Missus Edwards & Feeding The Monster

I piled on Elizabeth Edwards pretty hard last month in a post titled "Elizabeth Edwards & Hillary Clinton: A Cautionary Tale Of The Lure of Power."

Its crux was that the more I learned about John Edwards' romp with Rielle Hunter, the more Mrs. Edwards reminded me of Hillary Clinton. This is because both women worship at the altar of political prominence, so much so that they overlooked clear evidence of their husbands' violation of their wedding vows, contributed to their husbands' phony public personas as straight arrows and then circled their own wagons when confronted with the truth.

Well, Mrs. Edwards has finally broken her silence in an interview with the Detroit Free Press.

"There's a lot of adjustment to make," she said. "When you mention trust, that's probably the most difficult hurdle."

All true. But when asked if she forgave her husband, Mrs. Edwards said, "I don't want to feed the monster, if you don't mind" because she wants her children to have an image of their father as "an advocate for poverty, not for this current picture of him."

Far be it to tell Mrs. Edwards, who continues to undergo chemotherapy for Stage 4 breast cancer, how to live her life or handle interviews.

But she has misidentified the monster. It is within her. And it is within Hillary Clinton and other political wives who put prestige and power before all else.