Hanna, I have to take issue with your statement that Elizabeth Edwards has an "infallible bullshit detector." Sure, she would have spotted what an on-the-make idiot Rielle Hunter was. But her detector's been on the blink for the past 30 years as far as John Edwards was concerned. As soon as he appeared on the scene it wasn't hard to see he was an oily, vain phony who would take on whatever pose seemed useful for his own advancement. You're right, Elizabeth is not simply "standing by her man" and pasting a fake smile on her face. But as Susannah points out, she's trying to portray John as a naif taken in by a New Age seductress, which just prompts an "Oh, please." But John Edward's political career is over, and Elizabeth Edwards is mortally ill—it's understandable that given the circumstances she doesn't want to end her marriage. Still, why is she making so public this private pain?

Tags: adultery, Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, rielle hunter

Eleanor Squillari, Bernie Madoff's former executive assistant cooperated with Vanity Fair reporter Mark Seal for a juicy secretary's point of view on her crooked ex-boss that will appear in the VF June issue. Squillari spent two months helping the FBI and SEC unravel Madoff's financial accounts after Madoff confessed to operating a $50-billion Ponzi scheme in December 2008. Squillari says in the article that following Madoff's arrest, his wife Ruth called the office frequently asking the 25-year employee to provide her with information without notifying the bankruptcy trustees. Squillari said no dice. "Instead, I told the FBI what had just happened. I was working for them now, not for Ruth and Bernie Madoff."

I've always been curious about how much the financier's wife of nearly 50 years knew about his decades-long fraud. In a video interview with Seal, Squillari tells the veteran reporter she "would have no way of knowing if Ruth knew," but she shares a telling anecdote about when a colleague of Madoff's employee embezzled from him. In discussing the matter, Madoff told his own subordinate, "He should have been keeping an eye on his personal finances. That's why I've always had Ruth watching the books. Nothing gets by Ruth."

Tags: bernie madoff, Madoff's secretary, Vanity Fair

Meghan, it kills me to read that Newsweek piece about Rielle Hunter and her "New Age jargon," as Jonathan Darman calls it, and offers this example:

Human beings were dragged down by "blockages" to their actual potential; history was the story of souls entering and escaping our field of consciousness...Her purpose on this Earth, she said, was to help raise awareness about all this, to help the unenlightened become better reflections of their true, repressed selves.

One undeniable thing about Elizabeth Edwards is her infallible bullshit detector. When I interviewed friends and staff that's the first thing they all mentioned about her. If one of her assistants had tried this "blockages" line on her—or God forbid mentioned it as a cause of her cancer, as New Age types are wont to do—she would have dunked the assistant's head in the sink. It must be doubly dismaying to her that her own husband was seduced by it.

Also, as you mentioned, she is a curious combination of vulnerable and strong. This New Republic story I wrote about her opens with all the times she told other women she met on the campaign trail how pretty they were. Then, in a roundtable with all the wives of candidates, she said:

"My gosh, you are all so beautiful. Which one doesn't belong? I feel a little bit like that—one of these things just doesn't belong." The remark was typical of Elizabeth Edwards—spontaneous, unfiltered, generous, and a little domineering: It takes a unique combination of vulnerability and supreme confidence to say something like that on a stage. The main effect of her compliment was to set her apart. They were a group of fresh faces one could marvel at, and she was the old hand, a woman to be dealt with on her own terms.

Hanna, I hear what you say about moxie. What interests me about Edwards is that she doesn't fit any clear mold. She seems at once very strong and very vulnerable. One almost feels that in the very fact that she has lived with advanced cancer for such an extraordinary length of time. On the other hand, Susannah's close reading of the passage about Rielle Hunter is spot-on, to my ear. In this description of how the affair began, Edwards uses language that implicitly depicts Rielle as a fierce, amoral hunter (her last name, after all), and John as little more than biological silly putty; if Elizabeth doesn't quite make John out to be an innocent pup, she does suggests he is merely too pliable. The agency is all the Huntress's.

I suppose that's natural; most of would be angry at the other woman, especially if she's as touchy-feely as Rielle sounds. Do any of you remember this Newsweek piece by Jonathan Darman about his encounters with her? If I were Elizabeth, I'd be both threatened by Rielle's brand of sinuous femininity and put off by it. If you buy the portrait painted in the Darman piece, Rielle seems to possess a brand of sexual wile that I can’t help feeling is somehow more deeply associated with womanhood, to this day, than almost any other quality. When I read about these women, with their New Age sensitivity, their way of leaning in close at the bar and asking “What sign are you?” I often find myself thinking they're the true "XX" and I'm, say, X and a 1/2.

What's interesting to me about the passage Susannah posts is how you can see that Edwards sort of feels that too, otherwise she would never use words like “target.” The Rielle that Edwards writes about is just a new version of Crystal Edwards from The Women. She sees something she wants and doesn't hesitate to wreck a marriage to get it. These days, though, Crystal Allen doesn’t sell perfume at the perfume counter; she is into astrology and cleanses and freelance video work. In this reading, Elizabeth, of course, is the wholesome wife (Mrs. Stephen Haines) played by Norma Shearer; only the movie doesn't end with her reconciliation with her husband. It ends with her on a talk show, sharpening her nails a bit. And who could blame her?

Tags: adultery, Elizabeth Edwards, maureen dowd, rielle hunter

Politico reports that Tim Gunn made an appearance on Capitol Hill this morning. He and Leanne Marshall, winner of Project Runway's fifth season, met with Republican Congressman Lamar Smith about what Politico is calling "designer rights." Gunn dished out some free advice to before getting down to business:

Smith lined up his staff and had Gunn provide notes of wisdom, wardrobe-wise.

The staff fared pretty well. "Small tweaks" were made—a shorter skirt was one—and the congressman replied, "two inches?!" in shock. Gunn replied, "no just one." Another lucky female staffer was complimented on her grey skirt and sweater paired with a light brown belt. Gunn said, "this outfit is all about the belt and it works."

Given that the average congressional staffer's wardrobe ranges all the way from Ann Taylor to Ann Taylor Loft, this is quite the coup. But much as I respect Gunn's taste in textiles, I'm not sure the idea he has come to promote will do a thing to help the fashion industry. Senators like Chuck Schumer have long wanted to extend copyright protection to fashion designers, but they've never made a strong case for the idea that the American fashion industry suffers for a lack of innovation. (Shows like Project Runway do not help.) As UCLA law professor Kal Raustiala has argued, it's possible that cheap knock-offs—the very thing copyright protection would criminalize—actually help fashion designers by accelerating the fashion cycle and spurring demand for newer, high-end designs. Add to all this the sure-to-be-ugly costs of enforcing fashion-related IP, and the whole plan starts to look like the legislative equivalent of that strappy neon ruched thing Blayne came up with last season.

Tags: Project Runway

I just got a note from GLAD saying that Maine's Governor Balducci has signed into law a bill that gender-neutralizes marriage, initiated and passed by Maine's legislature without any court case or judicial involvement whatsoever. That makes Maine the first equal-marriage state to do so entirely on its elected officials' own initiative.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay, indeed. A friend from Maine says the Gov. is very close to his out lesbian sister; she expected the signing to come quickly. It's just hard to tell someone you've known and loved and fought with from birth that you don't think she should have the same rights and responsibilities that you do. Maine has a very active referendum process, so it will go up for a statewide vote soon. Go Mainiacs! Marry early, marry often, and hang on to those licenses!

Goodness, fairness is breaking out all over. I thought June was the marriage month! Perhaps judges and legislators in Iowa, Vermont, and Maine thought it might be nice to give same-sex couples and their families a chance to plan before they set those bells ringing?

Next in queue: New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York.  And I'm told we should expect a California rematch next year. Now that no state has to worry about being vilified for going first (Massachusetts), second (Connecticut), third (Iowa) or even fourth (Vermont), maybe equality seems like a no-brainer?

I don't know when it takes effect.

Tags: LGBT rights, same-sex marriage

Meghan, Susannah, Hanna, I think Maureen Dowd is right when she asks: Why is Elizabeth Edwards dragging this scandal back before the public? It just makes her look naive and foolish, and reminds us what a slimy cad her husband is. Dowd mentions, as have so many others, that Elizabeth herself could have been a successful politician. Her situation now speaks to the dangers of subverting one's entire life to the ambitions of someone else. Anne, I also agree that Margaret Thatcher doesn't get the credit she deserves for being a path-breaker and a role model. But also a model was her husband, Denis. He had been a successful businessman and while he was supportive of her career, he mostly stayed out of the way. Angela Merkel's husband, a scientist, barely ever shows up for her official events. These husbands of successful, ambitious women are perhaps better role models of what we should expect of a political spouse than Elizabeth Edwards' head cheerleader.

And while we're on the subject of ambition and marriage, Dahlia and Hanna have a fascinating look at why so many of the women on the short list for the Supreme Court are single. They raise the point that the pressures of getting to the top of the legal profession may discriminate against women with children. So it's comforting to remember that two women who got to the Supreme Court first, when women in the law were a distinct minority, were both happily married with children.

Tags: adultery, Elizabeth Edwards, maggie thatcher, maureen dowd

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Hanna, I hear what you say about moxie. What interests me about Edwards is that she doesn't fit any clear mold. She seems at once very strong and very vulnerable. One almost feels that in the very fact that she has lived with advanced cancer for such an extraordinary length of time. On the other hand, Susannah's close reading of the passage about Rielle Hunter is spot-on, to my ear. In this description of how the affair began, Edwards uses language that implicitly depicts Rielle as a fierce, amoral hunter (her last name, after all), and John as little more than biological silly putty; if Elizabeth doesn't quite make John out to be an innocent pup, she does suggests he is merely too pliable. The agency is all the Huntress's.

Tags: cancer, Elizabeth Edwards, rielle hunter

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Meghan, Susannah, I think we have to give Elizabeth Edwards some credit for what she does do. That moment where she portrays her husband as the victim of the vixen Rielle is really the only blind spot in an otherwise brutally honest—cringingly honest—account. Whether or not this counts as a public flogging, as Maureen Dowd suggests, is really beside the point. The typical thing for a political wife is to cover for her husband, stand by him on the stage the way Eliot Spitzer's wife, Silda did. And for that we liberated feminist types gave her a public flogging. I suppose Elizabeth did that to some degree, by standing by him during the campaign. But then she undid it, by writing this book which is a tick-tock of the entire affair, including his lies, the cheesy come-on line she has to know will make it to late night TV ("You are so hot") and more lies. And then she goes on Oprah and says she doesn't even know if she loves him anymore. Mixed in with whatever we fault her for is some serious moxie. What other political wife has ever done that?

Tags: Elizabeth Edwards

Meghan, Susannah, I think we have to give Elizabeth Edwards some credit for what she does do. That moment where she portrays her husband as the victim of the vixen Rielle is really the only blind spot in an otherwise brutally honest—cringingly honest—account. Whether or not this counts as a public flogging, as Maureen Dowd suggests, is really beside the point. The typical thing for a political wife is to cover for her husband, stand by him on the stage the way Eliot Spitzer's wife, Silda did. And for that we liberated feminist types gave her a public flogging. I suppose Elizabeth did that to some degree, by standing by him during the campaign. But then she undid it, by writing this book which is a tick-tock of the entire affair, including his lies, the cheesy come-on line she has to know will make it to late night TV ("You are so hot") and more lies. And then she goes on Oprah and says she doesn't even know if she loves him anymore. Mixed in with whatever we fault her for is some serious moxie. What other political wife has ever done that?