... though, as I recall, by the time it was California's turn to vote, he was already out of the race. Why did I like him? Well, I thought he was charming, articulate, and actually gave a shit about the poor (to be fair, all these things could STILL be true, I guess). He seemed like he had a nice family, loved his wife and children, blah blah blah. He's been in the news again of late as his criminal trial progresses and I just wanted to revisit a couple of the particulars, if I could, from this New York Times article dated June 3rd, 2011 -
Earlier in the day, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges that he
violated federal campaign finance laws by “secretly obtaining and
using” contributions from wealthy benefactors to conceal his mistress
and their baby while he was running for president in 2008.
For the record, these contributions totaled about $1,000,000, and came from two donors. The legal total on these contributions would have been something like $4,600, though I'm pretty clear that, one way or the other, concealing "mistress and their baby" wasn't listed in any of the campaign literature. (Edwards is denying any wrongdoing.)
Plus, "mistress and their baby".
Also -
The grand jury, which has been investigating the case for two years,
indicted Mr. Edwards on six counts — one involving conspiracy, four
involving illegal payments and one involving false statements. If he is
found guilty, Mr. Edwards, 57, faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in
prison and $1.5 million in fines.
Then, because why not, toss in one more from the "hell of a guy" column - cheating on dying wife - and sprinkle liberally with sex tape.
Yes, we have a civility policy here at The Popular IBL Studios (tm), but I'm not feeling very civil toward Mr. Edwards right now, I have to say, regardless of whether or not he is found guilty of these charges.
Disgraceful.
IBL:mm
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My feelings on Mr. Edwards were summed up quite nicely back in 2008 by the man who I always thought should have been the Dems front runner for Pres.:
ReplyDelete"The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war ... He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.
When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn't, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you're playing the game in Washington and another way when you're running for president, there's some of that going on."
Russ Feingold (Jan. 2008)
Edwards always came off as fraud to me based on his words not gelling with his actions, so this little bit of fun doesn't seem out of character at all.
-Lopkhan
But of course, yes - I preferred Feingold as well. I should have been more clear (apparently I need practice at this blogging thing) that Edwards was my choice when the field had dwindled and it was Obama, Clinton and JE. Also, I may not have been paying as strict attention to him as I should have in 2008 and become obsessed with my perception that he was going to be great on civil rights. Feingold the better man, then, and certainly now...
ReplyDeleteI harbored no illusions that you would have preferred Edwards over Feingold and did not read your post that way. I'd assume you would have all sorts of preferences over the lot we got to choose from (we did get Kucinich for awhile there, but maybe he was long gone from the race at that time). So your blogging skills don't need to be revised.
ReplyDeleteMy starting criteria for all of the candidates was whether they voted to allow Bush the opening he needed to go to war in Iraq. If you did, you needed to have a pretty fine explanation as to why. Changing your tune when it was fashionable was not going to cut the mustard, even if you had alot of company in doing so.
-Lopkhan
Yes, I was always a big Dennis fan, I have to say, and he was long gone (as I figured he would be) before I had to make a "choice". Your point on the war vote is well taken and perhaps I could have given that more weight; as it turns out, I did wind up voting for Obama in the primary as JE was gone before CA.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that is a fine starting criteria, in my opinion.
I wanted Hillary first and formost only because she had been in the White House, had met bigwigs from other countries and might have had a edge in that area. The first thoughts on seeing JE was the to neat of a hair look then hearing his wife had fought cancer. I thought take care of your wife she shouldn't have to go through a campain. Then to find out he had an affair. He needed to be taken care of his family, in the end I felt really bad for elizabeth may she rest in peace. He still needs to take care of now 2 families so I happy he didn't make it to the end.
ReplyDeleteA good point, that, taking care of his family...
ReplyDeleteI shudder when I recall that I too initially supported Edwards. He talked about poor people. A lot. That was enough for me.
ReplyDeleteIt actually shook me up when I heard about the mistress, hidden child, etc. Barring revelation of the teensy little indiscretion, he could probably have beaten McCain in the general...and then we'd have been in a world of shit.
The President of the United States is the most closely, constantly, minutely monitored person on the planet. A record is kept of his whereabouts 24 hours a day, minute by minute, down to the level of '8:52am - walked from the residence to the Oval Office'. Every call in & out of the White House is logged.
Was Edwards actually so deluded that he thought he could keep a MISTRESS AND CHILD hidden for 4 to 8 years? Clinton couldn't keep a 4-minute blow job secret for 2 years. And here we all thought the selection of Sarah Palin was the worst act of judgment in the 2008 race...the mind boggles.
My second choice (and I'm talking about the early field here) was Chris Dodds, though for the life of me I can't remember why.
Kucinich I would never have voted for in any case, because I'd already voted for Nader once (1996, so my conscience is pretty clear, as Clinton was up in California by like 10%).
Hillary was never an option. I do think she's going to be numbered among the great Secretaries of State when the histories get written, though - she's been spectacular. How Obama could have been so right about her and so wrong about Larry Summers I don't understand.
Once it was down to Obama, Clinton & Edwards, I shifted to Obama because whatever 'it' is, he had it, and 'it' wins elections.
[several years of Ph.D. work in Political Science at Berkeley & this is the extent of my sophisticated analysis...]
I remember you telling me you took some kind of a "quiz" or "survey" or something and it listed all the candidates and you answered a series of questions and, then, it spit out who "your" candidate was, and it was Dodd, and you were surprised to discover that at the time. Ring a bell?
ReplyDelete