DISQUS

interstar · 1 year ago

Dave, don't we normally blame the mainstream media for being obsessed with gossip? People's sexual lives shouldn't be an issue in serious politics.

Seems the time mainstream media got it right, and preferred not to stoop to muckraking, we condemn them for that too. If we praise the National Enquirer for this, aren't we just going get the "Enquirerization" of MSM and an election campaign where any serious issues get swamped by a desperate chase after Obama's (and McCain's) ex-girlfriends?

dave · 1 year ago

"we" is your mistake -- you can speak for yourself, but not anyone else. Your argument is what people were saying about the Clinton mess. The issue isn't gossip, it's the lies, by both Edwards and his wife and his surrogates. That they shut down the digging with lies. In Clinton's case there was perjury which isn't gossip, it's a crime. If you lied under oath, and got caught as Clinton did, you'd be in big trouble too, why should it be any different for him?

justcorbly · 1 year ago

Well, Edwards says he told his family. Does a politician owe something more to the public? Are they oblilgated to make public confessions about every embarrassing incident in their lives? How many of us could meet that standard? How many of us would lie to reporters if asked to confirm we'd been unfaithful to our spouses?

I'm disappointed by Edwards behavior and the lies, and agree that a run for the presidency with this lurking in the background was foolhardy. However, like the Clinton affair, it should make us ask how relevant a politican's sex life is to the public. After all, both Clinton and Edwards would not have had occasion or reason to lie had the press decided no one cared about stuff like this.

dave · 1 year ago

It's a good question, and the answer is yes -- he owes it to the members of his party, because electability is a legitimate issue. Had he been the nominee when this came out it would have been a disaster for the Democratic Party, no doubt about it -- the Dems are much better off with a candidate who can't be attacked on this vector. I just watched one of the videos his former girlfriend took, and he's amazingly hypocritical in what he says on them, now that we know what the subtext is.

justcorbly · 1 year ago

Dunno if he owed the party on explanation of his reason for not running, but, yes, he should not have run and exposed the rest of the party to the collateral damage.

(ADD: As a Dem who lives in an adjacent county, it's that political selfishness -- a readiness to put every downticket candidate at risk -- that makes me angry.)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) · 1 year ago

My issue isn't the adultery. That's none of my business. My issue is the fraud that both John and Elizabeth Edwards perpetrated on me by seeking the Democratic nomination for John with this skeleton in their closet. That's the public issue.

Lee Stranahan shouldn't have been banned from Kos. But Edwards should be exiled from Democratic politics.

SpaceyG · 1 year ago

Oh for chrissake. All this elitist-media hand wringing simply means I can now read my National Enquirer out in the open, without hiding it behind my New Yorker. Hell, I'll even go so far as to "out" my own subscription to the thing. (The NE that is.)

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) · 1 year ago

Where do you get a National Enquirer that's small enough to hide behind a New Yorker? Or do you get a giant New Yorker to hide your National Enquirer? Enquiring minds want to know.

interstar · 1 year ago

That might be a European vs. US thing. Seems obvious to me that people have a dispensation to lie about their affairs without it reflecting on their character in other spheres. So I wouldn't judge a politician's honesty by that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7284134...

dave · 1 year ago

Maybe so, and when you have your elections, I'll butt out.

And btw I've not said anything about the morality of him having extramarital sex, or even lying about it.

Karoli · 1 year ago

When the second wave came around a couple of weeks ago, Lee Stranahan wrote much about it on Huffington Post and Daily Kos. For his effort, he was banned from Kos, and practically tarred and feathered by Huffington Post commenters.

The bloggers bear some responsibility, though I would argue the real story isn't who Edwards slept with, but the fact that he declared a candidacy that had no chance to prevail, given that the secret was no secret at all with the number of people who knew about it.

dave · 1 year ago

RIght on all counts. How he could have gone forward knowing this would certainly come out is a mystery.

stevegarfield · 1 year ago

Banning Stranahan was not right.

More here:

I’ve Been Banned At DailyKos Because Of John Edwards
http://stranahan.com/2008/08/03/ive-been-banned...

hardaway · 1 year ago

Except that if we have a major news cycle around every politician who takes his dick our of his pants we will never get anything else done in government. I'd rather go back to the Kennedy era, when everyone who lived in NYC knew he was having meetings with women at the Plaza Hotel, and nobody bothered to write about it. It was his own business.

And in this situation I think the MSM tried to shut up because of the great love out there for Elizabeth Edwards. John's a pretty boy, but she's a real person.

dave · 1 year ago

There's the problem -- how much of this real person do you know? There was a piece on Huffington last night that expressed amazement the Elizabeth Edwards went along with the candidacy.

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) · 1 year ago

I agree she's a real person. She's in a tough situation. She has dreadful health problem. She's passionate for health care. And she also conspired with her husband to defraud me and the rest of the democratic party. I feel very bad for her. And I'm as pissed at her as I am at her husband.

It's not about the affair. It's about jeopardizing the Democratic party by seeking a nomination doomed to explode before the election.

hardaway · 1 year ago

You may opine on this only after you have experienced terminal cancer and two small children. sure hope it never happens to you.

Michael Markman (Mickeleh) · 1 year ago

I guess we all have to refrain from opining on McCain till we have been POWs. Look, I wasn't expressing an opinion, I was reporting an emotion. I'm angry at what The Edwardses did. I'd like an apology from both of them.

hardaway · 1 year ago

I guess I am angry, too. Or disappointed. Or disillusioned. Or all of them. I wish I were a cynic, but if I'm not by now, I guess I will never get there.

justcorbly · 1 year ago

Given the propensity of the Enquirer to run erroneous or phony stories, I'm not sure why any newsroom editor would assign resources to look into this story when that paper was the only source. No more than they would if the Enquirer ran photos of aliens playing croquet on the White House lawn.

I don't think it's a failure of media (MSM or otherwise -- not that "MSM" is an especially meaningful term), including bloggers. It's just a case of a disreputable tabloid getting one story right, more or less.

azizhp · 1 year ago

actually, I was one of the few political bloggers - and a (the sole?) lefty political blogger, mind you, who favored Edwards for Veep - to take the story seriously. I also diaried it at DailyKos and was predictably flamed into oblivion.

azizhp · 1 year ago

Further thoughts here. I wish I'd been wrong.

Ryan · 1 year ago

HuffPo did some stories the first time around, as did Slate, but overall you're right that the story was let go.

After the Enquirer's love child story, though, plenty of bloggers broke from traditional media. Stanahan retains his platform on HuffPo and was able to blog this story there repeatedly (Kos was an xpost). Kaus, especially, did an awesome job. Jack Shafer (arguably not a blogger, but an online writer nevertheless). Deceiver.com has been all over it. We had repeated posts on Gawker

http://gawker.com/5028026/how-did-edwards-affai...
http://gawker.com/5028514/what-john-edwards-sca...
http://gawker.com/5029264/save-your-newspaper-c...
http://gawker.com/5029139/la-times-bloggers-ord...

The Times blogged about the flack they've been taking from bloggers

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/08...

It's true people like Kos and, for a while, HuffPo ignored the story. Don't recall hearing anything from TPM but I don't follow them as closely as I should.

polizeros · 1 year ago

1) The Enquirer has been wrong lots of times, so many probably thought caution was in order, 2) Many on the Left didn’t want to believe it (your point, well-taken), 3) However, blogs on the Right were all over the story from the start, so was Drudge.

I believe we were both at the Gnomedex where Edwards spoke. That kind of event will not be happening soon again for him. A couple of years in political exile then maybe he can enter the arena again.

justcorbly · 1 year ago

Very probably, Edwards will find little room for maneuver here in North Carolina politics, even ignoring this flap.

North Carolinians tend to elect moderate-to-conservative Democrats as governors, governors who focus on education and bringing jobs into the state. His deliberate swing to the left this year likely put Edwards out of contention for that job.

We tend to elect Republicans as Senators (Edwards stint there was something of an anomaly).

Chapel Hill's Congressional district is represented in the House by a popular, veteran, and senior member. No Democrat is going to challenge him.

Even the two top jobs at the University of North Carolina -- chancellor and president of the state system -- have been recently filled (one by Erskine Bowle's, Clinton's chief of staff.)

Edwards is a talented and still young man. If he is serious and sincere about his devotion to ending poverty, this current disgrace could give him the wherewithal to address that cause without criticism that he's in it simply for the political payof.

bill finerman · 1 year ago

wrong, wrong, wrong. sorry dave but i couldn't care less where this guy puts his dick. americans are so fuc*ed up with their fascination about supposedly illicit sex. this is a matter between edwards & his wife. it has NO - i repeat: NO - importance on judging him as a political leader. spare me with all the treacly BS about morality. fuc* that: bush is a (supposedly) moral guy and his presidency is the worst in history. screw the MSM. screw the bloggers. It's not any of your goddamned business

dave · 1 year ago

What an asshole, but at least you used a real name, so the assholiness of this reflects on you.

When your country runs the world you'll find out what it feels like to have jerks second guessing everything you do and getting it wrong. No wonder most Americans hate ferners. :-)

gregorylent · 1 year ago

when your country runs the world ... crikey, what an assumption, cannot think of an attitude more destructive in a hyper-connected global world

dave · 1 year ago

Oh come on -- you must know me better than that, right?? Did you miss the smiley? It was a fcuking joke! God. Such humorlessness.

gregorylent · 1 year ago

ah, dang, sorry ... i liked bill's point ... thought you were whacking him ... should've known better... enjoy, gregory

livfreeordi · 1 year ago

If anyone STILL believes the mainstream media doesn't have a liberal bias, is pursuing an agenda, and has ANY credibility left at all..consider this.

In 2004, when there were PLENTY of indications that the information was bogus...and they received plenty of warning..CBS and DAn Rather STILL ran a smear job on GW Bush , based on forged documents...

Why?

Because they WANTED the story to be true!

NOW..when the story about Edwards was simmering for months...long before the Iowa caucuses..the MSM pointedly ignored it.

Why?

Because Edwards was a liberal darling.

NOW..the darling of the liberal media is Barack Obama..

Any questions now as to why Obama is getting the fawning , kid glove treatment that he is getting from the media?

Today Edwards..tomorrow Obama.

It's just a matter of time.

gregorylent · 1 year ago

i am sad to see that it, the john edwards drama, is a story in any forum. i don't think the desires of all people for sex and intimacy, has anything to do with being able to do their jobs. otherwise there would be no economy whatsoever. most people have affairs at one time or another, you see!

simply it is immaturity that this is a story. american.

r · 1 year ago

BTW: Have you seen this spoof on the anti-Obama ad?

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d