Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The poetic prosecution of John Edwards
The New York Times is reporting that the Justice Department is going to press charges against Democratic Vice-presidential candidate John Edwards for having used campaign funds to cover up his affair with Rielle Hunter. The resultant plea or conviction might cost him his law license, among other humiliations.
The linked article does give us a little insight in to the world of political prosecutions. I rather enjoyed this bit:
But it is not the only legal trouble he faces. A former aide, Andrew Young, says he has a videotape and pictures showing Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter having sex. Ms. Hunter has sued to get them back and said that Mr. Young used them to secure deals for a book and film. Mr. Young had pretended for a while to be the child’s father to protect Mr. Edwards. He wrote about the experience in a tell-all book, “The Politician.”
Mr. Young is being represented in Hollywood by Ari Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel, the new mayor of Chicago.
Edwards destroyed himself, but it certainly looks as though Team Obama is salting the earth just to make sure he doesn't come back to life. Which is fine with me. Poetic, actually. Rarely has such a hideous person gotten such a free pass from the mainstream media.
I have long thought that the media's disparate treatment of John Edwards and Sarah Palin was the most powerful evidence of structural bias toward the left. Edwards was having an affair and the media turned a blind eye. Palin was pregnant by her husband, and the media accused her of faking it and swarmed Alaska with investigators. Edwards had no useful experience -- he was a trial lawyer, which is training for essentially nothing important, and a one-term Senator -- and nobody in the press questioned his qualifications. However one might weigh Palin's resume, she was no less experienced than Edwards (that would be difficult) and the press hammered her constantly for it. Edwards was vain as can be and the press did not even suggest that he was a narcissist (which he obviously is). Palin bought some better looking clothes for campaigning and the whole press pool jumped on it. Edwards could not make a speech without reminding us he was the son of a "mill worker" who had gotten rich and the media ate it up as evidence of humble beginnings. The Palins actually built a successful small business and the media mocked it as a stunt. One could go on.
The disparate treatment of Edwards and Palin is a warning to all Republicans, or at least Republican women -- the non-Fox mainstream media will pretty much do anything it can to destroy you.
18 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed May 25, 05:12:00 PM:
Hopefully, John Edwards will get what he deserves...
By , at
Wed May 25, 05:17:00 PM:
He made a sex tape, with his pregnant mistress, while his wife was sick, while he was running for President...
How stupid is this clown? Really?
By , at
Wed May 25, 05:43:00 PM:
It gets better. His mistress is trying to sell a tell-all book. A leak of the sex tape would help sales, wouldn't it.
The real crime here is The New York Times and others sitting on the story, while The National Enquirer ran it and ran it. Don't forget their non-apology to McCain's supposed lobbyist on the side.
Edwards' staying in the 2008 campaign may well have affected its outcome. He might have been the VP nominee again, or even won.
I've got an issue with criminalizing use of campaign funds short of outright theft. It's a bad precedent.
ps. Abe Lincoln was a trial lawyer, a one-term Congressman, and a one-issue zealot when he ran and won.
By , at
Wed May 25, 08:45:00 PM:
How about prosecuting Obama for using a paid staffer to run his reelection campaign?
By , at
Wed May 25, 08:50:00 PM:
The Wikipedia "early life" narratives of Edwards vs. Palin:
Edwards
A football star in high school, Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He attended Clemson University and transferred to North Carolina State University. Edwards graduated with high honors earning a bachelor's degree in textile technology in 1974, and later earned his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law (UNC) with honors.
After law school, Edwards clerked for a federal judge and in 1978 became an associate at the Nashville law firm of Dearborn & Ewing, doing primarily trial work, defending a Nashville bank and other corporate clients. The Edwards family returned to North Carolina in 1981, settling in the capital of Raleigh where he joined the firm of Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove.
Palin
After graduating from high school, Palin enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Shortly after arriving in Hawaii, Palin switched to Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu for a semester in the fall of 1982. She transferred to North Idaho College, a community college in Coeur d'Alene, for the spring and fall semesters of 1983. (In June 2008, the Alumni Association of NIC gave her its Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.)
In 1984, Palin won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant. She finished third in the Miss Alaska pageant, playing flute in the talent portion of the contest, and receiving both the Miss Congeniality award and a college scholarship.
She attended the University of Idaho in Moscow in the fall of 1984 and spring of 1985, and attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska in the fall of 1985. Palin returned to the University of Idaho in the spring of 1986, and received her bachelor's degree in communications with an emphasis in journalism in 1987.
After graduating, she worked as a sportscaster for KTUU-TV and KTVA-TV in Anchorage, and as a sports reporter for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, fulfilling an early ambition.
On August 29, 1988, she eloped with her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin. After the marriage, she helped in her husband's commercial fishing business.
****
No difference? Really?
By , at
Wed May 25, 09:26:00 PM:
Randian at 8:45 How about prosecuting Obama for using a paid staffer to run his reelection campaign?
Heh. And what was Karl Rove? A volunteer?
Good God, man, give it a rest. Karl Rove, aka "the architect" of Bush 's re-election campaign, was Bush's deputy Chief of Staff in 2004.
By , at
Thu May 26, 08:34:00 AM:
Did the post comparing Edwards and Palin Wikipedia entries have a point? Seriously, please clarify.
By , at
Thu May 26, 09:16:00 AM:
John Edwards made $20 million in 4 years suing doctors and now his party is trying to take control of our health care system because it is "broken". It may be but lawyers like John Edwards contributed mightily to the breaking. And Obama Care makes it easier to sue doctors. People like Edwards create problems, then want us to pay them to fix the problems they created.
By , at
Thu May 26, 10:00:00 AM:
Yes the media was sooo easy on John Edwards:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18157456/ns/politics-decision_08/t/edwards-haircuts-cost-pretty-penny/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/05/politics/main3019277.shtml
http://www.google.com/search?q=edwards+haircut
By Jim Miller, at
Thu May 26, 10:44:00 AM:
Here's what I consider the most significant omission from the "mainstream" Edwards stories: He accomplished nothing of any consequence while in the Senate.
His record was, believe it or not, even worse than Barack Obama's. If there were any "mainstream" reporters who found Edward's empty record significant, I missed them.
(He did speculate, profitably, in the stock market while he was in the Senate. Jim Glassman showed that his stock choices were inconsistent, to say the least, with his political rhetoric.)
By , at
Thu May 26, 12:32:00 PM:
I am fascinated by the constant effort to apologize for Sarah Palin's total lack of ability by pointing to others that are supposedly equally unqualified. This "race to the bottom" is our current state of affairs? Palin and Edwards are both attractive. In our 24 hour news cycle that apparently allows one to overlook the glaring lack of substance for either. At least Edwards, cad that he is, was able to finish college and obtain an advanced degree and be successful in his profession. Sarah Palin is a quitter who chased an easy dollar feeding red meat conservatives.
By , at
Thu May 26, 06:08:00 PM:
Well alrighty then.
I've been called a lot of things in the last thirty months but comparing me to John Edwards is a new one. It's pretty comical actually. Anon 12:32 must be worried that I might throw my hat in the ring.
Well guess what. I'm going on an East Coast "listening tour" starting this weekend. Belly of the Beast, here I come! And I'm going to New Hampshire! Do you know they have NASCAR in New Hampshire!
Latest Gallup poll has me at #2 just behind Mitt. Wanna bet I'll be #1 by mid-June.
I didn't want to move this early, but Mitt's day of money-rasing Shock and Awe forced my hand. He should have waited. Being Mr Moneybags didn't work for him last time. You'd think he'd have learned a lesson.
I can't wait for Mitt to re-work his ROI after I "kill" in his summer backyard!
TTYL
By 
clint, at
Fri May 27, 12:12:00 PM:
Meh.
It's easy to get caught up in what a scumbag Senator Edwards turned out to be, but that's really not what's important here.
This is obviously a politically motivated prosecution -- yet another chip away from our increasingly fragile rule of law.
And the rule of law is far more important than the punishment of a vain narcissist.
By , at
Fri May 27, 01:54:00 PM:
Wasila MILF that was very good!
Seriously though, it amazes me how poorly the Left treats women in politics. Even women on the left (which may be redundant since most of the men on the Left are anything but manly...but that is another discussion point), are unbelievably non-supportive to harsh on even their own candidates (see Hillary Clinton as exhibit A). However the emotive character assasination of the average Lefty towards any woman who has the temerity to speak a conservative word is actually quite scarey and often-times completely unhinged from reality.
By , at
Fri May 27, 02:32:00 PM:
Heard on the radio last night a similar prosecution is being considered against Schwarzenegger.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat May 28, 03:07:00 AM:
"I have long thought that the media's disparate treatment of John Edwards and Sarah Palin was the most powerful evidence of structural bias toward the left."
No, the second most powerful evidence. Even Edwards had more experience than Obama. Obama was elected President with *no* meaningful accomplishments in his adult life. Sarah Palin looks like Winston Churchill in comparison.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sat May 28, 03:12:00 AM:
"Yes the media was sooo easy on John Edwards"
Right, reporting on his expensive haircuts really balances out covering up his love child.
By , at
Sat May 28, 08:48:00 AM:
Thanks QuakerCat,
I'm just trying to be positively impactful.
One of the things you're going to hear me talk a lot about is energy.
One of the things that slipped by this week was Obama's own EPA head testifying that there's no proven evidence that fracking for natural gas affects drinking water. But all the junk scientists are saying the contrary -- its the new AGW! And all the readers of The New York Times believe it! And they say I'm stupid. Go figure.
Meanwhile, Mitt is FOR "energy independence" so he continues to be FOR ethanol subsidies. Because his Monte Carlo simulation of "optimized voter outreach" says so. How convenient for Iowa.
Mitt represents The Establishment Borg. I represent the true Back to the Future progressives in this country. I'm going to turn Mitt into a surrogate for Obama and beat him like a birthday party pinata.
"She's Too Hot, He's Too Cold" -- Hockey Dad T-Paw hopes to be Goldilocks.
Herman Cain will win Miss Congeniality.
It's gonna be fun.
TTYL
