Opinion> Connie Schultz> We Re Picking On The Wrong Edwards

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We're Picking On the Wrong Edwards

In politics, it is increasingly fashionable to bash Elizabeth Edwards. As trends go, it's an ugly one.

She and I are not friends. My husband is a U.S. senator, and hers used to be, but we've met only once.

I learned with the rest of the country that her cancer had returned and is incurable. Like many others, I was disappointed when she admitted to encouraging her husband to stay in the 2008 presidential race even after she knew about his infidelity.

I have no personal agenda regarding Elizabeth Edwards, so I would have been a useless source for "Game Change," the new book about the most recent presidential race by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The authors say they interviewed more than 200 people, the overwhelmingly majority of whom were granted anonymity. From these interviews, they re-created chunks of dialogue and even the private thoughts of principal players.

In the book, virtually every female except Michelle Obama embodies the worst stereotypes attached to a woman with ambition. There is an especially ferocious aspect to the coverage of Elizabeth Edwards. She is, after all, the easiest target as the chronically ill wife of a man even ardent Democrats now love to hate.

I have no firsthand accounts to support or contradict the book's rumors of Elizabeth's bad behavior during her husband's race. But then again, apparently neither do Heilemann and Halperin.

In recent weeks, tales of a candidate's wife who was alternately scheming and screaming have been quite the rage in mostly male Pundit Land. It's as if they really had it some time ago with "poor, poor Elizabeth" and finally felt liberated to pounce.

In politics, there is no chattier source than a disgruntled staffer who is guaranteed anonymity, and it has been breathtaking to witness fellow journalists gobble up salacious gossip as fact. Salon.com's Joan Walsh has been a refreshing exception, wondering aloud why virtually all the women in the book are villains. She pushed back against any suggestion that Elizabeth Edwards was more at fault than her husband for his decision to stay in the race:

"How do I count the ways that is wrong?" Walsh wrote.

"John Edwards was both the candidate as well as the philanderer, who even after he'd lost, tried to strike a deal with Obama to become his vice president — and his terminal-cancer-stricken wife, who might have been clinging to the campaign to protect her from the pain of her husband's infidelity and her likely death, is worse than he is?"

The "quote" from Elizabeth gaining the most traction reflected her willingness to believe her husband's denial that he had fathered a child with Rielle Hunter, whom the authors describe as the "honey" or "hussy" that John Edwards was "diddling."

"I have to believe it," Elizabeth reportedly said, "because if I don't, it means I'm married to a monster."

Last week, John Edwards finally admitted that Hunter's baby, now nearly 2, is his daughter. The New York Times story about his confession included a recent photo of Hunter with her baby, as well as a 2007 photo of the Edwardses grasping each other's face, their eyes locked in intimate gaze. It is nearly impossible to imagine Elizabeth Edwards' grief.

Our culture coarsens, and we risk losing touch with that part of ourselves that forces us to consider what it means to be somebody else. If I were living Elizabeth Edwards' life, I'm not sure who I'd be by now, and that uncertainty is mighty humbling.

We want to believe the best about ourselves. We watch someone else stumble and insist we'd respond differently. But live long enough and life will bring you to your knees. I have not buried a child. I do not have incurable cancer. I have not been betrayed by the man I love, never had to set eyes on the baby the entire world knows he fathered behind my back.

I know this: I would stumble forward in pieces. Some days, a brave version of me would face the world. Other days, the broken me would beat a retreat. I'm not at all sure a crazy part of me wouldn't lash out to those who least deserved it.

Maybe I'm stronger than that. Maybe I never will have to find out.

That's my prayer, anyway. Hope God is listening.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House, "Life Happens" and "... and His Lovely Wife." She is a featured contributor in a recently released book by Bloomsbury, "The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's 'A More Perfect Union.'" To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.