No one should subject themselves to what I'm doing: reading Andrew Young's tell-all "The Politician" while watching the stalemate that is our federal government. The combination of Edwards and his aide Young's efforts to preserve their own privileges with what's currently (not) going on in Congress makes the securitization of subprime mortgages look like Sunday School.
Our government is more bankrupt than Lehmann Brothers. This book admits it.
Not only did John Edwards lose all sense of reality while running for the Presidency, to which he began to think he was entitled, but Andrew Young lost all sense of both reality AND morality while working for his slimy boss. Knowing full well Edwards was on a collision course with self-destruction, Young abetted it because he was afraid for his own financial security. It's horrifying to see Young admit it all after the fact, but that doesn't make him an admirable person — it just makes him a person who has written a book about drinking too much of both the wine and the Kool-Aid at the Edwards' mansion.
The Edwards' marriage isn't a particularly sordid story: many men are frightened when their strong wives, who have supported them throughout the marriage, suddenly become sick. They go out and find someone healthy to escape with. You'd be surprised how many men divorce wives with cancer. They can't stand too much reality.
So that's not the point. The point is that Edwards was running for President, and continued to do so, aided and abetted by Young, who says he knew it was wrong, but had a wife and three kids. Something doesn't compute. His wife was an Edwards skeptic. So why didn't he listen to her?
It's okay to have those problems, but it's not okay to put them on the unsuspecting electorate, especially the young idealists who worked for the campaign.
I'm not finished with "The Politician" yet, but Rielle Hunter has come onstage, so I know the ending. I've already decided that "The Politician" isn't a book about politics at all, but a book about co-dependency: Edwards and Elizabeth, Young and Edwards. Two very prominent, destructive co-dependencies to which unsuspecting donors contributed millions in dollars and labor.
Bummer. Makes me want to puke.
