What’s with this weird Slate piece on Elizabeth Edwards?

Apparently, Slate did the math and figured out that the Edwardses’ youngest kids, Emma Claire (6) and Jack (4), would have been had when Elizabeth (55) was 48 and 50, respectively.

Elizabeth Edwards claims she used fertility treatments, but Slate doesn’t buy it.

Slate may be right. Still, why run this story?

Slate, desperately looking for an excuse that doesn’t boil down to, “It’s gossip and we want to print it,” includes this paragraph:

But her silence on the matter has some people miffed. “I think someone in her position can serve a great public good by being more outspoken,” said Richard Silverstein, 52, a fund-raiser in Seattle whose wife, Janis White, used a donor egg to give birth to their son, Jonah, three years ago. White, now 48, is currently pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, also from donor eggs. Silverstein doesn’t understand why Edwards—if she used donor eggs—doesn’t speak up. “There’s an enormous level of ignorance about egg donation,” he said. “She could use the bully pulpit to clear some of it up.”

Whatevs. Not too harmful, I suppose. But it strikes me as a little inappropriate. It clearly hit Slate that way, too.