My John Edwards Moment
I only met John and Elizabeth Edwards in person once in my life, but in light of this week’s revelations, the story takes on new meaning.
We were at an international conference in the summer of 2008. I was a panelist, the Edwardses a last minute “get” for the keynote address.
Obama had all but won the Democratic nomination, so our hosts flattered Edwards by repeatedly suggesting aloud that Obama would likely choose Edwards as a running mate. These tributes elicited only a grim smile from Edwards.
Edwards’ address reprised the themes from his presidential campaign. Speaking intensely and without notes, He pledged the rest of his life to the fight against poverty: “the cause of my life.”
Maybe because of translation difficulties, the audience seemed only mildly impressed. Or perhaps they felt as I did: with the campaign behind him, Edwards lacked the energy to go on faking sincerity.
The open session ended. John and Elizabeth posed for photographs. Then all speakers – the Edwards plus the second-tier attractions – adjourned for dinner with host-country business leaders.
As this informal conversation commenced, Edwards shape-shifted almost before our eyes. Not one more word was spoken about poverty, the cause of his life. He expiated at length about national security, defense budgets and the Afghanistan war – and all from a distinctly hawkish perspective. Here again was John Edwards version 1.0, the centrist New South Democrat.
Through his answers, Elizabeth had kept her eyes fixed upon him. Seated directly across the table from him, she looked at him – not with Nancy Reagan adoration – but with the non-comprehending anxiety of a dog watching her owner pack a suitcase.
The in-country manager of a major European insurance group posed a question about healthcare. Edwards answered: My wife Elizabeth was our campaign’s expert on this issue, so I’ll leave the question to her and eat a bit of my dinner.
Off she went. Elizabeth Edwards explained the most important differences between the Obama and Clinton health proposals, offered measured criticism and praise for each. Her remarks were strikingly well-informed. (Edwards by contrast had been forceful and clear, but showed nothing like such command of detail.) When she finished, she turned another beseeching look to John Edwards, as if to ask: "Didn’t I do well?"
After she finished, Edwards beamed at the whole table. I unfortunately didn’t write down his words, but it was to the effect: “Now you see why everybody loves Elizabeth!”
For those who’d like a reminder: here’s a timeline of the story courtesy of New York magazine.
The story begins to surface into public view in September-October 2007. In December the National Enquirer published the news that Rielle Hunter was pregnant. In late July 2008 the National Enquirer photographed Edwards’ middle of the night visit to Hunter and her child at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.
As of that date, however, not one word or hint of the story had appeared in any traditional media outlet, prompting Mickey Kaus to wonder:
Will this be the first presidential-contender level scandal to occur completely in the undernews, without ever being reported in the cautious, respectable MSM? That's always seemed an interesting theoretical possibility--a prominent politician just disappears from the scene, after blogs and tabloids dig up dirt on him, but nobody who relies on the Times, Post, network news or Mark Halperin has the faintest idea why.
Or for that matter, almost no writer sympathetic to Democrats – with Kaus himself a rare exception – breathing a word of disquiet about the candidate’s actions.
One word more here, in reply to those who uphold candidates’ rights to private flaws. It’s a fair argument much of the time. But in Edwards’ case, his campaign rested in very large part on his self-presentation as the devoted companion of a sick wife. Kaus again:
Why, after all, was Edwards ever considered presidential material. Is he a great executive? No. A brilliant policy expert? No. An accomplished diplomat? No. He's an ex-Senator with one undistinguished term in office who rose in life on the basis of his singular ability to use tearjerking stories to move juries and win large verdicts . His presidential campaign has featured similarly moving anecdotes, such as the famous 10-year old girl "somewhere in America" who goes to bed "praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today, because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm."
Edwards' most effective anecdote this year, however, was probably the story of his popular wife Elizabeth's struggle against cancer. He made it the emotional center of a TV ad:
And Elizabeth and I decided in the quiet of a hospital room, after 12 hours of tests and after getting very bad news, what we were going to spend our lives doing. For all those that have no voice. We are not going to quietly go away.
During a joint 60 Minutes interview focusing on his wife's illness, Edwards explicitly linked his behavior in that struggle and his fitness for public office:
Katie Couric:
Some have suggested that you're capitalizing on this.
John Edwards:
Here's what I would say about that.
First of all, there's not a single person in America that should vote for me because Elizabeth has cancer. Not a one. ..[snip]
But, I think every single candidate for president, Republican and Democratic have lives, personal lives, that indicate something about what kind of human being they are. And I think it is a fair evaluation for America to engage in to look at what kind of human beings each of us are, and what kind of president we'd make. [E.A.]
Relevance: If a politician is a great executive, thinker or diplomat who cheats on his brave, ill wife, you figure, "OK, We're not hiring him because of his sterling private behavior." If a politician whose chief appeal is his self-advertised loyalty to his brave, ill wife cheats on his brave ill wife, what's he good for again? And if Edwards' crucial talent as a public official is his ability to move people with tearjerky anecdotes, and those anecdotes (like the tale of his spousal loyalty, or the girl with no coat, or the anecdote that reportedly made John Kerry queasy about him)--turn out to be BS or half BS, that's more than random hypocrisy, It goes to the core of what he does and what he claims to offer. (I'd also argue that an emotional, anecdote-led liberal approach to poverty inevitably tends toward the failed solution of simply sending poor people cash welfare, but that's another argument.)