How About, "They’ve Earned The Right To Act However They Want"?
By Alas, it’s not just that this silly Newsweek article attempts to establish mistress etiquette, it’s the latest example of someone attacking Elizabeth Edwards for not responding to being betrayed in the right way:
His wife was “Saint Elizabeth,” who suffered on through the death of a child and an incurable-cancer diagnosis to help her husband do good. Now she looks like an artful manipulator, ruled by vengeful hysteria.
Well, first of all, the last time I checked she did suffer the loss of a child and was diagnosed with bone cancer, and I’m enough of a softie to even think they remain relevant when one is tempted to pass judgment on her behavior. I trust that the sexism inherent in saying that a woman who reacts with some measure of emotion when she finds out that her husband is cheating on her is ruled by “hysteria” is self-evident, and if any of her interactions with campaign workers would be worthy of notice if they were the work of a male campaign operative I’m not aware of them. And, to repeat what I’ve said before, I remain puzzled by people who think that adultery is serious enough to disqualify a man* from public office, but if his wife is visibly upset about said adultery she must be completely nuts.
*Well, not any man. Lacking the fine-tuned moral sensibility of a Villager, I remain unclear about why Edwards is worse than Hitler, while America’s Mayor (TM) — who not merely cheated on his wife but seemed to take malicious pleasure in humiliating her and their children in public — remains a respected public figure and (by the media) presidential candidate.