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Anyway, Hanna, we agree that the Edwards family should be left alone. (And post-Alberto Gonzales, an AG whose biggest problem is a baby? Sounds good!) My son's question wasn't a hard one as in, "Uh-oh, what to say?' Just sad, as in another person he looked up to turned out to be human. Which is part of growing up, yes, but depressing all the same.
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I don't think it's Elizabeth's oversharing that was the problem! (And you don't mean, Hanna, that cancer ought to be kept under wraps, so as to avoid scaring the grown-ups?) Tonight, my 12-year-old who has been a big fan of Elizabeth's husband since '04—and still remembers that story about the girl with no winter coat—asks me, "So, was John Edwards not who we thought he was all along?'' Which is maybe not the saddest question of his that I've ever had to field. (That prize was handed out long ago, after he asked about the Catholic bishops: "Was what happened to those kids a conspiracy? Because otherwise, how did they all know to do the wrong thing?'') Still, this one is right up there. Oh, and he agrees with you, Rachael, that no one hog-tied the man and dragged him to Larry Craig land.
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OK, Rachael, so how about the selfish reason most of us wouldn't want to be that particular messenger? Unless I trip over a presidential candidate in the Bois de Boulogne some night - unlikely, as I live in Maryland - I am just not that eager to write up whose-what-is-going-where; that sort of thing might give readers a little wahoo, she said haughtily, but they will not respect you in the morning. Or on any subsequent morning. This is an especially tragic admission, I know, coming from your adultery, I mean, marriage correspondent. (While I'm confessing, I also got thrown out of Arthur Ashe's apartment building on purpose the day the world found out he had AIDS, so as to avoid having to ask him, "So, sir, plan on dying soon?' And doesn't every reporter have at least one story like that, about hiding behind the potted plant when they were supposed to be harrassing people?) Nobody who could also make a living doing data entry wants to be the one to break a story like this. I mean really, I try to put myself in the gum-shoes of the guy who says he chased John Edwards into a bathroom stall, and is there any chance in heaven he is thinking ah, now this is the reason I got into the biz; why can't every day be like this? No, he is going home, drinking himself to sleep as it's getting light outside, and dreaming about the various ways God will pay him back. Bad juju, I tell you.
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Sorry, Melinda, I have to disagree, though I do share your sympathy for the Edwards family. I was just reading Elizabeth's touching farewell to Tony Snow yesterday. She told the tale of a gentleman who approached her at a parade and gave her good wishes for her health and added "although we don't agree on much of anything." That's how I feel about Elizabeth, too. It's hard not to admire a woman who overcame the loss of a child, who had a second round of children in her 40s, and who bravely and selflessly told her husband to soldier on with his campaign after her cancer reappeared. So I think the National Enquirer story—if true—is devastating for her and her children. But the tabloid—however scuzzy—can't take the rap here. This isn't chasing an ambulance carrying a mentally ill Britney Spears to the hospital. John Edwards is still a prominent public figure, of sound mind and body, and at least until recently he was being touted as a possible vice presidential candidate. (And on that note, isn't it better for Obama that this comes out now?) He's fair game, and if his family gets hurt, the "bad juju" belongs all to him.
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