posted by Damozel |
Somewhere in the Bible---but I ain't looking it up---it says that a virtuous woman is worth more than rubies. Elizabeth Edwards makes me realize exactly why this is true. And by "virtuous", I---and, maybe, it; I haven't checked out the Vulgate or anything---wasn't considering the word namby-pamby sense of "sexually and mentally chaste, pure, filled with abstract goodness, holier-than-you smugness" or any of the mildly irritating goody-goody sense in which the word is usually used today. Originally, it had a much more robust meaning. The word "virtue", has has at its root the Latin word vir (man, manliness, husband), the root of the word "virility." Originally, virtus included such so-called manly, affirmative virtues such as courage and strength; later, it meant "moral excellence." Outwardly gentle and diffident, and consummately southern, Elizabeth Edwards is my ideal of a virtuous woman (which is what is meant by the played-out phrase "steel magnolia" so often applied to powerful women from the south)
The kickass interview in Salon shows why she, rather than the charmingly adroit Hillary, might have been the right candidate for the times. We are longing at all levels for a leader who displays the positive virtues of courage, strength, and moral worth. Perhaps also---exhausted and demoralized by the war, and by the cold-blooded will to power of the Bush-Cheney presidency---we now need someone capable of being a mother to her country? (NB. I've included a few excerpts from Joan Walsh's interview of Edwards that relate to my specific points, but there's so much more...)
We could use the old-fashioned sort of mother, who would emphasize the stronger virtues of courage, and urge, discipline tempered by compassion, justice tempered by social justice, and the importance of family and community in instilling a sense of belonging to something greater than oneself.
It's Edwards' old fashioned virtues which, I believe, made it possible for her to mop the floor with Ann Coulter.(BNPolitics) By gently insisting on her point rather than engaging Coulter---who excels at blunt-force verbal attacks---Edwards not only effectively deprived her of her usual weapons of distortion and misrepresentation, but also succeeded in making her look mightily discomfited. (video and transcript) She also somehow succeeded in making me (and other people as well, I see) hear the wind blowing coldly over the wasteland that is Coulter's public persona. And because somewhere in Coulter and her hunger for notoriety there is (I really believe) a certain basic decency and sense of fitness, she was more or less helpless when confronted with Elizabeth Edwards.
Coulter makes her living by attacking the public masks of people she affects to despise and Edwards insisted on pointing out that behind every mask is a human being. Somehow, by exerting herself to be gently persisent---in her way---implacable, impossible to deflect or intimidate, Edwards "unmanned" the virago. All her stones and arrows fell harmlessly to earth at Edwards' feet.
...I knew she was doing "Hardball," and I knew it was a call-in show. So I called the [Edwards] campaign about getting the number, and they were like, Oh, that's a good idea. And then I mentioned the 2003 column [where Coulter mocked John Edwards' discussion of their son Wade's death in a car crash] and you could see them get worried, like "Oh, my God, she's carrying around in her mind a 2003 column? Maybe we don't want her calling ..."
....And later on, I talked to somebody, not an advisor -- I really don't have anybody advising me -- and not someone in the campaign. She'd been in a previous campaign, and she said, "Oh, I wouldn't have done that. I think that you put yourself at risk, subject to criticism unnecessarily." I understand the advice -- if you were advising somebody you might say that -- but that exact attitude is what protects somebody like Ann Coulter. Nobody wants to jump in the mud puddle with her....
. But I almost didn't. I sat there and watched her say all these things that weren't true -- Saddam actually did have WMD, just not huge stockpiles. I thought, if that's true, we don't hear Cheney saying this? Or this discredited idea that Saddam's top aides were working with al-Qaida. So she's saying things with which I completely disagree, but I'm not calling in. She's wrong, but that's OK -- we can disagree. Then she started in again on John: She misdescribed what Bill Maher said [Coulter falsely claimed the HBO host had said he wished the failed Cheney assassination attempt had succeeded] and then she used it as an excuse to be able to say it about John. But if it's repulsive for Bill to say it, then isn't it repulsive for her to say it? (Salon)
And the response of conservative commentators to Edwards' defeat of Coulter had, by definition, to become so gratuitously ugly and desperate and cruel (Edwards really gave them nothing to hang on to) that I can't help believing that conservative voters ---more often than not, kind-hearted, godly people---must have felt a certain creeping weariness and disgust at the taunts.
So why did you bother to phone in?
Ignoring the fact that she exists doesn't make her go away. If it did, you wouldn't hear me utter her name. So I think maybe the better thing to do is simply confront people like her. Are you going to stop them? Under no circumstances will you stop them. But maybe you empower other people to stand up, and maybe that has an effect. When I travel, so many older people thank me for what I did. Because the vile kind of way Ann Coulter thinks and talks, that was not ever part of the public discourse until recent. (Salon)
I like John Edwards very much; in fact, I admire him tremendously. He gets mocked, I feel, for being a certain type of southern man that people from other regions consistently misunderstand. Part of it is just his non-rugged good looks and part of it is that "down east" North Carolina accent; while it's the way men from his neck of the woods all sound, it sounds way too much like Hollywood stereotypes of the smarmy Southern politician (which...he...is....NOT). (Being a southerner myself, I've endured a certain amount of the same sort of accent-based mockery.)
It makes him an easy target for the sort of smearing that the Republican political machine reflexively engages in. (Tim Grieve) Which is why he so needs the lovely Elizabeth behind him in his campaign to represent America's poorest citizens (The Washington Post) and in his call for social justice over politics. (CNN)
....So why a poverty tour?
We have short attention spans. What happened after Katrina is that people were stirred to action; there were an enormous number of contributions by people trying to make a difference. But then we forget. We've forgotten Katrina victims, we've forgotten the face of poverty. So the audience for the tour -- well, in fact, the audience when John does these things is really him. At the poverty center in Chapel Hill, N.C., we say there are all these students, but there's really only one student -- it's John, soaking it all in.
He has been criticized for using the poverty center politically, and he has been criticized for being paid to give a speech on poverty at UC-Davis -- how do you respond to that?
Well, that speech didn't come through the poverty center, it came through [a speaking agency]; both of us are signed up and get speaking fees. I don't have a job anymore; this is the way we pay for everything. So yes, we periodically get paid to give speeches, and this one was about poverty. Can you never give a paid speech about poverty? Let me say, John speaks about poverty for free a lot. A lot. And he did make more for that speech than he made at the poverty center for a year, where he talked about poverty all the time, where he taught classes.
...John has a lot of loyal supporters who know poverty is not a sexy issue and who respect him for caring about it. How do you unseat those people? You suggest that his interest is disingenuous, that he has taken money for a poverty speech, he paid too much for a haircut, he has a big house.
....So in January 2009, what's the first thing John Edwards does to make life different for poor people in America?
Well, a lot of it is a legislative agenda that needs to pass, but some of it he can do right away. We need to make certain we lift up people who are working but are still in poverty, by enforcing existing labor laws that are not enforced. He wants to triple the earned-income tax credit (not a sexy issue but very important) and raise the minimum wage -- if you raise it by a dollar, 900,000 people are raised out of poverty. You enforce anti-discrimination laws, and you raise many women out of poverty. You deal with healthcare issues and school issues. His healthcare agenda is one of the first things he wants to get passed.
She is Edwards' leading campaign strategist (Salon), and she is also the proof that he is what he claims to be. You don't feel she'd lie or even spin....
Some commentators---ones with apparently very retrograde notions of politicians' wives and, perhaps, of American women generally-- affect not to believe that Elizabeth Edwards could have acted without John Edwards' consent or knowledge when she took on Coulter or---more significantly--- when she announced to The Advocate that continuing resistance to same sex marriage is "complete nonsense." At The Huffington Post, Paul Abrams affected to feel "queasy" over what he saw as a transparent ploy by John Edwards to have Elizabeth say for him what he wouldn't say himself. Which of course makes no sense from a political standpoint, since Fox News immediately blared "John Edwards Will Help Repeal Anti-Gay Laws, Wife Says." Paul Abrams hasn't known as many Southern wives and mothers as I have.
Why do you support gay marriage? Why not civil unions?
I remember hearing [former GOP Sen. Rick] Santorum ranting about how homosexual marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. I could be wrong, but I think heterosexual marriage is threatened more by heterosexuals. I don't know why gay marriage challenges my marriage in any way.
But your husband feels differently; he's a civil unions guy.
Well, I think it's a struggle for him, having grown up in a Southern Baptist church where it was pounded into him. I was raised a Methodist in military churches. Poverty was talked about; I don't remember homosexuality ever being mentioned. And I don't think that Christians who aren't engaged in a political campaign ever talk about it. They talk about poverty and other issues talked about in the Bible. But in churches, in political season, there's plenty of ginning up this issue.
You came to San Francisco and gave a speech before the gay pride parade, but then you were criticized for not being on a float or marching in the parade ...
I don't care, it doesn't matter to me. People who are going to be critical about that probably aren't for my husband to begin with. But honestly, it would be an enormous luxury to come here and do a full-day event, for anything. We went to a town festival in Iowa, and they had things going on all day and we went for an hour, and then we're on to the next thing. We never get to come to an event and stay for all the activities (Salon)
Edwards has been criticized, amazingly, for preferring to join her husband on the campaign trail rather than languish at home with breast cancer so she could be at home with her children, forcing an end to his---and her and their---vision of an Edwards presidency.
Were you prepared for the criticism you got for continuing to campaign?
I had no idea I'd get that kind of criticism. But you know, people who've been in this situation haven't criticized me. And the people who haven't -- I just hope they never go through it. And it got worse after [the] Coulter [incident]...
But you know, after all I've been through, I realize: You don't know exactly what life lessons you taught your kids until much later. You don't. And maybe the most important life lesson for them is for me to say, When bad things happen, you don't let them take you down. If I hadn't continued to campaign, I'd be sending the opposite message: When bad things happen, go hide. Do I know with absolute certainty we're doing the right thing? I don't. Having been through what I've been through, I hope people trust I wouldn't risk my relationship with my children. I think this is the right choice.
I love her way of talking, a way that doesn't seem to exist elsewhere in the political realm---the simplicity, the directness, the lack of spin or defensiveness, the sheer matter-of-factness.
RELATED BNPolitics
LINKED, QUOTED, OR CITED
- Joan Walsh, The Salon Interview: Elizabeth Edwards (Salon)\
- Joan Walsh, Bashing Elizabeth Edwards (Salon)
- Think Progress, Elizabeth Edwards Confronts Coulter During Live Television Appearance (video and transcript)
- Perry Bacon, Jr. On Tour to Highlight Poverty, Edwards Tries to Shift Race's Focus (The Washington Post)
- Tim Grieve, When Republicans Attack (War Room)
- John Edwards Will Help Repeal Anti-Gay Laws, Wife Says (Fox News)
- Paul Abrams, Queasy About Edwards: Getting into Bush-Like Explanations (The Huffington Post)
- Elizabeth Edwards Says Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage is "Complete Nonsense" (The Advocate)
- With poverty tour, Edwards emphasizes morality over politics (CNN)
Photo: The Road to One America, Pittsburgh; For All of Us/Flickr by Rachel Feierman
OTHER
- The Vulgate Index (www.sacred texts)
- Vir-, Viri-, Virtu (www.word info)
- Basic Latin Elements that All English Speakers Should Know (www.Lexfiles)
- Wikipedia, Virtue
- Wikipedia, ephebic oath
- Dictonary.com (word of the day)
Comments