Sunday, August 24, 2008

"The Right Thing to Do"

Sojourners MagazineSojourners Magazine certainly had a "time capsule" feel this month. I chuckled to see John Edwards in a pressed white shirt.

Inside, his interview is - one might say prophetically - entitled, "The Right Thing to Do." How ironic. That caiaphasian phrase was likely chugging through the printing press, ten thousand at a time, just as Edwards was first telling Nightline about his "mistake," and making grating qualifying statements like: "First of all it happened during a period after she was in remission ..."

When Edwards first went public, I was surprised at my own anger. I was taking this all too personally, as if the man had cheated on me.

He didn't. And frankly, even if he did, I wouldn't be in any place to throw the first stone. Over the last couple of weeks, I've realized that my indignation is less righteous than pragmatic. I am hurt, in a low-grade, novacained sort of way, that yet another person I looked up to has betrayed this moral weakness and cause such hurt to his wife and family.

But that's not my battle. Instead, more than anything, I'm just bothered that Edwards broke faith with what he called his "life vocation" -- ending poverty in America. His career is shot, and he willingly took that risk. Now the anti-poverty movement will have to regroup from the blow.

"I think it's entirely possible [to put poverty on the national agenda]," Edwards tells Jim Wallace. "I think what's missing is sustained leadership on this issue."

I guess, for now, we'll just have to keep looking.

1 comment:

Felipe Lima said...

I agree. Have a nice day.