John Edwards, private and public

Charlie Pierce has a good story on John Edwards in Esquire. I’ve never been a fan of Edwards’ public persona, but it’s always seemed that the private Edwards — the father of a son killed in an accident and the husband of a wife with incurable cancer — was more impressive. Pierce’s account confirms that.

I’d still like to see someone ask John Kerry about the truth of Bob Shrum’s poisonous allegation regarding Edwards’ willingness to exploit his son’s death. Typical of the political media, Shrum has been treated like a sage, appearing on “Meet the Press” and the like without anyone challenging him on it.

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7 thoughts on “John Edwards, private and public”

  1. John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth are a couple of the most decent people I have ever me.I admire them for their optimism and their courage. I hope that John Edwards is elected to the White House. This country needs the leadership of an decent, honest man.

  2. Gee, let’s get Shrum on Bill O’Reilly’s show, or Hannity’s, and see how ‘sage-like’ his treatment is then…Of course, it makes no difference, as I have been told over and over that the liberal media is really a myth, and all MSM is really corporate and evil, with conservatives riding herd on all poor liberals.

  3. Sorry Mushy,Knowing them personally understanddably makes one unusually more deferential than normal. Most people don’t share your opinion, it seems.Elizabeth is a nice person, very smart and likeable and would be a great civil servant and would be great Vice President material, more if she had been more invovled in politics directly.But he is a big phoney and careless at that too, about the little mistakes and missteps in safeguarding his image to a very cynical public. He is like many running for Prez, trying desperately to fulfill a child’s dream but without the necessary skill, intellect or character to seek and excel in such office.N.

  5. Apologies.Maybe I was thinking of the mushy support.I’ll be more careful.N.

  6. Dan, do you really believe Pierce’s piece confirmed anything? I found it to be quite juvenile and adulatory. Pierce writes of a “nearly insupportable tragedy in his (Edwards’) background that he never talked about”, then claims that Edwards, “even threatened to fire any consultant who even proposed to use the tragedy in a television spot.”One obvious but unasked question; were aides actually planning to use the tragedy when Edwards threatened to fire anyone who did, or did Edwards raise the tragedy first, under the guise that nobody better bring up what I’m about to bring up? There’s a weirdness about the way they deal with the son’s death. It just doesn’t seem to flow naturally. Thinking back to the presidency and vice-presidency of George H.W. Bush, I can’t recall anywhere near the unease in discussing the death of little Robin Bush from leukemia. Regardless, why didn’t Pierce even raise the allegations made by Shrum that clearly dispute the claim that Edwards never talked about the son’s death? Likewise, no mention of the eyebrow raising, nationally televised Edwards press conference– widely expected to announce a suspension of the campaign due to the recurrence of Elizabeth’s cancer–that actually announced nothing. In another strange twist, Elizabeth is being used as the junkyard dog of the campaign, attacking everyone from Ann Coulter to Hillary to today, Obama. It seems to be an odd role for her. Sadly one wonders if she is stuck on “anger” in the stages of grief promulgated by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

  7. Gotta hand it to Pierce. Anyone who can manage to politicize sports has got himself one burning agenda.

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