Saturday, August 9, 2008

Edwards

So today during break at work, I find the channel, previously set to the awesome Batman Begins (goddamn I am loving those Nolan/Bale Batman movies these days) set to some news channel, reporting on the latest news, the Edwards controversy. I am still a little uncertain of all that has occurred, but I gleamed then, and gleamed later, that Edwards admitted to having an affair with the woman from the whole love child rumors, that he is denying that the baby is his, and that his family has known about it since 2006. Shit. As I said to my co-worker, I guess this means he's out of the running for vice president.

I have been kicking around a bit of the left blogosphere, and a couple of broad motifs are poping up. 1) Fuck Mickey Kaus (even though he was (generally) right about all this). 2) I feel sorry for Elizabeth. 3)Fuck Edwards, this was politically risky. 4) Fuck Elizabeth too, I can't beleive they ran a campaign knowing this was out there. 5)Goddamn, we dodged a bullet. 6) Various asscovering excuses for verbal assults on espousers of the rumor before it was confirmed.

Personally, in my own small petty way, I feel kind of vindicated in that, though my faith was often tempted, Obama was always my favorite of the Big Three in the Dem primary. Sure, it's probably just the Illinois bias that did it, but still, I picked not only the winning horse, but the right horse. Bill had to many shady business deals for Hillary to be viable, and if Edwards had been the nominee now, we would have been fucked for no reason. Somehow, we lucked out and got the super devoted family man. Seriously, for a bit of hubris, here, I will go all in (mark it!): There will never be a personaly scandal involving Barack Obama. The man simply cares to much about the concept of family. I read his book, trust me. My take is that Barack Obama, because of his own upbringing, and because, I think, he was conditioned to approahc situations as a kind of objective, analytical observer, places unquantifiable value on his family unit as a source of identity. It's the value of the impossible dream. I think Barack Obama thought he would never get a stable, "normal" life, and so he feels incredibly blessed that he was able to get one. Watch that father's day speech. The man really really cares, on an almost primordial level, about his role as the father in his family. And hell, Michelle? The accumulation of anecdotal evidence I have come across leads me incontroveribly to the conclusion that those two are just incredibly protective of one another. I just don't see anything coming between them. They are a team.

But then, I thought John and Elizabeth were a team. And maybe they are. But still, this completely changes the understanding of the dynamic at work. We are no longer dealing with two faithful soulmates. So what are we dealing with? The quality was changed.

And I think the anger, or sense of betrayal, in the blogs is right. Whether or not it is fair, adultery is something that must be factored into politics, and the hiding of it is dangerous, and can effect the lives of other people. Whether it is fair or not, had this come out now , it would had lost the election, and that makes it irresponsible. Sure, it's a double standard for democrats. But if you want to be a democrat, that doesn't mean you can have affairs. It's that nature of the Game that you can't. Complaining about it at this point is like plaing chess and complaining that White always gets to go first. Of course white gets to got first! That's the rules asshole. If you don't like it, don't play black! Me, I like to play black. I like getting something to react to right off the bat. I like the limitations. But if you don't, you are playing the wrong game. Go play something else. And for God's sake, don't play something that might fuck up my life when you lose.