So Elizabeth Edwards is going to write a book. This is hardly surprising. For all the love directed her way by progressives she always seemed to me to be more the proverbial "power behind the throne" than Hillary Clinton ever was. She spoke about policy far more often than either Michelle Obama or even Bill Clinton ever did, which says something as Clinton was a former president and would therefore be the only candidate spouse I would have been interested in hearing from. Edwards might well be a good person, but something about her insistence on having John run for president while she wasted away, despite knowing about the affair that he conducted and his seeming public indifference to actually getting the job, bespeaks a desire for power that is quite a bit more acute than anything the Clinton years showed.
To some extent, it seems that criticizing political actors for their ambition is silly, and often one is merely criticizing one's ability to hide said ambition. And ambition isn't even a bad thing, really. But I found Elizabeth Edwards somewhat off-putting, despite her superior acting skills. It in interesting that there were some odd synchronicities between John Edwards and Fred Thompson. Both were out of politics, both ran presidential campaigns that often seemed fine with being second-tier endeavours. Neither wore particularly well, and neither proved as inspiring as promised. And both were arguably driven by spouses. This isn't to say that Edwards wasn't progressive, and I do think he had a good effect on the race overall, but the riskiness was unnecessary and unsavory. Elizabeth Edwards hasn't been reexamined in light of the Edwards sex scandal. And she should be. Especially with a book coming out which has no rationale except to keep the Edwards name alive for a little while longer. Edwards is magnanimous because she can afford to be magnanimous: she probably figures, with a little P.R. work, John might wind up being untainted again. Maybe Obama gives him a cabinet slot down the line. Maybe that leads to the N.C. Governor's mansion. And then to the White House. It's delusional, but when people are confronted with shattered dreams, delusion often sets in. Democrats must resist the temptation to bring him back. This whole thing is fishy to me, and I think that the Edwardses should stay where they are.
I know progressives still have affection for Elizabeth, but think about this: had Edwards won the Dem nomination and had the cheating story come out right before the convention, the Republicans would have won handily and the Dems would not have nominated a progressive for decades. And the person most directly responsible for this would have been Elizabeth Edwards. Progressive hero my ass.
