I’ve never been as impressed by Elizabeth Edwards as the media has wanted me to be (of course, the gulf between my perception of John Edwards and the media’s desires has been even wider). Kaus says that the media continues to be too soft on her:

You’re understandably focused on your own family. You won’t say Hunter’s name. She’s “irrelevant to your life.” You don’t know if Hunter’s child–which you call “it”–is John’s. You just know “It doesn’t look like my children.” You say Hunter had no right to disrupt your marriage. “Women need to have respect for other women.” But during the campaign an aide and friend of John Edwards, Andrew Young, stepped up and claimed paternity of Hunter’s child. Andrew Young has a wife. How do you think she feels about this? How do her children feel about it, and what other kids say about it, when they go to school? Do you really not care if she’s going through whatever she’s going through because she’s playing her part in a lie constructed in service to your husband’s, and your, unstoppable ambition?. How are you respecting her and her marriage?

Both of these people are complete hypocrites, and made for each other. Fortunately, though, they weren’t made for the White House.