The Fallen and Lonesome Star of John Edwards
The Washington Post has a profile piece on John Edwards as he awaits for trial. It’s an interesting article which depicts well the consequences of John Edwards’ actions.
Sometimes Bergenfield [a long-time friend] just listened. Edwards always talked about his children and often of his late wife, Elizabeth, and, after a while, he usually got around to the matter of Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom he had an affair and a child. These were the characters of the soap opera that Edwards’s life had descended to — the Would-Be President, the Other Woman, the Love Child, the Courageous Wife, the Dying Wife — but here in this large, lonesome house, the conversations were intimate and introspective. Edwards sounded utterly befuddled by what he had done, as if he were talking about a stranger.
The article is not making excuses for the man and neither am I. It just paints a stark picture of a man who once had it all.
The unrelenting quiet is an indication of just how far he has fallen. Especially around Chapel Hill and the Edwardses’ former home in nearby Raleigh, several longtime friends privately say that they want nothing to do with him; that they felt personally betrayed by his persistent lies during the period when he desperately sought to cover up his affair.
The antipathy toward him around these parts shows no signs of abating. He spends considerably less time in popular Chapel Hill haunts that once — in his days as a stunningly successful trial lawyer and overnight political star — accorded him golden-boy status.
Tags: John Edwards
I personally know two people – one man, and one woman – who broke their families and and walked away for equally selfish reasons, and under similar circumstances of illness. They are not famous, so they were able to successfully cut off their old lives and start new lives among new people who don’t know what they have done. They can’t bear to contact me anymore, because I know where their bodies are buried. I don’t want them around me either.
Politics is full of such men who are no better than Edwards.
Shades of coach Bobby Petrino? Hard to say, because Petrino might not have hit bottom yet. The thing is so new. The good thing is he’s not facing jail time. Is there any program out there interested in one of the top ten living offensive coordinators? COME ON! He’s not Jerry Sandusky!
I have to say though, Edwards came closest to articulating my own political positions. I’m not going to waste any breath defending him, but I will keep looking for a politician that has the same skills and viewpoint but without the crazy hubris and vanity.
If that even exists…. what separates Edwards from say….. JKF? Edwards got caught? JFK was assassinated while his cheated-on wife lived? People make a lot of hay about “Edwards came so close to being president!” first of all… no he didnt. second of all, god forbid we have a philanderous president! Im not defending any of it. Just pointing out a perceived double standard.
come on SB he wasn’t just “philanderous” he was out having children with women and cheating on his terminal wife while simultaneously dragging her (and im sure she was complicit in this part but still) in front of cameras for sympathy. THAT’S the part that pisses me off.
He’s just as gross as “in sickness and in health” Newt Gingrich.
abandonment when times get tough is not something i want in my president.
you’re right. What Edwards did is worse than Clinton, for example…. (although we remember, Monica was 21 at the time, which is basically a child)
Edwards is a special case of sleaze….. but what if all this had come out (in hpothetical world) after a successful 2 term presidency where he restored the middle class? would he be a “great man with faults” (jfk) or would everyone abandon him when it was clear he was no longer going to be a powerful national figure?
~Devils advocate.
I at least expect my philandering presidents to be smart enough not to get caught. If not for that blue dress, we’d be building statues of Clinton in public squares. Edwards was stupid to a “wants-to-get-caught” level.
“Edwards was stupid to a “wants-to-get-caught” level.”
Really? In a way that goes beyond Oval Office blowjobs?
Really?
Yes.
In a way that goes beyond Oval Office blowjobs?
No.
Ditto, then. I guess risky behavior carries a lot of thrill for a certain type; I gather that’s a part of the appeal of gambling, too.
Tell ya what, I wish Dick Cheney had spent more time chasing skirts and less chasing global-domination unicorns.
“What Edwards did is worse than Clinton, for example…(although we remember, Monica was 21 at the time, which is basically a child)”
So by that standard, JFK was even worser than these two worst people, right?