Althouse: "The Excruciating Anguish of Elizabeth"...

August 14, 2008

"The Excruciating Anguish of Elizabeth"...

... as PR.

I'm betting Mickey Kaus has it right.

42 comments:

Ron said...: I'll take that bet!

I'm looking forward to the next Wright/Kaus Bloggingheads like Ali-Frazier I!; 8/14/08, 8:48 AM
vet66 said...: If her health could handle it I think she should get a good lawyer and take him to the cleaners. That would be poetic justice. His claims denying payouts sounded like Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes; "I KNOW NOTHING!"; 8/14/08, 8:56 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: What is it with smart women lawyers? They keep standing by their lying and cheating husbands. Hillary, Silda, Elizabeth. Maybe they never learned how to spell D-I-V-O-R-C-E!

Hey we could write a song; just like Abraham, Martin, and John.; 8/14/08, 9:09 AM
TJ said...: Didn't you ask him to go away? Why does John Edwards keep making you write about him? Why won't that horrible man listen to you?; 8/14/08, 9:18 AM
rhhardin said...: I can't follow it. What's wrong with Elizabeth being a shrew as a story line? It accounts for everything with a single not-very-improbably hypothesis.; 8/14/08, 9:26 AM
Brian O'Connell said...: I think I made this comment around the time of the Spitzer mess, when there were all these questions about why the wives stay. It's not too strange- these political wives tend to just as ambitious as their office-seeking husbands- or just as power-hungry to be less kind about it.

So they nearly always decide that the best move for them is to ride out the storm, claim to forgive their husbands, and hope that the scandals don't derail their own ambitions.

Just because they're victims- and they certainly are in one sense at least- doesn't mean that they're saints.; 8/14/08, 9:37 AM
Bill White said...: It seems that Mrs E is the brains of the Edwards operation and that Silky Pony's job is to look pretty on-camera and say what she tells him to say.; 8/14/08, 9:41 AM
rhhardin said...: My theory gets a boost from Rush's intuitions, I see.; 8/14/08, 9:47 AM
Swifty Quick said...: What's wrong with Elizabeth being a shrew as a story line? It accounts for everything with a single not-very-improbably hypothesis.

As a conservative, all through the 2004 campaign I considered her just about as much of a disingenuous and phony partisan hack as her husband was. Then she was diagnosed and everybody fawned over her, and it became hands off time. There is a strong tendency amongst many to conflate her medical condition with who she otherwise is, and many liberals are just fine with letting her skate through on that basis.; 8/14/08, 9:57 AM
Anonymous said...: Whatever. She'll be dead soon enough.; 8/14/08, 10:10 AM
MadisonMan said...: I don't know why EE would stay. But a plausible explanation I heard: She recognizes that death is in her near future. What to do about her young children? Divorce the Dad and then die? Or just try to have a 'normal' life?

Not a threadjack, but I can't believe Libby Trickett backed into the finals because the Chinese swimmer deeked!; 8/14/08, 10:14 AM
AllenS said...: downtownlad said...
"Whatever. She'll be dead soon enough."

I get the sneaking suspicion that Elizabeth will live a long, long time. We shall see.; 8/14/08, 10:20 AM
XWL said...: I can out 'cynical' Kaus.

Is it so hard to believe that Elizabeth Edwards 'relapse' is a sham?

Media types have used the, 'it would hurt poor Elizabeth at a difficult time' excuse for helping Edwards cover-up his bad behavior, what if that 'difficult time' was completely manufactured?

Checking up on the reporting when the news first broke, it wasn't just Edwards' word for it, her oncologist is quoted on record, so that either destoys that theory, or it means that she got a respected MD to also lie.

Though Edwards might have motive to lie, I can't imagine that her doctor would.

Still, given the behavior of both Edwards, and their willingness to fool the media, I wouldn't put it past them to engineer a deeper conspiracy to advance their ambitions.; 8/14/08, 10:25 AM
Anonymous said...: What's wrong with having sex with someone other than your wife anyway?

Are straight people really that hung up about sex?; 8/14/08, 10:42 AM
David said...: Yes, Johnny boy has an incentive to save the marriage. A financial one.

If there is a divorce, roughly half of his assets go to Elizabeth.

If the marriage remains intact, on her death he retains all the assets.

Given her short life expectancy, "saving" the marriage is worth big bucks to Edwards.

Cynical and harsh?

Remember, this guy is a total crapweasel.; 8/14/08, 10:45 AM
Anonymous said...: Why isn't McCain a crapweasal for doing the same thing to his first wife?; 8/14/08, 10:47 AM
Beth said...: I don't care if Elizabeth Edwards is covering up or still being lied to. I have no interest in judging how she copes with her husband's now very public infidelity.

From tragedy to farce to sport, now. Why do we need a new target? It's not even a week into this story. There's not enough blood in the water for Kaus?; 8/14/08, 10:52 AM
Trooper York said...: I am getting a little tired of this crap.

Can we have some pictures of dogs urinating or something?; 8/14/08, 10:52 AM
Anonymous said...: The Reagan's thought McCain was crapweasal.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-divorce11-2008jul11,0,5924926,full.story

A 42 year old man cheating on his wife with a 24 year-old. And 6 years after the war ended. Hmm - why are the Edwards bashers giving McCain a pass?

Not to mention the fact that McCain cheated on Cindy very recently, as documented in the New York Times.; 8/14/08, 10:53 AM
Anonymous said...: Disclaimer - I have nothing against either affair.

It's the wife's job to stay hot. She is there to please the man. That's it. If she let's herself go, well all bets are off - and its her fault.

I agree - let's bash Elizabeth.; 8/14/08, 10:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Fascinating, isn't it, how the Edwards's have managed to become front page news fodder in the run-up to the Dem convention?

John E was cornered by the Nationel Enquirer, certainly, but then he chose to air his laundry on television rather than keeping quite about the details of the affair.

The voice in my head keeps telling me that Edwards was looking for forgiveness and absolution before the convention in order to pave the way for an appointment by the Obama adminsitration.

After all, now that HRC and WJC are trying to hijack the convention, wouldn't Obama love to have the Edwards delegates?; 8/14/08, 11:13 AM
Trooper York said...: The Brooklyn posts were a lot more diverse. This all Edwards/Obama all the time is sucking hard. And not in a good way.

Can't we get a fish eye photo of a dead bat or something?

Please.; 8/14/08, 11:13 AM
Anonymous said...: Apologies for the spelling errors above.; 8/14/08, 11:14 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: downtownlad said...
It's the wife's job to stay hot. She is there to please the man. That's it. If she let's herself go, well all bets are off - and its her fault.

My, my, who would have know that you are still living in the Elizibethan Age?; 8/14/08, 11:14 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Can we have some pictures of dogs urinating or something?"

Is Borgnine sufficient?; 8/14/08, 11:18 AM
Icepick said...: RHHardin asks: What's wrong with Elizabeth being a shrew as a story line? It accounts for everything with a single not-very-improbably hypothesis.

What's wrong with it is that it would be one more admission by the news media that they were either (a) completely duped by someone, or (b) covering up someone else's misdeeds to push their own political agenda. Neither one makes the news media types look good or useful.

DTL ask: Why isn't McCain a crapweasal for doing the same thing to his first wife?

McCain IS a crapweasal for doing the same thing to his first wife. McCain even sheepishly has acknowledged this, before moving the subject back to how wonderful he is.

He's getting something of a pass because (1) the affairs happened a long time ago, (2) a lot of military personnel go through this kind of thing, (3) a lot of POWs went through this same process, and (4) he's a war hero. More importantly, the McCain story hasn't been covered up (by the McCains) for political purposes - for weal or for woe (for them), this story is out there. Also, his marital fidelity hasn't been (at least not recently) THE hallmark of his campaign as it was for the Edwards. McCain has made other parts of his biography the center piece of his campaign.

It should also be remembered that the NYTimes tried to smear McCain with allegations of a new affair a few months ago, printing a rumor that apparently they had made up on their own that used no evidence of any kind. So there has been SOME effort by the newss media to make McCain look like a crapweasal for cheating on his current wife. (Note how they completely missed the story about Edwards. The Edwards story had more behind it and using the methodology they used for the McCain story Edwards looked even more guilty. They didn't even need to actuyally do any research to print allegations, if they used the McCain model as a template.)

Everything that is happening now is about people either trying to cover their asses for prior mistakes (John Edwards & the news media), or trying to through dirt on the coffin containing Edwards' political career as descends into the ground. And then there are those simply making merry sport of the whole thing, and those (Kaus) who are doing the "I told you so" dance.; 8/14/08, 11:23 AM
EnigmatiCore said...: "What's wrong with having sex with someone other than your wife anyway?

Are straight people really that hung up about sex?"

Why do you get your knickers in a twist over gay marriage if you think marriage vows have so little meaning?; 8/14/08, 11:24 AM
Trooper York said...: Yes thank you. As noted in the thread above. Ernie is a real American. Not a pretty boy poser asshole. The salt of the earth. Tells it like it is. And he has some great advice for you wankers in the video clip. Get crackin.

Except you Meade. I am sure you already have it covered. Heh.; 8/14/08, 11:25 AM
Icepick said...: Enigmaticore asks DTL: Why do you get your knickers in a twist over gay marriage if you think marriage vows have so little meaning?

I can answer this for him: There are all kinds of legal and financial ramifications to marriage that have nothing to do with sex whatsoever.; 8/14/08, 11:35 AM
Spread Eagle said...: why are the Edwards bashers giving McCain a pass?

Most of us on the right haven't been able to stand McCain for a long time, going back to even before when the left loved him.; 8/14/08, 11:37 AM
Fen said...: No kidding. He's one of the reasons I quit the GOP last summer. Now I have to vote for him anyway. How ironic.; 8/14/08, 12:26 PM
Roger J. said...: What Beth and Trooper said above (dare I say this: "back to back); this Edwards thing is definitely farce.; 8/14/08, 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...: John and Elizabeth: it's over. Your dreams are shot. You were ambitious locals. You were never very good and you still aren't very good.

John: you are no Clinton. You are no Lincoln. Take the job at the big charity or the university. Don't be Harold Stassen.; 8/14/08, 3:17 PM
blake said...: I had never considered the possibility that the cancer remission might be fake. That's a weird notion requiring extra proof, I think.

But...not to be ghoulish...isn't EE supposed to be dead already? I thought she had only six months over a year ago.; 8/14/08, 7:02 PM
Meade said...: "What is it with smart women lawyers? They keep standing by their lying and cheating husbands"

Own worst enemies are the worst kinds of enemies to have to own up to.; 8/14/08, 7:40 PM
Cedarford said...: DTL -
"What's wrong with having sex with someone other than your wife anyway?

Are straight people really that hung up about sex?"

Egnimaticore adds - Why do you get your knickers in a twist over gay marriage if you think marriage vows have so little meaning?

And I'd add that it is DTL's attitude that have made gays, along with promiscuous blacks and latinos and white trash who reject fidelity, plus whores and junkies - into the major communicable disease vectors our society suffers from.

===================
On "Poor Elizabeth". She is a political wife and before that a woman whose every expensive taste was indulged by money from Edward's sleazy trial lawyer verdicts.
How she "feels" about John is irrelevant, just as Hillary's "stand by her man" strategy to cling to power and fame had little relevance outside the feminist cabal - on how much of the public felt betrayed by Clintons lies and sleaze.; 8/14/08, 8:32 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: "Not to mention the fact that McCain cheated on Cindy very recently, as documented in the New York Times."

That seals it for me. The New York Times, like John Edwards, is 99% truthful.; 8/15/08, 12:03 AM
Meade said...: blake said...
...But...not to be ghoulish...isn't EE supposed to be dead already? I thought she had only six months over a year ago.

I was thinking about that, Blake. In a very machiavellian (evil) way, the best thing to have happen for Edwards right now would be for his wife to die. What a morbid drama that is going to be.; 8/15/08, 2:34 AM
blake said...: I was thinking about that, Blake. In a very machiavellian (evil) way, the best thing to have happen for Edwards right now would be for his wife to die. What a morbid drama that is going to be.

I thought the same thing, but it only applies to a limited definition of "best". The actual best thing would be full recovery and the two of them going ahead and raising the family. (With, you know, some sort of integration of the new baby.)

I tend to side with people who suggest we shouldn't have career politicians, if for no other reason than mercy for the poor suckers who fall into that trap.; 8/15/08, 3:10 AM
Meade said...: Well said.

Whew! We need a little humor break
.; 8/15/08, 7:53 AM
Peter V. Bella said...: Meade said...
"What is it with smart women lawyers? They keep standing by their lying and cheating husbands"

They are all fans of Tammy Wynette.; 8/15/08, 6:32 PM
Anonymous said...: People think crazy, do crazy, when they have cancer.

But EE's actions do match those of so many other bright women in public life who choose family over career, then chafe at their choice later in life, or who make the old man pay. We might change the old adage, great man don't have great children, to great men don't have great wives. Such is the way of the world.; 8/15/08, 10:02 PM