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What struck me most, Kerry, about Elizabeth Edwards interview with Oprah was her repeated insistence John's possible child with Rielle Hunter is irrelevant. She told Oprah that she doesn't know if the baby is John's (She also said John didn't know if the baby was John's, which reminds me of Emily's post wondering why, if Elizabeth Edwards has such an infallible bullshit detector, she's married to this dissembler in the first place) and that it doesn't matter. Here's a quote of her talking about the child, always an "it", at length:
"It doesn't make any difference to me [if Hunter's son is John's]. If I have to analyze why that should make a difference to me [it would only be because] I care about something completely extraneous to my life. That is not my life. And if we were to discover it was, that would be part of John's life, but it is not part of mine. And I cant see any upside to making it part of my life. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change anything. It's not going to change my life in any way. I could try to make it change my life and could keep myself up about if I thought he was trying to start a family with this woman. That would be one thing, but I do I not think that's true. I do not by any stretch of the imagination think that's true. And therefore, it doesn't have any effect on me. Part of resilience is deciding to make yourself miserable about something that matters, or deciding to make yourself miserable over something that doesn't matter."
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And her children's possible half sibling is something that doesn't matter? And can something, a something that's really a son, be "part" of John's life without being a part of hers? Does saying something won't change anything over and over make it true?
I found this exchange even more blinkered in the context of the entire interview, during which Edwards seemed, as she usually does, remarkably open, likeable, thoughtful, and authentic—as Hanna pointed out, her key trait. (In an age of disappearing privacy, it's worth remembering that we're not all equally equipped to kill our private lives. Some people, Edwards and Oprah among them, are better able to totally explode the distinction between their public and private lives by virtue of being more natural, comfortable, and open at television and publicity than the rest of us).
But on this subject, her husband's probable kid, Edwards seems willfully unthoughtful, as if she has artificially cordoned off one of the more painful aspects of her husband's philandering and decided that her ability not to think or feel about it means it doesn't warrant thoughts of feelings. I wonder if there will be another book that comes after Resilience, like Acceptance (or maybe Divorce).
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Willa, Hanna, isn't there a problem in writing a tell-all if you avoid telling about the most important thing? According to reports Elizabeth Edwards acknowledges that John confessed to her about his affair—although his confession was a lie in that he made it sound like a one-time slip instead of an on-going thing—but she does not mention at all the baby that has resulted. The fact that she doesn't is a kind of back-handed confirmation that baby is Edwards' since a tell-all book would be a good place to assert he wasn't the father if that was actually the case. I can understand Elizabeth wanting to tell her story. Hanna, as you point out, she feels comforted by being open. Because she is so ill, the criticism of her decision to do so, and of her choice to participate in Edwards' doomed presidential race will be muted. But why subject herself, and her family, to more public rehashing of what a creep her husband is? Hanna, he may have tried to create the appearance of sincerity, but he was always so disturbingly artificial. That actually may be the most authentic thing about him—how utterly insincere he is.
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Hanna, speaking of marriages that make you feel uncomfortable, the Edwardses are back in the spotlight today. The Daily News got its hands on a copy of Elizabeth Edwards' forthcoming memoir, Resilience, and have predictably highlighted the salacious stuff. (John Edwards told his wife Elizabeth about his affair with Rielle Hunter, whose name Elizabeth never uses in print, just days after he announced his candidacy. Upon finding out Elizabeth writes that she "cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up.")
The excerpts seem—and not having read the book yet, big emphasis on the seem— to be a kind of correction to the Stepford, "stand by your man" approach so often taken by political wives (and Elizabeth Edwards did, at least, refuse to physically stand next to her man while he made his confession and apology)—but only kind of. Edwards tells her side of the story and publicly chastises her husband ("He should not have run," she writes) but he's still her husband. Her critique has a narrow outer limit. Is writing about this better than keeping mum? Or, in a way, is it exactly the same? Is telling us all the true, clichéd things about why a person might decide to stand by her jerk that different from, or that much more informative than, silently standing by said jerk?
The News does pull out one genuinely heartbreaking quote from the book: "I lie in bed, circles under my eyes, my sparse hair sticking in too many directions, and he looks at me as if I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. It matters." And I'm sure it does matter, and yet, I can't help but wonder if the look she's describing resembles the supposedly earnest, empathetic stare Edwards utilized on the campaign trail, which some people, myself included, always found to be so disingenuous (and that turned out to be, to the extent that Edwards' ambition did trump his judgment, truly disingenuous). And then I wish I could un-think that thought, because it would be nicer to believe Elizabeth Edwards' version of things.
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Speaking of feeling sorry for Cindy McCain, I felt a spasm of pity for the woman during the GOP Convention, when Vanity Fair’s “Politics & Power” blog published a post called “Cindy McCain’s $300,000 Outfit” claiming that one of her looks—the mustard-colored one, with the evil-countess collar—cost 300 grand. The sensational figure quickly got picked up by the Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, the Los Angeles Times, even U.S. News and World Report; one HuffPo commenter railed: “THIS LADY IS PERFECT EXAMPLE OF THE 'LET THEM EAT CAKE' AND 'LATTE DA' MENTALITY OF BOTH THE BUSHIES AND MAC AND WIFE.”
But the claim—republished everywhere—was just a guess! Vanity Fair’s “fashion department” estimated prices for most of Cindy’s clothes and accessories, and said her earrings, if real, were three-carat diamonds worth $280,000. The sum is plausible for a pair of earrings that size (I called Harry Winston, which had a particularly high-quality pair on sale for a cool half-million), but every diamond expert I consulted, from Norman Landsberg in New York’s diamond district to Jim Shigley at the Gemological Institute of America, said it is impossible to estimate the size of a diamond—and even to tell whether it is synthetic or natural—from a photograph. “How would anybody actually know unless they had the earrings in their hand to examine them?” Landsberg said. “It would just be an incorrect guess.” One point of difficulty: Diamonds come in different shapes and can be broad but shallow, or relatively narrow but deeper, so it’s tough to accurately estimate carat size even if you can make a good guess about the diameter of a gem in its setting. The editor of Vanity Fair’s site, Michael Hogan, said the figures came from “a source who is a major player in the diamond industry” who “provided the estimates for the number of carats and the price.” But unless the source is the guy who sold Cindy the studs, the guess has a pretty big margin of error.
So: Cindy may well have been wearing jewelry that cost more than a house. (When Slate e-mailed the campaign to ask, it never responded.) But perhaps, conscious that her husband had recently taken flak for wearing $500 loafers, she opted for fakes. Or perhaps the earrings were a gift. Or an heirloom. Or something she bought years ago, for much less. The point is, we don’t know. Vanity Fair was candid that it was just publishing estimates, but that didn't stop the figure from ricocheting around the Web. The whole flap struck me as a new low in price-tag journalism—the already basement-level practice of reporting on the cost of political figures’ haircuts, glasses, and clothes. I understand our obsession with what politicians spend, but we shouldn’t bash Cindy for extravagance when we don’t really know the details.
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When I sat down with Cindy McCain for Reader's Digest, the most dramatic thing was how changed she was from 2000, not only physically, though that's also true, but in her demeanor. I remembered her from her husband's first run as being a lot of fun—not in the "Guy walks into a bar ...'' sense, but she'd always seemed genuinely amused, which is about all you can be as the circus is passing by. In those days, she sometimes said true things, too—not anything wildly out-of-school, but that she'd never before spent so much time with her husband, and that any day John trotted out a new joke was a happy, happy day. Also, I must say that I admired her as a wife, for being so supportive and all-in. When my husband wrote a book that came out that year, I remember promising him that at Politics & Prose, I was going to be on my very best Cindy McCain behavior for at least five minutes, and look at him like he was the last piece of cake; I wasn't completely kidding, either.
Now, though, she seems like an altogether different person, someone I hadn't met before. As I say in the piece, she's been through a lot since 2000, so maybe that's it. But she does seem far more brittle, like she's been warned that if she says anything remotely in keeping with human experience, someone will come and do harm to her loved ones. Part of her is really strong, or she would not go on these humanitarian trips all over creation; I think that's probably the truest part of her, and where she can really be herself. Another part of her, however, seems just plain petrified, and maybe that's not an irrational reaction, either.
Anyway, Dahlia, to answer what you asked me, I am not usually an asker of very tough questions—go with your strength, I say, and I'm more Larry King than Tim Russert. (I was going to say I was more Baba Wawa, but she and the rest of the "View' crew were tougher on John McCain than anyone else has been this cycle.) Yet I finally did get so frustrated with Cindy's beyond-boilerplate answers—she's never seen her husband lose his temper, they've never had an argument, he constantly amazes her because he's "so young''—that I did, to my own surprise and believe me to hers, blurt out a question about whether the stories that he'd called her an ugly name were true, I guess just to see if it mattered what I asked. Her response: "Oh, no! Oh no, no, no! Oh please; you know something? No. But I—no, absolutely not; preposterous!''
She did go out on a limb and suggest that abortion wouldn't be a big issue for voters this year: "You know something? We have a war, an economy that's failing right now, we have people without homes and jobs, we have an immigration issue and those are the issues of the day.'' But she declined to say whether she agreed with her husband's view that Viagra should be covered by insurance, while birth control pills should not: "You'd have to ask him with regard to what you're talking about.''
And, here is what maybe should have been my lede: She has the shiniest legs I've ever seen.
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In an op-ed in the Guardian this morning, Jessica Valenti, founder of the blog Feministing and author of the book Full Frontal Feminism, discusses what she believes has been the media's unfair treatment of Michelle Obama, wife of Barack. Valenti writes, "Media coverage of [Michelle] Obama has packed a nasty racism-sexism combo that is quickly becoming a national disgrace." She cites unflattering depictions of Michelle in Fox News and the National Review, and claims that some right-wing commentators (she doesn't name any specifically) have said downright racist things about the prospective first lady. She also appears to be very strung out by the now-infamous New Yorker cover of some weeks back.
Unfortunately, Valenti goes too far in her claims, mistaking lack of pundit love for Michelle for racism. Of course anyone can find examples of crazed right-wingers who say racist, offensive things about the Obamas, just as any McCainiac could look to the far left in drumming up outrageous examples of McCain hate. There has not been widespread racism toward Michelle Obama in the mainstream media. In fact, I would dare to say she's gotten away with a lot precisely because the media are afraid of being accused of racism—for instance, her rather bold assertion that this was the first time in her adult life that she was "really proud of [her] country."
In getting hung up on the race point, Valenti undermines the more important aspect of this issue, which is what constitutes the image of the American "political wife." The very term itself points to the sexism associated with the way we judge most (male) candidates' wives. There is a definite image of the political wife that these ladies are encouraged to follow, and someone like Laura Bush epitomizes this character. She's meek and well-mannered, and she has completely worthy yet completely innocuous pet causes like literacy rates. Lovely, worthy, but not exactly a firebrand. Like Teresa Heinz Kerry, who took flak in 2004 for being strong-willed and for rubbing people the wrong way, Michelle Obama defies that stereotype.
I don't particularly like Michelle Obama, because I think a lot of what she's said in this election cycle has been in poor taste (I agreed with Maureen Dowd about the butter-and-toast shtick being tiresome back in 2007). Still, if there's anything we can take away from Valenti's confused rant, it is this sense that we've been late to modernize our conception of what a candidate's wife looks like. Valenti and friends would do well to focus their energies on that important discussion as opposed to the race-card fallback.
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John Edwards is reminding me more and more of poor Henry Cisneros, who was on his way to becoming the Latino Obama before he cheated on his saintly wife, Mary Alice, while she was pregnant with their third child, a son born with no spleen and a malformed heart and stomach. Bill Clinton asked Cisneros to serve as his housing secretary anyway, a few years later, and by then, the affair was such old news that it never even came up during his confirmation hearings. Yet in the course of his background check for the cabinet post, Cisneros lied to the FBI—not about whether he was supporting his former mistress, but about the amount he paid her—and as a result, was subjected to a four-year investigation by a special prosecutor, a probe that cost taxpayers $9 million. Heck of a public servant, Henry, so big-hearted and capable; watching him work a crowd in San Antonio back in the day, you'd have sworn you were looking at the future. But at some point after he stopped paying Linda Medlar, she started taping their phone calls, and triggered the investigation. When the judge who presided over his trial finally asked Cisneros why he'd lied in the first place, he explained that while he wasn't positive himself about the amount he'd paid Medlar, he was positive he didn't want his wife to know how high that figure was. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor, and when he left public life, we all lost out. So, what's the relevance?
First, it's that scary as we wives can be, federal investigators are scarier, and if any of the $15,000 a month that's being paid to Edwards' ex-girlfriend came from campaign funds, I cannot overemphasize how seldom fudging the facts with the Feds works out. Second, what do Monica Lewinsky, Linda Medlar, and Rielle Hunter have in common? All were employees, and world-class blabbermouths. (You never really hear about the guys who get involved with the quiet types, do you?) It's silly to say we don't care if politicians fool around as long as they don't lie about it; how is that supposed to work? (Though if we replaced those one-minute morning speeches they give in Congress with a daily adultery roll call, CSPAN would definitely do some box office.) And until we figure it out, we're stuck pretending these people are perfect and then, when we find out otherwise, pretending we're surprised.
As it is, we're so perplexed about how to treat this stuff I can't even tell what this first-person Newsweek piece is trying to say. In it, reporter Jonathan Darman tells about his own adventures with Rielle Hunter, a woman so fascinating that after meeting her on a trip to Iowa with Edwards in 2006, Darman spends weeks trying to track her down and months getting to know her. After concluding she's an unreliable source, he keeps in touch anyway: "I continued to see her. ... I liked Rielle'' and "let her do my astrological chart.'' From the way he describes their boozy first lunch, I can't tell if he suspected she and Edwards were carrying on or not: Is the tone confessional because he missed the story, because he had the story and sat on it, or because he fell for the "I can tell you're an old soul'' hoodoo himself? (The last guy I knew who talked like that wound up blowing town with the life savings of several women who each thought they were going to marry him and start an ashram.) Hunter told Darman that in this incarnation, she wanted to help Edwards become a transformational figure on a par with Gandhi or MLK; better luck next time?
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I am incredibly annoyed that we have to waste any air, print, or pixel time on this. Why do I care about some dude's marriage and marital problems—unless he did something that in any way abuses public power? Comstockery, as I wrote in CJR once upon a time. Celebtainment and domestic voyeurism disguised as politics.
I just don't care what politicians do with their zippers, so long as their policies and votes are in order. By nature, national politicians are people who want power and want to be admired, even adored, to an absurd degree. (Not my fabulous mom, the township trustee and former Beavercreek, Ohio, mayor! But small-town politics—zoning, sewage, 32,000 citizens—is quite different from national politics.) Really, what emotionally healthy person would run for president of the United States? You have to have some ego issues to even imagine it might be possible.
Some large proportion of them will mess around. I. Do. Not. Care.
Was there any abuse of power—sexual harassment, assault, coercion? Did anyone get pinned up against the wall and groped against her or his will? Any abuse of public funds? Any manipulation to get a lover or family member a public job? Any payment to use someone else's body, which I find more and more appalling the more I learn about the sex trade? Then I have the emotional energy to be outraged.
But private dalliances, seductions, and oversize sexual appetites? Eh. Not my problem. Leave the poor family alone.
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A few weeks ago, back when we were talking about those political wives who stand in the background at press conferences and speeches, staring fixedly into space while their husbands confess to infidelity, criminality, stupidity, I suggested—to the scorn of many readers—that for many wives, particularly those who have some sort of stake in the marriage, the staring-at-the-husband exercise might be worth it: After all, revenge can always be exacted later. Well, it seems that one of the more famous political wives made precisely that sort of calculation.
Cherie Blair has held her tongue for many, many years now—since her husband first became prime minister in 1997, really—and can thus fully savour this moment. After years of subjecting her personal life to the public relations needs of her spouse, she has found a way to hit back, literally below the belt. The Times of London has published extracts of her new memoir and yes, they are quite vicious, as well as startlingly explicit. Among other things, Cherie accuses Tony of discussing how to announce her miscarriage to the great British public, even as she lay "in pain and still bleeding," and says he reacted to the news of her pregnancy with the immortal words "We'll have to tell Alastair" (Alastair being Alastair Campbell, Blair's press spokesman). She also announces that her fourth child was conceived at Balmoral Castle—one of the Queen's many homes—because she'd removed what she delicately refers to as her "contraceptive equipment" from her luggage, fearing that the servants would unpack it all, as they had on a previous visit. But then, "as usual up there it had been bitterly cold, and what with one thing and another ..."
The most obvious point to make about all of this is "I thought she was Roman Catholic," but I'm not going to say that. I'll only say that Cherie must have been really quite angry, all of those many long years, to have published this sort of stuff, given that she must know perfectly well what the British press is going do with it. First reaction of prominent female columnist, for example: "self-serving, smug, opportunistic, vain, shallow-thinking, nasty ..." Anyway, you get the drift. She won't be admired or loved (she isn't anyway) but perhaps she'll enjoy a few precious moments of satisfaction, finally seeing her version of events in print.
*Correction, May 14, 2008: This entry originally referred to the London Times. The newspaper is known only as the Times, though outside Britain it is often described as the Times of London.
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The good news is, Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow did not hold a news conference to say she was sticking by her hubby of five years after he confessed to police that he'd been with a prostitute. On the contrary, after the news came out, Stabenow didn't show up at a previously schedule press availability; instead, she put out a compact, two-sentence statement calling her mate's behavior "very disturbing and serious.''
The bad news, beyond the obvious: The hooker was arrested, but the john wasn't? What kind of nonsense is that, that he gets off with only a ticket for driving with a suspended license? Post-9/11, cops are seriously staking out the hotel rooms of prostitutes-in-training? And post-this latest spate of sex scandals, readers still see this sort of story in a partisan light? Most shocking to me were the comments appended to the story in today's Detroit Free Press -- from Democrats saying hey, at least he's not a toe-tapper like that Republican hypocrite Larry Craig. And from Republicans and even some Obama supporters laughing it up that this somehow shows the moral superiority of their team: "Obama is getting more and more supers to rally behind him,'' one poster said. "But the ones Billary have sewn up are the adulterers and their spouses.'' Jeez, can't we at least admit that human failings are bipartisan? Though the Free Press story notes portentously that Hillary Clinton once attended a fundraiser for the former employer of this doofus, I don't see how voters could possibly conclude that this has anything to do with anything.
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This morning is a flashback to 1998, toward the end of Lewinsky hell, when Bob Livingston decided not to run for speaker because someone had figured out he'd had an affair. And then came all sorts of rumors about who else Larry Flynt was going to out. And then it turned out Newt Gingrich was also getting some. (Newt Gingrich! Who would ever get steamy with him???) Back then, I had the same thoughts I am having now: Am I a conservative? Am I socially conservative? Am I the last person in America without an open marriage? Or who hasn't had an affair? What got to me today was not the McGreevey driver threesome story (which seems to fit right in with this Ashley Dupré moment) or the more-than-I-needed-to- know details about the Patterson marriage and the Days Inn. It was the blasé comments, by both Paterson and the anonymous New York city officials. "Like most marriages," Paterson began his confession. Most marriages go through periods where both spouses are having open affairs with other people? And then: It's "commonplace" for Albany officials to keep mistresses or have second families in the capital, said NY officials. Really? Second families in the capital are commonplace? Where else is that commonplace, that I don't know about? At the DoE? The IMF? On K street? In Kansas?
These last couple of weeks have been a real end of innocence for me. First Client 9. Then in Sunday's NYT, call girls who drink mint tea, carry NPR bags, and read Junot Díaz. Today, the driver threesome, and the Days Inn. What will I learn tomorrow? That Nancy Pelosi's a madame?
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And a new record, isn't it, for time elapsed between the swearing in and the swearing at? That's quick work, when right under the New York Times headline "New Governor for New York, Pledging Unity" is this second offering: "Patersons Acknowledge Extramarital Affairs.'' Only as these his-and-hers relationships were over years ago, this is relevant how? No laws were broken that I can see, except for the one about taking your wife and your girlfriend to the very same hotel. And I've stayed in worse, but the Days Inn? I see here where you can't have more than two guests in a room with only one bed, though—which might or might not have ruled out a stay by the McGreeveys. (Whatever happened, it's sure odd that New Jersey's former first lady sees the allegations that she and the ex-governor had threesomes with his young driver as an attempt to upstage her. "He cannot stand it,'' Dina McGreevey said of her ex, "when I am receiving attention in the media rather than him.'' Could anybody be that starved for attention? OK, yes. But wouldn't these revelations be problematic in his new line of work as an aspiring Episcopal priest?) Now that John and Abigail Adams, there was a lovely couple.
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I always thought pedophiles became priests (and ministers and rabbis and teachers and scout leaders) so they could be around kids. So maybe Spitzer got into his line of work that same way? For that and whatever 12 other reasons he and his (hopefully grandfatherly) shrink will be mulling for years to come, he in any case wound up with a big old combo plate of self-indulgence and masochism. And as for that question about whether we'd in theory rather see our mates with a) a mistress or b) a pro, as long as that's still a hypothetical, the answer's c) none of the above.
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On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart showed footage of a few of Eliot Spitzer's predecessors in the "Parade of Shame,'' who, as he said, were "all following the one simple rule of public humiliation: Bring a date.'' Then Samantha Bee gave us the scene we've all been waiting for: Her real life hubby, Jason Jones, in pearls, standing meekly by as she apologizes, sort of. "Last night I engaged in activity that failed to live up to the high standards I set for myself as a wife. I was with a man—men, a group of men, maybe a lady or two, I don't really remember. Definitely, though, several men. It was a betrayal of my marriage, even if it left me satisfied in a way my husband, who you see next to me, never has...I also want to apologize to our daughter - I think 'our daughter —definitely mine ...''
But killing as this stuff is—and Lewis Black had a funny riff on it, too—each time they cut to footage of the Spitzers at their news conference, it only compounds my feeling that the sight of his dutiful wife is too sad to bear. Over and over, there she is, so mortified she's unable to lift her eyes from whatever piece of paper her louse husband is fiddling with. Doesn't it seem like this was longer than two days ago? My real problem with this scandal is not that it's none of our beeswax, but that I can't get past wanting to bake something for Silda—and then I hate feeling like that, too, because nobody wants pity-inspired sticky buns. In fact, knowing we're all feeling sorry for her is probably the thing she hates most, or OK, second-most, or maybe third. And I totally reject this whole "great men have great appetites" argument—bah, that's what every two-bit cheater who ever took home a waitress told himself. These Luv Guvs just have bigger egos, more of a sense of entitlement, and lots more disposable cash.
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Liza and Melinda, I confess I am torn here: Is the problem that big-deal moralizing politicians always cheat or that everyone cheats and the big-deal moralizing politicians always get caught? The late Mrs. Chatterbox, Tim Noah’s wife, Marjorie Williams, once wrote that “the core myth of Washington life is that the men and women who win political power here somehow also win exemption from the irrational, elemental forces of human nature that guide behavior everywhere else, exalting, ruining, ennobling and disrupting lives in Phoenix and Flint and Tulsa and Miami.” That sounds right to me. Sex makes people stupid. Possibly it just makes extraordinary people extraordinarily stupid?
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I am guessing that the answer will be yes—but am I the only one who finds this Spitzer stupidity actually kind of tedious? Why don't we out the handful of big-deal politicians who actually keep their pants on and be done with it? Which would solve the whole problem of wives having to show up and stand there for their ritual humiliation when they could be out practicing law, or playing tennis, or getting even, for all I care. Don't look now, but I don't think the public would faint in surprise or anything. And all it would take would be one brave spouse, willing to state the obvious ...
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A guest post from our colleague Tim Noah, who presents us with an important question.
Your governor husband is going to a press conference to announce that he got caught in a prostitution ring. He asks you to come with him to show moral support. Do you say
a) "Of course, sweetheart"
b) "Not a chance, you son-of-a-bitch."
c) "I'd love to, hon, but my favorite soap is on."
d) "Goody. I have a few things I'd like to say, and I don't care who hears it."
e) "No, and I'll be changing the locks while you're gone."
It seems to me that the only answer here that is plainly incorrect is "a." But apparently that's what Silda chose.
OK, let's hear what everyone thinks.
Update: Read what the XXers' answers to Tim's question here. Read the whole Spitzer conversation here.