Saturday, June 02, 2007
Manufacturing intimacy: Unreal emotions from the Naugahyde candidate
Sometimes I think that Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards is so fake he makes Naugahyde look natural. This seems especially true in his expression of feelings, which we did not want in the first place and we especially despise if we get the idea we are being manipulated:
Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again.
Yuck. Blech!
Interestingly, this episode marks the first time I can remember when I and John Kerry seem to have had the same visceral reaction to a given set of facts. Too bad for him that he did not run with his gut.
If this account is true, it certainly should put to an end to any argument over whether John Edwards would say anything to further his political ambitions.
CWCID: Taranto.
9 Comments:
By 
Viking Kaj, at
Sat Jun 02, 11:49:00 AM:
Wow, that is just creepy. If he did that wiht his son I wonder what he's going to do when his wife is on the slab?
And people think Rudy has family problems...
My general assumption with Edwards is that we will have the ATLA, er, I mean the American Association for Justice running the country. If we really want the plaintiffs personal injury bar in charge of things let's go right ahead...
By 
, at
Sat Jun 02, 01:32:00 PM:
Had John Kerry gone with his gut, he would almost certainly be President Kerry today. Gephardt would have delivered MO, and helped Kerry a lot in PA, OH, MI, WV.
It would be fascinating to know what kind of pressure Kerry got, and from what elements of the party, to make him overrule both his gut and this straightforward electoral math.
- Doug
By Purple Avenger, at
Sat Jun 02, 02:16:00 PM:
what kind of pressure Kerry got, and from what elements of the party
Kerry is like tha Palis in that he is almost guaranteed to do something self-destructive when confronted by another more reasonable option.
By , at
Sat Jun 02, 02:22:00 PM:
If you just remember that Edwards is and always will be an ambulance chaser then everything he says and does becomes simple to understand.
Just think - ambulance chaser.
By , at
Sat Jun 02, 09:55:00 PM:
Ambulance chaser: precisely. Edwards regards the electorate as a Winston-Salem jury writ large. If the man had any less substance, he wouldn't cast a shadow.
By The Mechanical Eye, at
Sun Jun 03, 04:31:00 AM:
Two things:
a) Bob Shrum. Please. That you're so willing to believe him shows that you have a little respect for the truth as he does. He's only a villian when it's convenient.
b) "Just think - ambulance chaser."
Actually this is pretty much "mainstream" conservatism in 2007 -- branding and sloganeering in the place of actual, rational thought. Let's not attack Edwards' policies, let's make jokes about his haircut and repeat some oppo research Bob Shrum is handing to us like red meat to a wolf.
DU
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Jun 03, 07:57:00 AM:
Well, DU, I applied "actual, rational thought" to some of Edwards' policies about three posts earlier, so you certainly can't say that I am only sloganeering. And, in any case, I allowed for the possibility that the story was not true. I suspect it is, though -- it certain rings true. Trial lawyers are particularly easy to tag as disingenuous because being disingenuous is inherent in the practice of their profession -- they take positions they do not believe in all the time. So we know that John Edwards is professionally insincere. The only question raised by Shrum's piece is whether he is insincere privately.
By , at
Sun Jun 03, 09:55:00 AM:
...ambulance chaser.
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
it's probably a duck.
Where did silky pony make his money?
-bob (tammyswofford.blogspot.com)
By Viking Kaj, at
Sun Jun 03, 12:07:00 PM:
My point exactly. Ambulance Chaser = Truth Salesman.
Unfortunately this is an ambulance chaser who is apparently drinking his own koolaid.
A very scary prospect indeed.
