I proffer that Mr. Edwards character is lacking.
Both adulteres, both fighting for economic justice
When the presidential candidates stand before a Christian nation for their first debate, one of these men could be accurately defined as a Christian with one marriage and no adulterous affairs and the other man is John McCain.
I DON'T CARE about Edward's two year old affair.
My son just returned to the US. His new Sergeant Major told him, "There are only three kinds of Marines; those who are on their way to Iraq, those who are in Iraq, and those who are on their way home from Iraq".
He didn't mention that some will come home shattered and some in coffins. He didn't have to.
And all for lying, war profiteering, criminals.
Does anyone really believe that someone recovering from war wounds or someone burying a loved one who died for Bush's war, really cares about Edward's affair? Really?
Except for over-styled, pampered, self-involved, self-congratulatory elitist media bloviators and politicians they alternately faun over or eviscerate, who really cares?
Was Edward's affair responsible for Iraq? No? Then I don't care.
Will obsessing over its irrelevant implications get my son out of a tour in Iraq or bring our troops home? No? Then I DON'T CARE!!
We have big problems in our military. Troops stationed overseas with only military controlled media available to them are being inundated with warnings about the dangers of depression, thoughts of suicide, or violent impulses towards their families; because they are committing suicide and/or acts of violence in unprecedented numbers.
I care about my son. I care about our troops.
I care about prosecuting Bush, Cheney, and all of their minions for the crimes they have committed.
I DON'T CARE about Edward's affair!
If you don't want us to throw him under the bus, can we kick him to the curb instead? He is the immoral one, not his supporters who believed in him. It's the hypocrisy, stupid.
Ahhh, throwing stones. Hypocrite! Is it not written that looking upon a woman with lust is adultery? Go, and sin no more.
There should be a 'don't ask ,don't tell' policy applied to presidential candidates in regard to their sexual lives, particularly for those who do not make their business to legislate our private lives. Who are we to invade a politician's private life? -- again, unless he or she has made their business to invade ours. Of course people are going to lie about their sexual lives. Who wouldn't? Your sex life is one of the most intimate aspects of your life. It's a complex matter and only a hypocritical society would demand to know. What did you say? It's not the sex, it's the lie? No, it's the sex. Sex is private and when you demand of someone to out it, you get the defensive lie. Stop trying to equate sex life with political life. They're not the same. And not everyone who has sex outside of marriage is cheating -- some just have customized arrangements within their marriage. But even those who cheat, they only really cheat themselves and their mate. Not you and not me. Look, Bush doesn't seem to be cheating, right? Does that give you any relief or reassurance?
Let's apply the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" principle to politics. Since all politicians are liars, at a minimum, we'll have to recruit an entire new crop. Also, there are no perfect voters, so the franchise will be absolutely unexercizable in real life.
What are we left with? Drawing straws for public office? A national lottery in which the only qualification to enter is a promise to criticize nothing about the "winners" except their performance in office?
I was an early supporter of John Edwards for all of the reasons you point out in your article. Hearing this news leaves me disillusioned. No one has thrown John Edwards under a bus except for John Edwards. My mother used to tell me as a child that how you are in one facet of your life is how you are. Period. You can't partition your character.
John Edwards not only betrayed his wife, he also betrayed the Democratic party and the very poor he championed. I just can't believe he did this while he was campaigning; it's just reprehensible. Did he not understand how high the stakes are?
Well said..
Michale...
I agree wholeheartedly that the damnation has been fairly over the top. The piling on is a little disgusting, thought I do recognize that some of it is driven by empathy towards Mrs. Edwards, a very courageous woman with an (at this point,) incurable illness. The press loves her, and so do many in the democratic party. If only it were as simple as a single marital indiscretion. Don't forget that money was paid, to someone apparently unable to produce the required film documentary. In politics, that smells, not to mention the stench of lying about these things while running for the presidency. Ultimately, it's between the Edwards'. I wouldn’t have wanted him to quit because of this indiscretion. It would have been tragic.
You make a good case for Edwards’ courage in aspiring to center the people's will and the government's resources on solving the problem of poverty. However, EOF, while putting poverty center stage is worthy, to do something about poverty - on the scale he asserted - requires that he win the White House. Neither Clinton or Obama took his message or his goal lightly. It was Obama's assertion that first he had to stabilize and keep the middle class from sinking further towards poverty, and that the quest, though necessary, was a daunting task in today's economic climate. Clinton echoed the same sentiments.
Those films you say are missing are on You Tube.
Excellent, poignant review of the pseudo-outrage from corporate hacks on TV.
Let's focus on the public policy issues, and have Edwards speak about poverty and corporate crime at the Democratic convention!
Right.
More "do as I say, not as I do." More lying until that just won't work any more, then spewing the contrite humility. More "I was so busy caring about 'the people' that I lost track of my obligations to the people who should matter most." More allowing political supporters and sycophants to write the hush money checks so he doesn't have to get his manicured nails dirty. More image without substance.
I too appreciate Edward's strategic, compassionate view of many issues. I also think that this affair need not end his career and he shouldn't be treated as pariah by fellow Dems. I was an Edwards supporter.
However, I don't think his candidacy really earned being "#3". The media was happy to get the rabble out of the race and focus on three candidates and one could say they muscled the others out of the way and included Edwards. But after Iowa, the voters never really did much to include Edwards in the game. He doesn't really have a constituency that Bill Clinton doesn't already represent (and Al Gore and Jimmy Carter). Let's give a featured spot to someone who presents realy diversity. Mr. Edwards will be a distraction and his passion, energy, and thought provoking statements are great, but others can carry that water and represent other constituenties. Let him work on his private problems in private and not bring them into the hall.
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