A Citizen's Advanced Guide to Political Hostage Taking

                                 A Citizen's Advanced Guide to Political Hostage Taking

                                                                 -Susan Cook-

 

Seldom are citizens privy to the Refinery of political hostage-taking. It is an industrial process, which defies any environmental regulation because what you end with is dirtier than the crude you started with.  In the trial of John Edwards, we witness the political hostage taking of not John Edwards, not his unethical staff member Andrew Young. No, we are talking about Mr. Young's wife, Cheri Young.  

 

Let us not lose sight of the invaluable information this trial offers  about this Refinery process: the pith of creating political hostages, where someone who seems good and decent and loyal is turned into the conniving and self-serving.  

Step A:  First, someone in a "Leadership" position pretends there is a connection between two events, preferably with moistened  or tearing eyes or patriotic passion, flaring nostrils if at all possible. I say pretend there is a causal link between two events, even though there is absolutely no cause-effect connection between the two. This is accomplished  -again- with flared nostrils- tearing eyes- by declaring that a  possible election defeat, future of the country or actual or pending death or recent experience of near death are  intimately connected to the actions of a single person. It's  the Outside-Inside strategy or in Cheri Young's case the Inside-Inside strategy because she probably thought she was on  the Inside. Lo and behold the people who you'd  think she was on the  Inside with , like her husband, turned out to actually be on the Outside. I am glad they don't design airplanes this way.  

Enter  John Edwards asking  the wife of his staff member Andrew Young  to give the ultimate to her country, this being in John Edward's  eyes  synonymous with his Presidential bid-  "mirror mirror on the wall" kind of thing. What is the ultimate that Edwards asked her to give to her country? Not  a mere psychological transgression like "lusting in the heart" .   No, laid on the sacrificial altar of higher principle called John Edward's Presidential delusion  was a  permanent  sacrifice of Cheri Young's belief  that her husband would never do her wrong because Cheri Young would pretend that her husband had already laid something on the sacrificial altar when he really hadn't.  I think you know the rest.   I am glad they don't design airplanes this way.  

Here is John Edwards encouraging Cheri Young to fake her husband's betrayal: "It is good for America." "This is our time." And here comes the tearing of the eye: he did not want his wife Elizabeth to know about his affair  because "she was going to die soon", this 3 years before she died.

And so, a birth that Mrs. Young is actually involved in takes place: the birth of the Political Hostage.  Mrs.  Young says, "I did not want the campaign to explode and for it to be my fault. I  ultimately decided to live with a lie",  the Stockholm Syndrome creeps  victorious- the creeps being John Edwards and Mr. Young. They were now willing to imprison Mrs. Young by making her a prisoner of her own lies and charging her with responsibility for wounding Elizabeth Edwards and ruining John Edwards' campaign if she did not agree to step into the prison cell- all this for something she had absolutely nothing to do with.  

Step Two of Political Hostage taking is "Find Important Collaborators." Enter Lisa Blue,  John Edward's wealthy contributor, who as an "An Important Collaborator" taps into  Mrs. Young's somehow untainted loyalty to the protection of her children.  Lisa Blue says, "I am a doctor. Mrs. Edwards  is  not well. She is not mentally healthy and there is a great chance she would be a harm  to you or your family if you return to North Carolina."  The  additional threat  to Mrs. Young's children family is finally made by The Important Collaborator delivering once and for all the Political Hostage. 

Taking Political Hostages is really quite simple-  two  steps.  Or  three. The third is the person who caves and say "OK", sometimes their life or quality of life on the line.   Let us all hope that political organizations in their hiring find a way to weed out the unethical, the  mid and late-stage alcoholics,  to  find criteria that doesn't  end up with something cruder than what you started with. That is the person who says  "No,  I am not going to lie."  Maybe using those same criteria when  vetting candidates for office would also be ok in designing airplanes.