The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Leave Them Be

While we are quoting ourselves today: In December I wrote a profile of Elizabeth Edwards for the New Republic (which for some reason is not showing up online). My main point was that Elizabeth has an overshare problem. In her book, on the campaign trail, to her friends, she spills everything—everything—freely: about her son who died, her cancer, her marriage, her other kids. Now the tell-all strategy which has served her so well in the past has come back to bite her. So she—the real victim of this story—would be hard pressed to unleash her fury at the press.   

But I will do it for her. There is no reason on earth I can think of to have run this story, much less stalked the guy at a hotel. Public figure? Who isn't a public figure? Unless the guy is having Nazi orgies in a brothel, this seems a pretty weak excuse. Vice -presidential candidate? Also weak. That was hardly likely, and you can kill that with rumors. Jack Shafer's hypocrisy argument I find totally unconvincing. The kind of hypocrisy that counts is when someone's public position is at odds with their private behavior. If Larry Craig votes against all gay rights legislation but solicits gay sex, then the gay community is allowed to out him. Ditto Pastor Ted Haggard, who preached weekly on the evils of gayness. But when a man says he's not having an affair when he is—that's just lying, same as most men would do in that circumstance. There are honorable reasons to lie in such a situation—namely, protecting your wife and children. We are still in the private realm here. This is just one of those cases where the press gets into a froth merely because the guy lied about something they thought they had him on, and then late one night they all made a bet to screw him. No honor there, no larger purpose served.