Awful

by digby
 
Oh man.  This excerpt about the Edwards campaign from the exciting new political gossip tell-all is really unpleasant. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy — or a farce, I’m not sure. Both John and Elizabeth are portrayed as pretty awful people in the midst of a pretty awful situation. And there are some gratuitous, personal details in it that really shouldn’t have been published, IMO.

A lot of people wondered about Edwards.  On paper he had everything and seemed to have a real populist touch at a time when populism was increasingly relevant.  But a lot of people I knew felt there was just something “off” about him, they just couldn’t put their finger on it. Perhaps this is one of those cases where heuristics really do make a difference.

Whatever.  I’m sure Heilemann and Halperin are very proud to be the top, tabloid journalists in the country providing much shaudenfreude for the Villagers and entertainment for everyone else. They’ll sell a lot of books — it’s human nature to like mean, nasty gossip — and this one looks like it gives TMZ a run for its money. I’m sure we’ll be hearing every sordid detail on a loop for the next week at least. 

Update: Andrea Mitchell just reported that personal detail I found so offensive on NBC Nightly News. Elizabeth Edwards isn’t a sympathetic character in that article, but to me she seemed, in that moment, a woman in terrible, primal pain. Let’s say that no matter how awful a person she is, any woman who is diagnosed with incurable bone cancer and then finds out that her famous husband is sleeping with another woman (and knows she is about to suffer an epic public humiliation when it all comes out)  is likely to act like a freak at times. Nice of the villagers to turn that into entertainment.

.