One of my best friends is an experienced mountain and rock climber. Before his recent trek, I asked him if he or his pals have ever packed something akin to cyanide capsules. In case of disaster (god forbid), they could hasten things and not freeze or bleed to death for twelve hours in an icy crevasse. He said it was smart in theory, but a mistake in practice. He explained that when you're climbing, you have to believe that you can extricate yourself from any calamity, even if you logically know this isn't true.
In a way, we tell ourselves similar tales regarding relationships. Married couples, I think, do this the most. And it makes sense, because no marriage could work if the individuals went into it focused on the worst case scenario, that it could all crash down with little warning. Each time John and Elizabeth Edwards' wedding photo is flashed onscreen, I get sad. Their entire odyssey was always leading up to this moment and, realistically, there's no way out. Her cancer is Stage 4 and two of their children are young and even if she wants to leave--I have no idea if she does--she's not going to. So she'll spend her remaining time drained of the forces that sustained her.
I've long admired Mrs. Edwards and she doesn't need my pity. But we've all known a Rielle Hunter, someone who purports to be spiritual in order to mask their vapidity and baseness, and that makes the whole thing worse. In the footage released so far, she displays the I.Q. of a ringworm. It's inconceivable she'd land the videographer job with a prominent campaign if she weren't fucking the candidate. (I read Jay Mcinerney's novel about Hunter, Story of My Life, when it was released in '89. In the correlating Vanity Fair interview, she was totally grating. Nothing has changed, it seems.)
Still, though, John Edwards is the major culprit here. He upended his family, misused $114,000 in campaign funds and, basically, detonated what was once his life.
More so than anything, I hope his dick gets crushed by debris.
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