The most esteemed journalists of America are telling us that John Edwards, former candidate for president of the United States, had sex with a woman not precisely his wife. These esteemed journalists discovered this, it turns out, by reading the National Enquirer, a publication previously famous for such headlines as “Half-Man, Half-Lizard.” Naturally, I wish to learn the details of this story, as Edwards plays such an important role in all our lives since dropping out of the race roughly six months ago.
In the checkout line at my local grocery store, I find the Enquirer. It sits there among a bunch of other fine supermarket tabloids. One is called The Sun (not to be confused with a Baltimore publication of the same name).
“I guess there’s been a real run on this one, huh?” I say to the checkout lady. I hold up a copy of the Enquirer, whose headline reads, “John Edwards With Love Child.”
The checkout lady shrugs her shoulders.
“Not as much as this,” she says. She points to the tabloid Sun. “They like that one.”
And who could blame them? For, as important as Edwards’ affair is to all our lives, it is meaningless compared with the tabloid Sun’s front-page stories, to wit:
“I Had Bigfoot’s Baby.”
And, “Bible Code Reveals: 100 End Times Prophecies.”
Brace yourselves, friends.
Among the prophecies: “A voodoo priest from Haiti is proved to be 342 years old.”
And: “A live cat is found on Mars.”
And: “The skeletons of Adam and Eve are found, along with a half-eaten apple.”
No wonder this is more popular than the Enquirer’s big scoop on John Edwards and his lady friend. Who cares about the secret lives of politicians when we can find out the secrets of Adam and Eve?
Who cares? Well, we all do, in spite of ourselves.
The question is: Do we do ourselves much good when we peek behind somebody else’s bedroom door? Around here, we’re no strangers to the question. A few years ago, there were scurrilous rumors about the then-mayor of Baltimore. But the rumors were tied to a political blood feud, and they came to nothing, and the primary lasting effect was the damage done to an innocent family.
In all such stories, we second-guess ourselves. Should we examine the private lives of public individuals? We’re in the middle of a war, and a terrible economic time, so why are we talking about this story uncovered by the National Enquirer, at which serious people once sneered?
Yes, yes, the story’s not only about the sex, it’s the hypocrisy. We all know that. And we all know that the candidates open themselves to scrutiny every time they shamelessly employ their families as supporting political players.
So Barack Obama feeds Michelle to the ladies on “The View.” And John McCain, at a South Dakota biker’s convention, offers up Cindy for the Miss Buffalo Chip contest (apparently unaware that it features topless women.) And Edwards informs us, months ago, of Elizabeth’s valiant battle with cancer — knowing that it touches all hearts.
But, once you’ve brought in your family for cameos, you’ve opened the door for all kinds of coverage. In for a dime, in for a dollar.
Here’s the practical problem with stories about politicians’ private lives: You open one party’s bedroom door, you encourage the opening of all political bedroom doors.
Edwards has been out of the presidential race for months, but McCain’s still there. Edwards strayed from his marital vows while his wife battles cancer, and shame on him. And McCain has admitted to romancing his current wife while he was married to his first one, a woman who was recovering from a horrible car accident, and she was the mother of his small children, and nobody even mentions this anymore.
Do we start out talking about Edwards and wind up talking about McCain? To what new depths of political coarseness will this take us?
We ask our political candidates to pass a sexual purity test, and we lose Roosevelt and Eisenhower and Kennedy. We attach bedroom matters to politics, and we distract ourselves from the essentials: Where do these candidates want to take the country?
So now the mainstream media are taking cues from such tabloids as the Enquirer? Wonderful. At the local grocery checkout, here’s another tabloid front-page headline, from this week’s Globe: “World Exclusive: Bush & Laura Split! Separate Bedrooms! Final Showdown!”
Do serious journalists pursue that tabloid special — or put it next to “I Had Bigfoot’s Baby”?
