Book Game Change smeared a terminally ill Elizabeth Edwards

The movie “Game Change,” based on the book that detailed the 2008 campaign, will be on HBO this week. Apparently, it depicts Sarah Palin as a narcissistic, petulant, moron who curls up in a fetal ball when under stress. In other words, it confirms the biases of the authors, filmmakers, and presumably most of those who will watch the film. (read)

Palin’s a strong, conservative woman. She can deal with another hit job. A bigger problem is the hatchet that authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin — both liberal opinion writers — took to Elizabeth Edwards, the late wife of presidential candidate, and universal cad, John Edwards. Long before cancer finally took her life, Ms. Edwards had to deal with a book, ”Game Change,” that cast her, as such: ”What the world saw in Elizabeth: A valiant, determined, heroic every-woman. What the Edwards insiders saw: An abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazy-woman.”

In the book, “Game Change,” Elizabeth Edwards, as well as Palin, and Hillary Clinton, were gleefully coated with grime, the result of cowardly ex-staffers speaking mostly on deep background. One can’t determine if the charges are true from reading “Game Change.” Footnotes and on-the-record interviews were not part of the book. (Read) Instead, what you have is a vicious portrayal of a slowly dying woman whose husband has cheated on her. (Read) The memory of Ms. Edwards deserved better than a bad supporting role in an unsourced political book that was gossipy good fun for both the colonels and corporals of the culturally elite.

4 Responses to Book Game Change smeared a terminally ill Elizabeth Edwards

laytonian says:

March 5, 2012 at 7:41 pm

Doug, Mark Halperin isn’t a liberal. He’s just the opposite! He was even suspended by MSNBC for infamously calling President Obama “a d-head”. Remember that?

Don’t blame the libs for Palin’s reputation; read what the McCain campaign (specifically Nicole Wallace, her aide) has had to say outside the book.

And don’t use Mrs Edwards as an excuse to feel sorry for Palin being treated wrongly. No matter what you think of either of them, neither had a warm and fuzzy rep.

Bob Becker says:

March 5, 2012 at 8:40 pm

Your objection in re: Ms. Edwards seems to be that the authors showed poor taste, but not that they got the facts wrong regarding her reputation among her husband’s aides. In this kind of kiss and tell political reporting [which began, really, with Teddy White's "The Making of the President XXXX" series], I’m not sure folks ought to expect, or get, a free pass because they’re ill or unhappily wed. Her husband’s being a cad and a bounder don’t buy her a free pass either, so long as the authors relied on what they considered reliable sources. Her problems… a sleezebag for a hubby and a dread disease — were, neither of them, the authors’ doing.

Same applies to the campaign aides of Ms. Palin. The question is not are they cads for now telling all. The question is, is what they’re telling us true. Not having read the book, I’ll reserve judgment on that.

- Doug says:
  
  March 5, 2012 at 8:50 pm
  
  Bob, comparing White’s reporting, or even Woodward’s, I don’t think is an apt comparison to Game Change’s, which picked “good guys” and “bad guys” via deep background. It’s unethical. Also, when you use the tactics of the co-authors, it provides losers to play a good game of Scapegoat Cover My Ass.
  
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