DECEPTION: The Lessons of John Edwards

When I think of John Edwards, I am reminded of a 1967 film, “Guide for the Married Man.” In one scene, Ed (played by Walter Matthau) tells Paul (played by Robert Morse) that if his wife ever accuses him of cheating, “Deny, deny, deny.” Denial and deception are what John Edwards is all about. This week’s John Edwards headline (there’s something new every week about this guy) is that Elizabeth met the lovechild, and finally decided she had had enough. They’re now legally separated.

This is one of the more extreme stories of our time. We’ve seen sleaze and/or really poor judgment before (Bill Clinton?), but the American public has not had the John Edwards experience until now. Edwards was running for President as Mr. America, when behind the scenes he referred to some of his constituents as “fat rednecks,” instructed an aide to “handle it” when he found out his mistress was pregnant, and later made a sex tape with her. All of this occurred just as Elizabeth Edwards was battling cancer. Somehow John Edwards convinced himself that we Americans would not see beyond the façade. We did. We do. He’s a low life.

What’s the lesson here? I think there are all kinds of messages that come through this story. For one thing, if you’re a high profile person today, and you consciously decide to do something stupid, the prolific nature of digital media is probably going to get you.The very media you depend on to market yourself to the country will be that which sends you into obscurity. This is just the story that media hungers for today. It has all of the ingredients: Politics, sex, tragedy, cheating, lying and deception. You could not make this up. Edwards underestimated the media, the risk he was taking and the collective wisdom of the American people.

But there are bigger lessons to be learned here for American voters. Edwards had the kind of movie star good looks and Clintonesque charisma that intoxicated voters. He preached a grass roots, populist-like agenda so appealing to middle America. He seemed to be ‘one of us,’ even though we knew of his $400 haircuts, 25,000-square-foot estate and multi-millionaire status. None of it mattered when we saw him announce his candidacy in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans outside of a house he was helping to restore from Hurricane Katrina. The lesson is age old: look beyond the obvious. What is behind the carefully coiffed and rehearsed image? As voters, we may have to demand a more intrusive investigation of our candidates. The new age debate about privacy may have to come to a halt at campaign time, and we may simply have to insist that we know more of a candidate’s personal life.

Had we done more digging, we would have uncovered the fact that Edwards was something of a high class ambulance chaser in his earlier life. He was a plaintiff’s attorney who represented a number of people who brought suits against doctors and hospitals after their children had been born with defects due to alleged mistakes made in the delivery room. Edwards made tens of millions of dollars with these cases, and legend has it that he was very dramatic in the courtroom. The story is told that in one of his closing arguments, he actually brought up the subject of his own son, who was killed in a car accident at age 16. There wasn’t a dry eye in the jury box. With his distinctive Southern accent and ability to deceive, Edwards was a powerhouse attorney, and one who collected one-third of each plaintiff’s favorable judgment. In some cases those judgments went as high as $25 million. You know that guy in your own community who goes on TV and says, “Hurt in a car accident? Get all you deserve and get it fast?” Essentially, that was John Edwards, and some of us might have cringed at his aggressive, manipulative courtroom tactics.

Had the media or even private citizens groups dug a bit deeper into Edwards’ personal life, we may have discovered the fact that Elizabeth Edwards was as ambitious as or more so than John. Now we know how badly she wanted to be First Lady. So badly that she stumped smilingly with Edwards on the campaign trail, never letting her image or her demeanor belie her rage about the affair she knew Edwards was having with Rielle Hunter. In the much ballyhooed, recently released book “Game Change,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann claim, “…that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing.” Andrew Young, the aide who Edwards enlisted to pretend he was the father of Hunter’s child, paints a duplicitous picture of Elizabeth in his new book, “The Politician.” She comes off as temperamental, controlling and prone to histrionics. A recent piece in the New York Times seems to further that impression.

Does it matter to us, the voters, if Edwards cheats on his wife and lies about it, and that his wife is not what she seems? It does. We were supposed to have learned our lesson years ago from the Richard Nixon debacle. As it turns out, his own words revealed that he was racist, misogynistic and anti-Semitic. We needed to know that, but we didn’t until he was dead. These are not the John Kennedy days, when a Presidential candidate can carry on secret trysts with lots of women and the press knows about it, but does not report it. We’re in the digital age. The press owes us full disclosure, and deep investigation. And we owe ourselves the discipline to pay attention to a candidate’s behavior and character. Had the stars aligned themselves just a bit off center in 2008, John Edwards would be President of the United States right now, moral warts and all. Presumably his secret squeeze and love child would be safely ensconced in an undisclosed location. Elizabeth Edwards would likely be berating the White House staff, just as she reportedly did to her husband’s campaign staff. And who would suffer most for their personal indiscretions and personality flaws? That would be you and me.

AMERICANS BEHAVING BADLY -- BECAUSE THEY CAN

We’ve seen some really bad behavior lately among Americans in town hall meetings. Ostensibly, the conflict among Americans right now is the future of healthcare in America. These very public displays of anger and frustration could just be born of something much more than the current healthcare debate. Something tells me people would not be carrying signs with swastikas on them, and defacing pictures of President Obama to make him look like Hitler, if something deeper wasn’t happening here.

For eight years, under George W. Bush, the nation was highly repressed. The Bush White House was inarguably one of the cagiest, most secretive administrations in recent history. Americans shed themselves of what little trust they had left in government. The trust erosion really began with the Nixon administration. People in my generation watched the whole Watergate debacle at the tail end of the Vietnam era. We saw how truly untrustworthy government can be. To many of us in this age bracket (50s), every President we have had since then has been a letdown. That means that a new President has to not only live up to our expectations, but he has to prove that he’s got the stuff with which to do it.

Along comes Barack Obama, who still seems to be a really decent guy. But he showed up as economic prosperity was in the past. Every time a recession happens, there is a substantial part of the population that circles the conservative wagons in a defensive posture. That’s what Obama walked into – a tightly closed set of American conservatives. This is not a political statement. It is, rather, simple observation of what has happened since last November. A black, liberal President walked through the gates of a racially skeptical electorate, at a time when public dissatisfaction with the Presidency was at its absolute hottest.

So, when I see people blatantly strapping guns onto their backs outside of a hall where the President is scheduled to speak, that’s not about healthcare. It’s about anger. It is about stretching the First Amendment beyond its borders. When I watch a woman repeatedly yell, “Heil Hitler” to a Jewish guy at a Town hall meeting, it is not just about about healthcare. It is absolutely about exasperation and disgust with government. I believe the natives are restless – so restless that they are turning on each other. Americans and their legislators are facing off in public, and it’s not pretty. Both are conducting themselves in ways they would never have pictured themselves behaving. On television. Watch:


Yes, healthcare is a critical issue, and yes it is the catalyst for all the yelling and acting out we are witnessing in these town hall showdowns. But healthcare is simply the soapbox. Those who are aggressively acting up -- armed with megaphones and decades-old frustration, jobless and frightened—those people are not just there to protest potential health insurance laws. They are there to say that enough is enough. The people in this country were marginalized for eight years, while despotic and ill-equipped leaders guided us into failed banks, corporate chaos, the highest unemployment rate in 26 years, and an international reputation best described as global disdain. America is damned mad. And it is speaking up in record numbers and in ways it hasn’t allowed itself to be heard since Vietnam.

I’m with Barney Frank. Indeed what is unfolding here is a true testament to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I would like to see the loudest among the protesters get their point across without being so disrespectful toward their opponents. Honestly, I’d like to see a little more decorum here. Sometimes it is easier to hear what someone is trying to say when they stop screaming, brandishing semi-automatic weapons and comparing our nation to Nazi Germany. Still, I support their right to do it. Here’s why: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” That is the entire First Amendement text. Read it again. Haven’t we lost enough freedoms in this country already? We can’t risk losing this one. If only I were able to be as eloquent about this as these guys:

MEDIA MAYHEM!

The most fascinating thing about mass media is its own story. Right now, with technology taking off into the stratosphere and with the economy tanking faster than the life span of a new sitcom, the story of mass media is strictly high drama. A few of the current highlights:

Give your regards to old Broadway, and baby, do it fast. Between now and early February, 15 Broadway shows and going dark. Among them: “Grease,””Hairspray,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Spring Awakening,” “Spamalot,” “A Man for All Seasons,” “All My Sons,” and “Equus.” And for the first time in almost three decades there will be no “Forbidden Broadway” production on Broadway. Could it be that $300 worth of theatre tickets for two people is a bit of a stretch in an economy that saw 84,000 U.S. homes repossessed in October? (Figure from RealtyTrac Inc.)

Some theatre rats will tell you the reason for the sky high ticket prices is that the theatre-related unions are demanding a bigger chunk of the take. So, in order to even break even, a company has to inflate the prices. Others contend the prices have everything to do with the free enterprise system. How much will the market bear? Wow, that much, huh? Okay, cool. Let’s just charge that then. And then there is the artiste contingent that will fall on the side of art having worth in the culture that should increase in step with other consumer products. Go ahead, explain that to famed playwright David Mamet, whose own “American Buffalo” revival closed in November after just one week of performances.

When the best institutions start to shut their doors in a young culture like ours, those grandkids of yours won’t have a heritage to grab on to. Watching the otherworldly Patty Lupone belt out “Everything’s Coming up Roses” on YouTube will never match the enigmatic wonder of sitting in a darkened, too-cold Broadway house, fifth row center. Are we going to let Broadway ring the register so hard that it dims itself out? God, I hope not.

• Television broke a lifelong self-imposed boundary when a British television station recently aired Oscar-winning director John Zaritsky’s documentary, "Right to Die: The Suicide Tourist." The film follows 59-year-old Craig Ewert during his last four days of life, including his on-air suicide. Ewert suffered from Motor Neuron Disease (MND) that had rendered him virtually helpless. Reportedly, his position was that the world should witness a terminally ill person dying a peaceful, rather than horrendously painful death. It was apparently a political message with a large helping of humanity.

We have certainly seen murder on television – reference Lee Harvey Oswald’s on-air shooting in 1963. We have seen terrorist attacks on television, as recently as 2001. But suicide, planned, fully considered and executed on our home television screens is something else again. What does it say about us? That the true path to gaining public awareness and understanding depends on a full sacrifice of a man’s most private moment? That media consumers are so jaded generally that the only thing that can truly get their attention is ending a life in living color?

Zaritsky is an acclaimed, gifted film maker. He has every right to create a film like this. And the station in Britain is well within its rights to air it. But should this be all about artistic freedom and commercial viability? Is this truly what we wanted television to be? If you have ever had the misfortune of watching someone you love go through the dying process, you already understand the intense intimacy of the experience. It is not really a spectator affair. When one human being dies a technologically naked death on the airwaves, does he not compromise the privacy of each one of us and our own humanity? I’m thinking maybe so.

• If you’re going to dramatize two of the most significant moments in recent U.S. cultural history, find the right re-enactors and go as authentic as you can. Done. “Frost/Nixon” lets the actor’s actor Frank Langella recreate his eerily truthful stage version of Richard Nixon on screen. Is Langella not one of the most overlooked actors in the business? Maybe this is his moment. If you missed the real thing back in 1977, television personality David Frost interviewed the president who had resigned three years earlier. The resulting six-hour broadcast was riveting, but the behind the scenes tale of how it got on the air (and almost didn’t) is juicy, juicy. Here's a clip of the real Frost and the real Nixon back in '77:

As an admitted media junkie/nerd, I truly remember the Frost/Nixon interviews. You could not make this stuff up, but if anyone can bring it back to life in a meaningful way it is director Ron Howard. Here is the official theatrical trailer for the film, "Frost/Nixon."


• And then there is Sean Penn. Who knew 20 years ago that the wiry, tall-haired Penn of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” would slowly and methodically morph into maybe the closest thing we have to a true seasoned thespian in Hollywood? And who could have predicted his slow evolution into a committed activist who would bring the passion of his politics to almost every character he would play?

Penn is Harvey Milk (below, left) in the new Gus Van Sant film, "Milk." Harvey Milk, for those who do not recall, was the San Francisco gay activist of the 1970s who was elected to the city's Board of Supervisors. Milk and Mayor George Moscone were murdered by another Supervisor, Dan White. It takes a filmmaker as versatile as Van Sant to tell a story of this magnitude. Van Sant, whose films run the gamut from "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" to "Psycho" to "Good Will Hunting," is probably the perfect collaborator for Penn, who seems to immerse himself more fully in each role he takes on.

Penn (below, right) is catching serious heat for his chummy tete-a-tetes with Castro and Chavez of late, but let's give credit where it's due. Taking on the role of Milk, exactly three decades after the murder, could be risky. Many young people have never heard of Milk, unfortunately. Some of those who do know his name do not understand the true extent of his influence on the contemporary gay civil liberties movement. With motion pictures like "Twilight," and "Transporter 3" burning up the box office, can a film about a gay guy who's been dead since disco was hip really make a buck? Here's the thing: Penn's got all the bucks he really needs. Based on his recent performances, and his outspoken rants about the issues that matter to him, it becomes clear the man has even more guts than cash. We like Sean Penn, don't we?

Final curtain calls on Broadway; final breaths on commercial television; and finally, quality recreations of two of the most dramatic moments of the late 20th century -- as I keep telling you -- nothing media can create will ever be quite as compelling as the backstory of media itself. And by now you know I'm just nosey enough to keep talking about it. Stay tuned, willya?