An Open Letter to Senator And Mrs. Edwards by Doug Wrenn

An Open Letter to Senator And Mrs. Edwards

By Doug Wrenn

March 24, 2007

Senator and Mrs. Edwards, I would never wish your current situation on anyone. No one deserves what you are currently enduring and what you will endure. All politics aside, my prayers for both of you and your family have already begun and will continue. And now, your very unfortunate medical situation aside, back to politics.

Senator Edwards, as a chosen participant in the public arena, you are fair and open game for commentary. Mrs. Edwards, as someone only related to a public figure, you are entitled to your privacy. However, when you make a very private issue a public issue, and for that matter, on public display with a grandiose press conference, you are rightfully fair game as well. Bear in mind that you willingly opened that door.

Senator Edwards, thank you for furthering the cause of the same pro-family conservatives you so oppose. I found your sanctimonious pontification nauseating, scurrilous and empty. It simultaneously made my stomach clench, my spine tingle and my blood surge in my arteries. Even if I did plan on voting for you, today's choreographed act would have changed my mind. I wouldn't vote for you if your name were the only name on the ballot for President or dogcatcher.

You patted yourself on the back by saying that situations such as your wife's terminal illness are not cause to "cower in the corner," but to deal with it, multi-task and show courage, as a president supposedly would and should. Presidents are ideally moral leaders, Senator Edwards. They don't abandon their families, as you have chosen to do, and yes, you have abandoned your family, and courage or "cause" has not a blessed thing to do with it. It's all about narcissistic ego and unquenchable thirst for power at all costs. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Your wife should not be choosing to support you right now in something as fleeting as a political campaign with a crowded field; you should be choosing to support her now in what may be her final days. Former Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) quickly ended his 2000 presidential campaign when his wife, Mary Jo, was diagnosed with a serious heart ailment. That was courage, and that was loyal love of family. Your wife should not even have to be in this position right now. Shame on you. To quote Ann Coulter's (recently explained) comments, you are a "wus." She was right, and so is Rush Limbaugh, every time he lampoons you by calling you "The Breck Girl." What kind of "man" does not take care of his terminally ill wife? Where I come from, and maybe that is the Stone Age, men protect women. I look around me and sometimes I think a scarce few others and I are the last members of a dying breed of unfeminized men in a vast and growing sea of selfish, overgrown children and submissive metrosexuals. You disgust me. Leader? You're no leader. And by whatever label you do wish to attach to it, you are certainly no man, either. Men are supposed to be role models of masculinity for boys. Our dying, dysfunctional culture already has more than enough wimps, brats, bullies, punks, thugs and degenerates. I hope no young boys are watching you now, lest they emulate the sleaze that you are peddling as "leadership" and "courage" to their naive, impressionable and still-developing young minds.

And now on to you, Mrs. Edwards. I understand that your youngest children are 8 and 6 years old. Those are very precious and tender ages. Realistically, and I do hope I am wrong, there is a good chance that in the near future those children will lose their mother. Where are your maternal instincts? Are your husband's coattails really that important to you? And do you really think he even has coattails? Do you not recall when he last tried to wing it on his own? He won only two states, and both their names ended with "Carolina." In the final days you have with your children, many of those days will already be erased as you will have no real quality time with them between treatments and sickness. For the rest of the good days you have left to spend with those beautiful little gifts from God, do you really yearn to waste that time schlepping around the country from fundraiser to fundraiser, stumping, shtickking and pressing flesh with a bunch of total strangers just to woo them for their money? Is your absence going to be the final memory those children have of their mother? You spoke of a support system. What support system might that be? Daycare, AKA: "kiddy kennels"? Or a nanny, perhaps? Yes, of course, a splendid idea. (I won't even ask you about her citizenship status.) Have some total stranger nurture (hopefully) your children for wages, and maybe she'll even let them stay up late to watch their dying mother from the campaign trail on the 11:00 news. Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe they can tape the news and replay the clips after you die. Now there's a nice keepsake. But it's no mother. Even if you have relatives care for your children while you and "Captain Courage" are out on the hustings, there is no substitute for a child's mother. Is being "First Lady" really more important to you than being a "good mother"? If I were you, Mrs. Edwards, I would be less worried about Election Day and far more concerned with "Judgment Day."

And now, to both of you. You won't see a halo over my head any time soon, but as grossly imperfect as I am, I still know right from wrong. Enough hacks will be rolling out the red carpet and offering you adulation, praise and feigned homage for your so-called courage while kissing your political posteriors in consideration and expectation for future plums and favors. Your move was a calculated one. You two are about as easy to see through as a pane of glass. In your twisted minds you are getting "The Cancer Vote," via the sympathy of the electorate. Fewer words instill such stark terror in people as the word, "cancer," and just about all of us have either had it or been close to someone who did. In the movie, "The American President," Michael Douglas, who portrayed a widowed US President, openly and rightfully pondered if he still would have been elected if his wife had not died. As you two milk this heinous and phony "courage" angle for all it's worth and play your pals in the left-wing media like fiddles, the US, like Rome, still burns. That is why I am speaking out. Someone has to break ranks and publicly expose your despicable actions for what they are. After all, the children are watching, including your children, and as you liberals so often tell us, it's all about "the children," right?

To borrow your campaign theme, Senator Edwards, there are "two Americas." One has values. That's the Bob Smith kind of America. And then there is the liberal, "If it feels good, do it!" kind of America. Thanks for the definition, and the illustration. I hope the great divide between those two Americas never dissipates. I also hope that it remains both "great" and "a divide." The little performance you and the Mrs. put on today for your press soiree certainly didn't help in that regard at all, but that's OK. Maybe next year you will win the Oscar for your own "Inconvenient Truth."