Confession

British politician of no importance to you or I.

On the latest doublexx podcast, they were talking about the Americanization of the British general election, and the US Weekly-type roles being played by the candidates' wives.  Apparently these women are dishing out little tidbits about how their husbands are bad about clearing dishes and putting socks in hampers.  The doublexx'ers think these tidbits are a way for the campaigns to humanize the candidates, to make them appear less perfect.

But the public always presumes politicians to be deeply human and deeply imperfect, so what the campaigns are actually doing is copping a plea to a lesser crime to escape suspicion of something more sinister.  When Obama was running for President, the guy seemed too good to be true, which didn't mean we viewed him as a superhuman demigod, it meant we knew there had to be some sort of dark secret.  For all we knew, maybe Obama was secretly sharing Marion Barry's crackpipe. 

Maybe he was secretly born in Kenya, and upon his birth, his parents had the foresight to know he was going to run for President 47 years later, so they planted a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser.

But then the truth came out during one of the debates, that Obama loses pieces of paper and that he needs to clean his desk more often.

RUSSERT: You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.
OBAMA: ...As I indicated before, my greatest weakness, I think, is when it comes to — I’ll give you a very good example.  I ask my staff member to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it because I will lose it. You know, the —- you know…
(LAUGHTER)
And my desk and my office doesn’t look good. I’ve got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff.

This was a savvy move by Obama, it eased some of the other suspicions because he confessed to an actual crime, however small it may have been.  This is much better than using the classic "my only flaw is that I'm too good" move, or variations such as:  "I'm too much of a perfectionist, I'm too humble, I undersell myself, I appear less amazing than I actually am".  There's also the non-confession used by George Bush, when he said his biggest regret was the way people perceived him.  In other words, "I'm sorry I let you stupid assholes get the wrong idea about me."

During that '08 debate, Hilary confessed to the sin of being a pushy bitch, which was a smart move because it partially absolved her for a crime she'd already been convicted of.

CLINTON: I get impatient. I get, you know, really frustrated when people don’t seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other. Sometimes I come across that way. I admit that. I get very concerned about, you know, pushing further and faster than perhaps people are ready to go.

Hilary did use the "the way I'm perceived" cop-out when she said the words "sometimes I come across that way", and she did blame the victims for their failure "to understand", but I still give her credit for acknowledging that people don't like her.  Meanwhile, John Edwards' confession was a goddamn joke.

EDWARDS:  I think weakness, I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me, when I see a man like Donnie Ingram, who I met a few months ago in South Carolina, who worked for 33 years in the mill, reminded me very much of the kind of people that I grew up with, who’s about to lose his job, has no idea where he’s going to go, what he’s going to do.

I mean, his dignity and self-respect is at issue. And I feel that in a really personal way and in a very emotional way. And I think sometimes that can undermine what you need to do.

This is the "my greatest weakness is actually a strength" move, which is the most egregious of all non-confessions.  By failing to own up to even the slightest sin, Edwards essentially proclaimed that he must have been guilty of something serious, beyond simply his manifest narcissism and his obvious belief that we're all a bunch of fools.  We shouldn't have been surprised that this guy, who proclaimed his greatest flaw was his "powerful emotional response to pain" and his compassion for people who fear losing their "dignity and self-respect", was secretly cheating on his cancer-stricken wife.

John Edwards is my greatest weakness.