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Newsweek Columnist Prefers Rielle’s ‘Quiet Dignity’ to Elizabeth’s ‘Vengeful Hysteria’

by Frances Martel | 9:29 am, February 24th, 2010

» 6 comments

Politics is a dirty business, but even among the thickest of thick-skinned folk there have been few scandals as stomach-churning as the John Edwards sex scandal. A man who was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency had a lovechild with a staffer and pinned the blame on a loyal subordinate. The wife had cancer at the time; the lover, barely a political type, was a walking hippie stereotype with a history in astrology. The National Enquirer broke the story. The subordinate wrote a damning tell-all book. The whole tragedy was impossibly stranger than fiction.

Out of all this irresponsible suffering, Newsweek has found an unlikely hero: Rielle Hunter. Columnist Jonathan Darman argues that it is in her silence throughout the entire ordeal that the public can see her true “dignity,” and that she is unlike most mistresses of the modern era in that she has not used her new-found fame for financial stability or to generate more fame for its own sake.

“Character comes out in a sex scandal,” Darman claims, and later argues that “for two years, she has behaved with more public dignity than any other figure in the Edwards scandal. In fact, she acted with more discipline and discretion than any mistress in the recent history of sex scandals.”

Yes, it is true that no one has heard a peep from Hunter since this began, but the reason that character comes out in a sex scandal is that the scandal itself is an indicator of character, or lack thereof. If anything, the one person that comes cleanest out of a situation like this is the one that everyone was trying to hide the sex scandal from: John’s wife, Elizabeth Edwards.

Darman disagrees, stating that Elizabeth “now looks like an artful manipulator, ruled by vengeful hysteria.” He does not offer much evidence to back this up, other than Elizabeth writing some unfavorable things about Hunter in her memoir and requesting that people not speak her name around her. This is somehow more morally reprehensible to Darman than having a lovechild with a man whose wife is undergoing cancer treatments, or criticizing the man’s wife for being responsible for getting cancer due to her “bad energy,” the latter something Darman states in apparent defense of Hunter.

There is a sense that Darman sees something in Hunter that the average media consumer does not, since the average person doesn’t see much of Hunter at all, and perhaps Darman is influenced by having met the subject (for a Newsweek piece in 2008, in which he described her favorably as well). It’s an intriguing piece to write (and read), and Darman brings up some interesting points.

Hunter’s silence over the time the scandal has lasted is deafening, but there’s no reason to give her a trophy for good behavior when she is at least halfway to blame for wrecking a family. The way he glorifies Hunter simply for keeping her head down is infuriating at times – after all, what can be expected of her? Unlike most mistresses, she has a child with her lover. Unlike most mistresses, her lover’s wife is gravely ill, and she has gone on the record insulting her simply for her disease. She has dug her own publicity grave, one that there is little crawling out from, and reviving this story simply to make what is probably the most sinister character in the story a heroine raises some delicate issues.

Rachel Sklar

I read this article last night and it was filled with all sorts of gendered minefields, but that was exhausting so I just decided to read the article and think about it, knowing John Darman was coming at it from the strange place of actually knowing and liking Rielle Hunter.

The point is valid – she has indeed been a well-behaved mistress – but that assumes that mistresses are only well-behaved if they don’t speak up for themselves, or try to take action or assert some control over their story. No one ever looks good in a story so sordid – and I’m prepared to cut Elizabeth Edwards lots of slack for being paranoid and vengeful, seeing as she was being blatantly cheated on and lied to – but I disagree with your formulation here, Steve: “[S]he is at least halfway to blame for wrecking a family.” Look, women come on to married men all the time. (And married men come on to women!) You know what John Edwards *could* have said to her? NO. You never know what goes on inside that family, and you never know what John Edwards TOLD her was going on, or promised her, or whatnot. Nothing changes the fact that Rielle Hunter had a relationship with a man knowing he was married, and presumably hoping that he’d leave his wife for her. But there was only one person who had the power to wreck or preserve his family in this situation: John Edwards, by making decisions that would put his family first, not himself.

Anyhow. I’m sure that article will be the subject of debate. I do caution against equating silence with good behavior here though. Though I guess anything that can be called “good behavior” in this scenario is rare enough that this stands apart as virtue.
http://twitter.com/CRZ CRZ

but I disagree with your formulation here, Steve:

Man, Frances gets NO respect around here.
Frances Martel

No worries! I understand and share Rachel’s desire to blame the white man for everything.*

Rachel: yes, yes, yes agreed the whole “this woman is well-behaved because she doesn’t speak” is uncomfortably borderline sexist, and I’m actually a little shaken that I couldn’t pin down what was so worrisome about the way Darman treats Hunter, even in her defense, so thanks for hitting the nail on the head with this one. I personally think no one has handled a sex scandal better than Ashley Dupre has, and even though part of that is what she kept silent, I think it’s the fact she knew what she should and shouldn’t reveal while she freely expressed herself.

But using “people do it all the time!” to excuse Hunter’s behavior is equally dismissive of her, isn’t it? It makes it sound like Hunter had no free will in the matter and was simply seduced against her will into the relationship. Giving her 50% of the blame in a relationship with two people I thought was pretty fair, though arguably it could be less Edwards concealed some information about the way his marriage functioned to her.

*I’m new-ish here, so I should probably clarify: just kidding!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rachel-Lewis/1554962674 Rachel Lewis

If Darman or anyone else is in awe of a homewrecker’s “quiet diginity” they need to have their head examined. Hunter is “quiet” because she was PAID for her silence. She may be a heartless B but she knows how to play the game and was merely lying in wait for her prey and her big payday. I hope she and John Edward do marry and make each other miserable; they are both effed in the head to the nth degree.
Rachel Sklar

Oh that’s hilarious. SORRY FRANCES, I saw Steve tweet it out and just made an assumption. JUST LIKE A MAN WOULD! Haaa. Just kidding. How much do I suck? THIIIIISSSSS MUUUUUCCCCHHHHH!
Vickie

This guy’s nuts. JE and Rh apparently had an open relationship. There were 3 men who could have been the daddy. We’ve be told one was Jeff Goldbloom. Perhaps the other is this man. This woman shuts up for money. She probably signed a confidentiality agreement to get that 18,000 a month for the baby. Funny how most of the money was for her expenses. Unless the baby smokes and drinks. That could explain the 5,000 dental surgery for rotten teeth. This child is lucky she wasn’t born HIV + or with some other STD given the fact that her mother slept around unprotected. JE deserves this well worn B.