The is nothing wrong with the Edwards' discussion how the death of their son changed their lives and I'm a little ashamed to share a country with people who think that poking fun at their tragedy is somehow acceptable "political" speech.
My wife is a hospital chaplain and just finished a rotation on the neo-natal ICU. Every day she had to bring spiritual comfort to people who had lost a child, or help parents wrestle with end-of-life issues for a baby that was never going to make it out of the hospital.
Some days she would come home and I'd have to hold her as she sobbed and we'd pray for her to find the strength to go back the next day and do it again. No one who has been touched by the death of a child would ever tell a parent that they weren't allowed to speak about how that loss changed their lives — whether or not that parent was running for political office.
Ann was over the line.
“No one who has been touched by the death of a child would ever tell a parent that they weren’t allowed to speak about how that loss changed their lives — whether or not that parent was running for political office.”
Exactly. Nobody who loses a child is ever the same person again.
There is a fine line between acknowledging a life-changing event and capitalizing on a life-changing event.
Part of the problem comes from the very nature of journalism and journalists. There are thousands of them out there, all of them looking for an interesting hook to hang their column on, and inevitably they hit upon the easiest and most obvious ones. So you make a comment or an admission that makes good copy, and suddenly there are thousands of column inches devoted to it. The journalists herd mentality then kicks in, accentuating the problem. Journalists at future press conferences vie to be the first to ask you about it, hoping to get some reaction other than the one everyone else got, maybe if they word it just so, and your eyes well up, it'll make a great photo to go with the column.
There are politicians who exploit intimate parts of their lives for political gain. Sometimes its legitimate to do so, sometimes it crosses the line. But journalists always do that, and they usually do it badly and they can't help copying one another. And they wouldn't know where the line was if it was painted in highway-department-orange.
This is really getting old. How many times has Ann simnply pointed out the hypocrisy of the left and it’s completely misunderstood and totally taken out of context. Edwards is using his dead son’s corpse to gain political power. So did Cindy Sheehan, so did the Jersey girls. The whole John Edwards “faggot” flap was a commentary about political correctness and the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Either people are willfully ignorant, or seriously stupid.
Unless they are doing so to acquire political power. Then it is an indication of extraordinarily bad character.
Jeeze, need a hankie, little girl?