A couple of weeks ago, I defended Elizabeth Edwards’ right to be as blind as she wants to be. But the more she talks, the less confident I am in that opinion.
Melinda Henneberger has a good recap of Elizabeth’s appearance on Oprah last week, if you’re like me and simply cannot watch Oprah for more than 5 minutes. Some lowlights of the show:
…I just watched a woman claiming to be Elizabeth Edwards tell Oprah and all of us out in TV Land that it’s immaterial to her if her husband made a baby with his mistress, and the whole thing was kind of surreal. “Completely extraneous to my life,” is how she put it.
Still, she slapped the nameless blond around pretty good. (Nameless because the one condition placed on the interview was that Rielle Hunter’s name would not be spoken. The Voldemort clause, I guess. “This person,” is what Elizabeth called her.) And of her husband, John Edwards? “No one’s perfect,” she said. That is one lucky son-of-a-mill-worker.
Henneberger calls Elizabeth a “flawed narrator” and says she’s “not really a member of the reality-based community.” And it’s true, I haven’t seen this much denial since… well, since the mainstream media spent weeks denying any of this was even a story.
Tina Brown’s shoes probably cost more than I make in a month, and now she’s putting them in Elizabeth’s teeth:
Elizabeth Edwards tried to undo the damage she did to herself on the Oprah interview last week by sitting down this morning on the Today show with Matt Lauer. The first segment did the trick — it was all about cancer and the death of her son, and Elizabeth looked solid and sympathetic in her brave blue cardigan; but when she inexorably let Matt bore into John’s marital infidelity, she inexplicably blew it again…
Edwards’ professed desire for candor is such she deserves nothing but candor in return. I am afraid that she is crazy if she thinks, as she says she does, that when the American people saw her with John on the campaign trail they thought they looked such a happy and devoted couple. Most people I know thought that Elizabeth looked like an overbearing chief of staff and were mystified that her interruptions were tolerated by someone as clearly in love with himself as John. There was deep public sympathy over the tragedy of the death of their son Wade and later for her brave, unflinching confrontation with a deadly disease, but also bewilderment that she could use this precious time left with her kids to promote her husband’s ego-fueled, phony-populist lurch for the White House.
Speaking of that ego-fueled, phony-populist lurch for the White House — as if there’s any other kind — some anonymous Edwards staffers are now claiming that they suspected the whole time he was having an affair, and that if it turned out to be true, they were planning to sabotage his campaign. This sounds very unlikely and raises any number of questions, all of which Mickey Kaus tackles admirably. I’d really hate to be a former Edwards supporter these days. Or any days, really.
Kaus also reminds us of the forgotten woman in this whole mess: Cheri Young. Remember her? She’s the wife of Edwards staffer Andrew Young, who claimed paternity of Rielle Hunter’s baby. The woman who welcomed a pregnant Rielle into her home, and then moved her family across the country into a house rented by Edwards moneyman Fred Baron to live with Rielle and the baby, far from the prying eyes of a media that wasn’t really doing that much prying. All of which she did out of some weird sense of loyalty to the Edwards family, apparently.
As Kaus asks Elizabeth:
How do you think [Cheri] 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?
The crime is scandalous enough on its own that everybody seems to be forgetting about the coverup. The elaborate, prolonged, hideously expensive coverup, which appears to be ongoing. Well, at least the federal investigators haven’t forgotten.
The toughest part of following this whole mess has been trying to sort through all the layers of lies and half-truths. The technique seems to be: Make everybody so hopelessly confused by your diversions and non-answers that they finally just give up. Now I’m starting to wonder who John learned it from.
Related posts:
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I don’t care how sick I am, was or will be. I can not have any kind of relationship with someone who is that hypocritical and delusional. The woman knew what was going on, and choose…for her benefit, not to do anything about it.
Who knows, maybe Elizabeth was the person who put the thought of the White House into John’s head. Because, I will be honest, I didn’t think plastics have a thought of their own.
If we ignore Gomez and Morticia Edwards, maybe they will just go away.
When Elizabeth decided to help John continue his campaign for the Democratic nomination while knowing of his involvement with Rielle (to whatever degree – although I do think she knew much more about the extent of the affair much earlier than she is admitting publicly), she knew that she would be involved in trying to quell any rumors of the affair should they surface during the campaign. Thus, there’s a definite possibilty that she was involved in having Andrew Young (through a lawyer) announce in December ‘07 that he was the father of Rielle’s unborn child. At that point in time Edwards was still running for the nomination and I’m sure Elizabeth knew that this tactic would help her husband as they set their sights on the all-important Iowa caucus that was fast approaching.
That’s why I’m surprised that Elizabeth is now lashing out at Andrew and Cheri Young. In her new book she talks disparagingly about them:
See link: http://campaigntracker.blogspot.com/2009/05/edwards-book-mystery-who-is-jim.html
“Edwards compares the mistress with a young man who first volunteered in John Edwards’ 1998 Senate campaign. She describes him as “John’s obsessed fan.”
“I will call him Jim,” she writes.
Jim “volunteered for everything,” drove the candidate around, washed his car, took care of his dry-cleaning. “There was no job too menial for Jim,” she said.
Jim and his wife, who worked a late shift, would leave McDonalds breakfasts outside the Edwards’ door until Elizabeth told her to stop. Jim’s obsequiousness got to Elizabeth until a lie on his part finally forced his departure from the campaign. But he hung around. He tried to vacation where they vacationed and sent daily emails to the Edwards’ friends.
“The existence of a Jim made it easier to accept the existence of this woman,” Elizabeth wrote. “…My life at some level is tragic. Theirs is worse; theirs is pathetic.”
Elizabeth should realize that Andrew and Cheri were merely trying to protect her and John’s political ambitions. She should listen to Mickey Kaus’ advice from the link Simon has listed in this thread:
“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?”
I think Elizabeth is angry because she knows that there are funds that have gone to the Youngs that she can’t really talk about without getting her and John into potentially more trouble – especially with the grand jury probe that is occurring at this time. She can’t stand the fact that some of her wealth has been siphoned off to other parties that she never considered to of her class. All the work the Youngs did for her and her husband that she so glowingly recounted in her first book have now been rendered into the category of “menial”. Sounds as if she always did think she was above certain people and her anger is now making that blatantly obvious.
I also agree with Fortunate Son’s comment from the last Edwards thread:
“Elizabeth Edwards is right about Andrew Young though.
Andrew Young’s involvement with John Edwards passed hero worship and bordered on a homoerotic obsession. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!
30 year old Cheri Young (nee Pfister) was working the third shift as a nurse when John Edwards ran in 2004. It was exciting to her, a small town girl, to see a campaign up close and she fantasized that one day Andrew Young would be a candidate too.
But it was not to be. Young’s record of petty criminal behavior and DUIs were anything but respectable, and at best he was campaign camp follower different from Rielle Hunter only in that he had less control.”
This isn’t the first time a woman behind a man in higher up politics looked the other way so that she could obtain the office of being the wife of a Prez or VP. It won’t be the last either.
I didn’t catch the O show…..I can NOT stand to watch it…..but I did see her on Today. And my thoughts on her have done a 180.
)
Since there’s so much adultery in the world and seeing as how Spencer and Heidi got married and she’s saying it’s forever and ever anybody want to start a pool on how long before we see the Deceiver post about the affair? Is Spencer more of a reliable husband than Jon and John?
Interesting. A cynic might regard EE’s efforts to paint Andrew Young as an obsessed fan (if “Jim” is, in fact, based on Young) as a pathetic attempt to preempt any claims he might be making (to federal investigators, say) about his part in the cover-up.
I’m in, Rocko.
The truth about RH is that she slept with a married man who had a dying wife and two small children. The details don’t really matter. She is a middle aged woman with a lot of experience with men and I’m sure JE isn’t the first married one. Man, can’t this woman transfer learning from one experience to another. Usually people learn by their mistakes. WOMEN NEED TO LEAVE OTHER WOMEN’S FAMILIES ALONE. MAKE YOUR OWN FAMILY. STOP STEALING FROM OTHER WOMEN. Maybe she’s getting too old to start building her own live so she just takes what she sees.
There is no reason EE needs to deal with JE’s extra child in her present situation. If she weren’t dying I would have a different opinion. Why should she have to fix JE’s indescretions and consequences. This is For JE and RH. They layed down in the bed, they have to deal with it. EE’s kids won’t need coaching to hate this woman. They will need therapy to deal with her. These kids will want nothing to do with the woman who caused their mother so much pain in the last days of her life. Talk about a wicked stepmother. What a nightmare. Right now they are just a scared 11 and 9 year old. They are afraid daddy will get his sorry ass kicked out. EE’s interviews may clarify her feelings re: this situation, because talking helps, and the out come may be JE is gone. Alot of EE’s feeling, other than the normal ones, about this affair is due to her dad’s possible cheating on her mother. That’s why she wanted faithfullness from JE on their wedding day. BTW, EE was beautiful on her wedding day. JE didn’t marry down, he married up. I wouldn’t have even dated that scrawney hick, much less married him.
I’ve always been of the opinion that staffers had to know these two were screwing. She was a little too friendly, one staffer stated she acted like his wife, and in the pictures I’ve seen of him with her he looks like he’s in heat.
We who supported JE should sue him for fraud and now we need to drag his staffers into it for knowing and still taking our money. Your right about those to boys who traveled with JE. They knew he was screwing around and probably helped him hide it. May we’ll include them and get some of their pay off money. After all it’s probably our money anyway.
Fortunate Son: You love you some RH.
The more I think about this, the less sympathetic I am feeling for Elizabeth. She wanted John to run for President more for herself than anyone else, kindof like the Clintons. She knew he had an affair and still renewed their vows and still pushed for him to run for the highest and most powerful office. Seems like someone else is power hungry and like Hillary, did not want some women standing in the way.
I am with AAW on this. Elizabeth wanted the power and prestige of the White House just as much as John did. She would do well to focus her energy on her health and her family and stop the interviews.
I’m not sure how attacking Fortunate Son helps make Elizabeth Edwards look like less of a manipulative opportunist, but if it makes you feel better, fine. We’re ALL VERY SORRY they had a son who died. We’re all likewise QUITE GRIEVED that “EE” is deathly ill, or was, or whatever. But neither of those things absolves her of responsibility for complicity in this whole nasty, sordid little web.
Asserting that Elizabeth is NOT, in fact, a solid-platinum saint who lacks only the Pope’s sanction doesn’t mean that Rielle Hunter now holds that title. There’s plenty of blame to go around; in fact, pretty much everyone involved here is liberally (hee! See what I did there?) slathered with it.
Ari Berman makes some interesting comments that counters Trippi’s claims that there were never any sabotage plans discussed among Edwards’ campaign staff:
See link: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/434987/l_affaire_edwards_to_sabotage_or_not
“…but I distinctly recall a conversation with an Edwards confidante at the Democratic Convention in August that lends some credence to the “sabotage strategy.” I asked the Edwards insider–who asked not to be named–whether the staff knew about Edwards’ affair (and possible love child) and whether they had planned to do anything about it. “We would have prevented Edwards from becoming the nominee had he won Iowa,” this person told me based on my recollection of the conversation, “because we believed some portion of the rumors to be true.”
I love John Edwards. Really. He was the only person who cold out-greaseball Bill, Hillary and Obama combined! With talent like that what’s not to like?
What do you call Obama, Edwards and Clinton (either one) stranded in a sinking boat?
A good start
‘Bout time.
I’m glad others are finally realizing that Cardigan Liz deals a wicked game of Three-card Monty.
Good Queen Bess ain’t the virgin she claims to be.
The more this story unfolds, the more I’m convinced that Hollywood deceivers are rank amateurs compared to their Washington counterparts.
(Sorry, Holly!)
Details like, oh, it was on the campaign trail as he was running for president? And, let’s say, he staged an incredibly elaborate and expensive coverup, possibly using campaign funds, to hide her pregnancy? Please forgive me if I disagree about the importance of those details.
http://whatsnottolike.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/hunter-edwards-affair-and-coverup-timeline/
is a very useful chronology of the events in this strange case. It raises many questions, especially in the financial area, that a grand jury could usefully look into.
Theophrastus’s timeline ^ above ^ has been surgically removed, but Google the URL and it’s cached / archived.
Minnow, better late than never!
Simon, I was talking about the details of the affair. The details about the conspiracy to cover up the fact of the affair and details of RH’s and JE’s continued meetings while I was donating money to the sorry SOB certainly do count. I think I’m going to call Chapel Hill and ask for my money back again. If I had the energy I’d find a lawyer and class action his sorry ass. He committed fraud and his campaign workers were in on the conspiracy as well. They all need to be sued. I’d like to think a successful suit would make politicians behave. But not likely, they will just find new ways to cheat and get their way. The next politician I’m interested in I will spend time around. It isn’t hard to catch a man or woman being a little bit too attentive. But you have to pay attention.
You don’t have to feel sorry for EE. Just let her be and be thankful it isn’t you. BTW, I won’t include her in the suit. I don’t think she had as many choices as you do. Just watching the pols I’m around on a regular basis, they pretty much do as they please. There are a few good ones though, and at least in my state, they get the crap beat out of them and they still keep going.
It could be argued that if she wanted everybody to leave her be, she wouldn’t publish an autobiography and do a media tour to promote it.
It could be. But she may be acting out her anger by putting it in the spot light. I’ve always told people who critize others or complain about what others are doing when they are in a bad place, to be grateful it isn’t you. I still believe that.
I’m grateful I’m not JE. But, I’m still mad at him, although not as angry as I was. The goal is to not care. If I could get my money back, I’d not care a lot sooner.
Elizabeth Edwards is twice the opportunist that JE is.
Take a look back when she was first diagonosed with cancer. 2004, when Edwards first ran as Kerry’s VP.
Elizabeth Edwards is dying of old age.
Fortunate Son, don’t go there. You don’t know what your talking about. She has stage 4 CA in her bones. We just have good drugs and they appear to be working on her. She could wake up tomorrow coughing up blood and have CA in her lungs. If the CA is breast in origin the next place it will show up is in the brain. I watched my maid of honor’s very young sister die from this disease. She was CA free for 5 years and got a cough. She couldn’t get rid of it so they did an exploratory operation. They opened her up and closed her. She was dead in 6mos.
Insult if you want to, state your side of the story, take sides, but you don’t want to to in this direction, I promise.
Fortunate son: Beautiful Rielle? Elizabeth Edwards is, “Elizabeth Edwards is twice the opportunist that JE is. Take a look back when she was first diagonosed with cancer. 2004, when Edwards first ran as Kerry’s VP. Elizabeth Edwards is dying of old age.”
Interesting. You’ve had all sorts of fun tid bits about this story since Deceiver first jumped on it. Many a “hat tip” has gone out to you. For some time, I’ve been pretty curious who you are to know so many details, why you are so interested in keeping the story alive. Now, you are extolling the virtues of Rielle, saying she needs to get her story out there and rehab her image, and tearing down EE. What is your goal in all of this?
HappyCamper, you’re a thinly disguised Edwards apologist at best.
Elizabeth Edwards discussed her cancer in the most generic of terms during her interview and John Edwards has shown himself over and over to be capable of exploiting the barest of opportunities.
Plenty of celebrities other than EE have been busted for faking cancer, including Victoria Gotti.
If Elizabeth Edwards were dying, she’d want her husband John to be with someone he loved, like the beautiful Rielle Hunter.
Fortunate Son, why do you feel that you need to champion Rielle? Your words, “Beautiful Rielle,” are usual uttered by people who hold genuine affection for a person. Posted, at least twice, by you, “I watched the whole Oprah show with Elizabeth Edwards in her two sizes too tight, chair-matching chartreuse sweater sitting in an almost thronelike chair opposite a serious, makeup-free Oprah.” sounds more contemptuous than the usual bitchiness that gets thrown around in this snark fest.
So, again, I ask: what’s your stake in all of this? You have had the juicy tid bits about pay outs from shady characters from the beginning.
I am speculating that Fortunate Son is either a former Edwards staff member, or a spouse or close relative of someone who was. You seem to harbor a great deal of bitterness towards Andrew Young and his wife. This couple has endured more than their share of suffering, merely because of their loyalty to the Edwards family.
Fortunate Son “I think Rielle Hunter has become a John Edwards‘ scapegoat, manipulated into silence against her daughter’s best interests”. I still believe JRE sugar coated his confession to EE and probably doesn’t want to publicly acknowledge Frances while EE’s alive plus EE is probbly coming to terms with the possiblilty the little girl is JRE’s daughter.
“If Elizabeth Edwards were dying, she’d want her husband John to be with someone he loved, like the beautiful Rielle Hunter.” I’d doubt this very much since it has caused EE and her children alot of pain and what’s beautiful about someone who destroys another women’s family? I’m not giving JRE a pass – I’m talking woman to woman.
Frances Quinn is RH’s responsibility. I haven’t read one article where RH’s working to support herself and Frances – makes me think she’s a freeloader. You’ll probably say she’s raising the child – the child can go to daycare while RH works. I’ve been a working mother with twins (and their Dad works too) to drag to daycare – so RH gets no pass from me about the money issue with JRE.
If she’s been holding out for a married man to voluntarily pay her for the daughters care – she’s naive. If my husband did this to me and my children I’d want to determine paternity before I’d agree to support the child. RH can take JRE to court to settle the paternity and child support payments with visitation. No money for RH though, she needs to support herself – she doesn’t get a free ride. If she wanted someone to take care of HER and FRANCES she should have picked a man who was free to marry her!!
LOL. John Edwards and his merry band of idiots (one of whom has participated in comments on this very page) left a paper trail a mile wide.
No need to be personally involved to see the malfeasance and lies by a man we almost elected to the Vice Presidency or Presidency twice.
Andrew Young has endured more than his fair share of suffering because of his loyalty to John Edwards? You must’ve missed how the $15,000 a month payments to the Youngs and the $242,000 mortgage paid off in cash and the new megamillion mansion in NC.
Elizabeth Edwards is happy to scapegoat Rielle Hunter, Andrew and Cheri Young, the American Public for not noticing her “change in verbage” about John’s qualifications for the presidency… in short, anyone but John Edwards, whose internationally irresponsible dalliances she says “won’t affect my life one way or the other”.
Surely even personal injury lawyers married to those perpetrating cancer have a responsibility to tell the truth to the American voters when they aspire to the highest office?
Fortunate Son. I don’t deal in evil. Wishing someone dead and telling people they are really sick because they aren’t dying soon enough to suit you is EVIL. You are one sick puppy.
I don’t give a flying f##k what JE does or what you say about him. You have a right to your thoughts on EE. Most married women won’t see a woman like RH in very good light. They are basically theives. Even that baby was stolen from the marriage. Eggs and sperm belong to the marriage contract and shouldn’t be freely passed out to someone you meet on the sidewalk and whose only talent is spreading her legs.
aren’t really sick. You need spell check.
In that case, you really need to save your venom for Johnny Spermalseed.
Isn’t that what I said.
HappyCamper, do you really think making up quotes for other users makes you more credible on a site where you are so easily debunked?
Because I didn’t correct QueenBee’s misstatement on the “thronelike chair” doesn’t mean I won’t smack down yours.
You showed up on March 6 and have made almost solely pro-Edwards statements until you shifted into spin control on Elizabeth Edwards poorly-advised interview.
The likelihood of you being someone who is performing a paid service for John Edwards is high.
FS. I’ll gladly take money from JE. I just want my $325.00. and I’ll be happy. So e-mail him in Chapel Hill and tell him he should pay me. They’ll tell you the same thing they told me. We don’t have to. If I’m taking money from him, you must be taking money from her?
What quote are you talking about? I’m too lazy to reread this crap. (Yours, mine and ours.)
Actually, no.
You’ve been making it sound like:
Lizzy is descended directly from Vesta.
Rielle is the Whore of Babylon’s uglier evil twin.
And Johnny B. Goode accidentally lost his pickle to a total harpie.
Fact of the matter is that it takes two to screw. Yet you’ve been screaming (in more than one thread here) that the unmentionable mistress weighs the same as a duck and floats like wood.
If you’re going to burn Rielle at the stake, Mr. Gee-His-Hair-Smells-Terrific Esquire deserves a post on that pyre too.
And sweet Bessie? Maybe she’s not out tonguing videographers, but she is chin deep in this bucket o’ slop; by chance and BY CHOICE.
They’re all dirty. They all deserve our disdain.
All three of ‘em.
Ladies leave other women’s families alone and you won’t have these problems. JE is just as responsible as RH for this mess. The only innocent parties are the kids and EE. They didn’t ask for this they didn’t even get to make a decision. JE and RH bare full responsibility for their actions. Everyone else is innocent. EE shouldn’t be making excuses for JE and RH’s sisters shouldn’t be making excuses for her either. These two deserve what they get. There is a reason adultery is frowned upon. There is a reason women learn not to screw married men. Men don’t learn so much. Women who do this usually get hurt and the man stays with his family. That is just what is happening here.
Yes, I went through a phase of calling RH a whore. That’s what happens when you screw a married man with a dying wife and 2 young children. But lately I have suggested that she get a DNA test prove who the father is, get child support, and get a job and a live so her daughter can be proud of her. Life isn’t over just because she has to get a job and remake herself, again. Now she has the best reason in the world for doing so, her daughter.
My exact words were “I don’t give a flying f##k what JE does or what you say about him.” I will defend EE or RH but I’ll try to be more adult about it in the future.
I will defend EE but not RH. I’ll try to be more adult about it in the future. (I’m a bad proof reader, forgive me.)
Someone mentioned that she has stage 4 cancer in her bones….that is incredibly painful. I’m surprised she can even get out of bed, much less go on a tour to promote her ego-strokage…err, book. I never liked any of them. And I could really care less about these idiots. If he used campaign funds to hide Rielle’s pregnancy, then he should go to jail for fraud, and she should be forced to repay that money. As for Elizabeth – she needs to shut her mouth and spend her time with her children. If she’s really terminal, then why on earth is she spending her time schmoozing with people that don’t matter???
This New Republic blog entry makes a good point:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/05/13/elizabeth-edwards-s-screwy-timeline.aspx
Elizabeth Edwards’s Screwy Timeline
“In her interview with Larry King last night, Elizabeth Edwards had this to say about the National Enquirer, which, of course, broke the story of her husband’s affaire with Rielle Hunter:
KING: All right. When the story first appeared — talking about “Resilience,” when the story first appeared in the tabloids, a friend had to mention it to you, did you see this in the Enquirer?
EDWARDS: Yes.
KING: What did you say?
EDWARDS: You know, I remember a long time ago standing in a line and seeing a picture in front of one these tabloid magazines of an old plane surrounded by dust. And they said, “Abandoned World War II Plane Found on the Face of the Moon.”
And I thought, you know, isn’t it odd that, you know, CNN and ABC and everybody missed this story that was picked up by this tabloid. At the same time that the stories appeared about John, there was exactly the similar stories appearing about now President Obama.
You know, this is the fodder that they have.
KING: So you dismissed them.
EDWARDS: I dismissed them. [Emphasis added.]
But the Enquirer story came out in October 2007, which, by Elizabeth’s own account, was nearly a year after her husband confessed his affair to her. How could she dismiss the Enquirer story when she knew it was true?!
P.S. I suppose Elizabeth is hanging her dismissal of the Enquirer story on a technicality here: In John’s initial confession, he said he’d only cheated on her once; the Enquirer alleged an ongoing affair with Hunter. Still, that seems pretty nitpicky.”
Overall, it’s pretty evident that Elizabeth feared the ruin of John’s presidential hopes a great deal more than the devastation of her marriage and family. I can’t imagine any other reason for her to participate in the coverup. It’s obvious that Cheri Young’s marriage didn’t mean much to Elizabeth (or anyone else in the Edwards camp), so I have a hard time buying that her own marriage was paramount, either.
I live in the “other” America, mind you. The one where we don’t pay other people to take the fall for our sexual and ethical peccadilloes. So what do I know?