Writing at Marc Ambinder’s Politics blog, Chris Good compares John Edwards’s most recent revelation that he is the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby to baseball steroid revelations.
I’m more sympathetic to the ballplayers.
The ballplayers were in an environment in which it seemed a significant number of their peers were using PED’s to gain an advantage over those who did not, and in which there was no explicit rule or enforcement preventing their use. I don’t like that PED’s were part of baseball, but I don’t particularly blame the ballplayers for it, and I’m OK with not going into paroxisms of shock about every ballplayer who used steroids.
John Edwards’s affair had nothing to do with gaining an edge in his chosen profession. Though there are a number of tales about “politicians,” it is not apparent that his peers in presidential politics — Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Joe Bide, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, etc., had extramarital affairs.
I understand that the point Good was making was bout our reaction, not moral responsibility, but he continues:
The intention of this post is, by no means, to judge Edwards. It’s none of my business, or any of ours. I don’t know what John Edwards has going on, and there’s nothing worse than a complete stranger moralizing about someone’s private life. That’s not how this post was intended. I guess I felt it was okay to talk about because it’s so public and iconic…and Us Weekly is sure gonna do something on it. Not that that’s a great reason.
It’s interesting that in a post comparing a top 5 presidential candidate cheating on his terminally ill wife to ballplayers taking steroids, Cook finds it necessary to make it clear that he is not using this comparison to condemn Edwards. You know, it’s not like he did what he thought was necessary to maintain his livelihood in an environment where everyone was doing it. He just cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, conceived a child, and then disowned said child. Let’s not get carried away here.
I’m sorry, but yes, we can judge his private life. And we damn well better.
The man had an affair with another womman and fathered a child with her while his wife had terminal cancer. He then has spent the last year denying any possibility he was the child’s father, made Andrew Young (also married) take the heat for it. Think of the impact his actions have had on Elizabeth, Young, Rielle Hunter, and, of course, the baby Edwards has spent the last year trying to have nothing to do with. Yes, many of these people are adults who have agency over their own lives, but are also victims.
That is absolutely reprehensible behavior. For anybody. But in particular for someone who wanted us to toss him the keys to the White House. And whose marriage would be a model for the rest of us.
As I have said before, the way couples like the Edwardses behave in marriage serves as a model for the rest of us. If we want our spouses to remain faithful to us should we become ill, and we want our children to have and be spouses who will do the same, then, yes, we must judge Edwards’ “private” behavior.
And, just to re-tread some worn Edwards territory, a big reason he was judged by the political world at all was not that he had an affair–a matter of his private life–but that he had an affair and ran a campaign anyway. He was accused of jeopardizing the Democratic Party’s chance at the White House, misusing the efforts of the people who worked for and believed in him, and possibly jeopardizing the country–all because the affair could have come out under different circumstances. That’s the problem a lot of people had.
Right. We can’t judge him for simple adultery. Or adultery that happened in the context of his wife’s illness. Or for conceiving a child out of wedlock. Or for setting up his married “friend” to take the fall. Or for disowning his own child. But there’s a chance this could have been revealed at a bad time for the campaign! That we can judge him for!
Am I the only one who sees our morals being way out of whack? Leonard Little killed a woman drunk driving, was later pulled over again for drunk driving, and has been playing football for the last 10 years without many complaints. Michael Vick ran a dog-fighting ring, which was pretty abusive, but was for dogs, not people, serves a federal prison term, and the thought of him returning to football brings about much moralizing about whether he’s paid a sufficient price or properly repented and rehabilitated himself.
And we can’t judge someone for having an extramarital affair, abandoning his ill wife who was supporting his dreams, fathering a child, “coming clean” but lying, and making it clear he would prefer to have nothing to do with the child he fathered. That’s all none of our business. But it could have hurt the Democrats in 2008! Oh, well then, let’s talk about it, then.
Sometimes I wish we could all wake up in the morining and forget we were on any particular “team” — political parties, sports rooting interests, genders, etc. Edwards acted reprehesibly, but We Can’t Judge Sexual Behavior (unless it’s a Republican, in which case we have the “hypocrisy” angle), so we better not talk about it. Yes, there’s millions of people without health insurance, and probably millions more locked into jobs they hate for fear of losing health insurance, but we can’t do anything about it because it’s the “camel’s nose” of socialized medicine. Partial-birth abortion is barbaric, but the pro-lifers are behind it, and we can’t let them win. And so on.
Where’s our societal “Reset” button?
