First, I want to reiterate what Tata said here about the repossession of FEMA trailers in Louisiana by the end of May, and before most of the projects to restore housing are fully in place. This is another example of the bold insanity of our government at work. Contact the FEMA Leadership here, and Vitter, to urge him to stop blocking Obama's nominee for the post of FEMA head, here. This is storm season and, as Jill says, no one is in charge of disasters and emergencies. This sort of thing just makes you wonder where the media is considering the story below and this.
There are people in office who are seriously kinky and caught in ignored scandal, and the media is obsessed with the most irrelevant moral implications of what amounts to straight sex in the primary season, in their quest for ratings. Meanwhile the long suffering people of Louisiana and areas effected by Katrina are still not back in reasonable housing...and now will be on the street if the rudderless FEMA has its way. Is anyone paying attention? Again, go here and tell them what you think!


Yesterday I found myself absorbed in the (DVRed) Elizabeth Edwards edition of Oprah that aired this past Thursday. Elizabeth Edwards has alot of important things to say to us as human beings and as a country in her new book Resilience, but the whole thing ultimately made me just a little uncomfortable. As much as I like the Edwards' regardless of the disingenuous air that surrounds them these days, and the seemingly insane choices that they both have made along the way, my radar was buzzing. This is, after all, still politics.



There is an amount of crazy fairytale here, that is almost childlike in its construction, and there is a part of me (the New York City, glass half empty, Woody Allen part, I'm sure,) that doesn't buy that anyone really believes in those sorts of happy endings. At the same time that Elizabeth Edwards is telling us that life is messy, she holds forth the illusion that she created years ago that somehow her family could beat the odds. The fact that they have so extremely NOT beaten the odds, makes it even further fetched that this particular betrayal came as a huge surprise to her. Somewhere in the fateful family decision to become political after the death of their son, they gave up the ability to falter privately, and Elizabeth's only gift request, that he remain faithful, almost assured their eventual demise. I find that request sort of strange unless she had some reason to think he wouldn't...or unless she was having a realistic moment in the fairy tale. His request in response would have to have been that if he did somehow fail her, that she try to forgive him. But it feels to me like those thoughts are the territory of mere mortals, and this was a fairy tale.

If we just accept that they are both far from victims in this game, and I don't think that cancer, infidelity, or the subsequent lies, changes the facts and the rules of the game, then we can move forward with whatever bits of the underlying story here that can help people struggling with these issues that stretch beyond marital infidelity and into the cold fact that the entire construct of the American Dream and the happy ending is an impossible lie. If we accept that human nature is fragile and fallible, and that we have been lied to about what to realistically expect, maybe we can move to a place where we realize that our personal dream fulfillment is more about what we create internally, and less about what we've been told just happened naturally. The prize at the end is what screws everything up because it becomes more and more idealized until we are easily convinced that it can be bought with a credit card and that its something accessible without hard work, failure and forgiveness along the way.

I kept wondering why now? why this way? why Oprah? It all comes off as so weepy and touchy-feelie....and yet, it sorta worked. Elizabeth, the kids, the house, (alot of those square feet are part of some huge basketball complex, by the way, but how can you explain that away once the bulldogs in the media have their jaws locked on the lawyer with a huge house meme,) John skulking in the background looking thin and wan, and then finally having a quick heartfelt sit down at the end, it all worked; the despair and growth and learning....and then....



It was somewhere towards the end that I began the see the well oiled machine gears turning behind all of this. I began this new lil' Edwards cycle feeling sort of annoyed with Elizabeth for bringing this forward again, and then beating myself down with the internal response that its up to her as a dying woman. After all, Ive been told time and again by the media that Edwards is not eligible for his second act, ever, because THIS is just too bad. You would think that we don't live in the political climate that we live in; you would think that we haven't witnessed every disgusting scandal possible, save bestiality, (but so long as there are a few fundamentalist, holier-than-thou, creeps still out there, stay tuned,) none of which excuses John Edwards for what he's done. Its just that anyone who knows politics knows that what hes done, as it effects society and even the message the Obama carried forth, has more to do with being a champion for the poor than cheating on his dying wife. And the timing; how could the investigation into campaign funds begin just as the book is released? That couldn't have possibly been by design, but it worked out great, huh? Lets chalk that up to luck, OK?



Elizabeth is a formidable woman, and a wonderful human being, (or so we hear from those who have met her; I like her image but I don't know her personally.) She is dying of cancer pretty publicly and she speaks about the messiness of life in a way that is accessible and common. But to assume that she isn't every inch the powerful political wife would be to underestimate her. To think that her need to come out with a book now as opposed to later, (....after all, and again, who are we to judge the wishes and the medical condition of a dying woman?) doesn't also have some cathartic underlying healing of the cheated on woman in all of us, would be tragically naive.

And somewhere towards the end of the sister's sit down, it became clear to me that Elizabeth is giving John and ultimately the country, the greatest gift that she could; she is allowing us to walk with her on her path of forgiveness and her quest for truth in her life. It matters little that the details are far from what any of us will ever experience in our lives. In the end, we are all the disappointed child that Bush abused, and the abused wife that John cheated on. There is some part of the misplaced emotion of the past 8 years, and probably from our own dysfunctional families, that seems to land on the Edwards' shoulders. So to address that is ultimately probably more helpful than not.

If we are over identified with Elizabeth, she is allowing us an end to the story that is believable, because she isn't Barbie, and Ken doesn't just get a pass because he's the most popular boy in school. If we ever were blinded or offended by Edward's good looks, this puts a few lines on his face and takes him down a few notches. So whether this happens in the service of Elizabeth's legacy or the future of the country and breaking down the walls between the Two Americas, isn't really important. I don't feel like we are in a position to split hairs when it comes to what has to be done to bring this country back in the general direction of Americans at least having a chance at some sort of life, and I'm not in the business of ignoring an intellectual voice at a time of crisis, for moral reasons. Americans who are willing to put their entire lives out there for scrutiny, and who have the background and knowledge to speak on the issues, should not be silenced because of a set of bad decisions. If anything, we could hope that they learn from their mistakes and emerge stronger and more focused on what is important.

I'm not saying that this is something that happens immediately, but I can see the groundwork in its infancy here. I don't see the damage to message or the impact of the paternity of the child that others are bringing up. last thing I knew, Edwards had left the race with the agreement with the other players that his message would be carried through. Last thing I saw was that Obama is actually, in the quicksand of the messes hes been left with, trying to address it. It seems to me that if paternity is an issue, we will be informed. Its not like the mother of the child has held back as far as her pursuit of Edwards ("you're so hot!" ??? Could that be the line that brought down a Presidential hopeful?)




Nothing excuses John Edwards lies, (and I am more concerned with the deeply flawed decision by the two of them, to stay in the race after it was clear that this was coming out,)...but are we going to allow our perceptions to be shaped by a media that decides what to focus on, and pundits who dictate the future feasibility of the voices in our midst? I want to point out how incredibly and terribly wrong most of these media folks have been over the past 8 years, and how frantically they have been scratching for a perch from which to expound on our new socialist government. I was offended last Sunday to hear the various panels decide that Edwards is finished forever, no chance ever, ever, ever....how can they project how bad things will get or what will happen in this country? What have they been right about lately that didn't fall in their laps? What is the formula that they use to measure the feelings of the American people?...I want to point out that it matters little when they are wrong; they just move on with more predictions and tell-me-something-I-don't-know. Its when they are right that they take off running a victory lap, and it serves....who?

We've surely got more important issues to deal with than this, but in light of the government investigation and the book, here we are again. What can we take from this? Whatever applies; I don't turn my nose up at anything that could possibly help me process all that's gone on, and really, the Edwards thing is the very least of it.


c/p RIP Coco

Labels: FEMA, John and Elizabeth Edwards, liars