At the risk of being flamed.... re: Edwards affair

[garybeck]

I think there is a bit of double standard being displayed here. Some people are saying "does it really matter?"

IMHO...

YES, it does matter.

Edwards was running for President. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be if he got the nomination and the affair came out now? We'd be looking at President McCain. You might as well hold the election tomorrow.

Whether he was having the affair during the campaign, or just before it, it doesn't matter. Either way, it's like playing russian roulette with the future of the democratic party, and the future of this country. He knows as well as we do. Skeletons in the closet can ruin a campaign very quickly. He had no business running for president with this going on.

He can run for president. He can have an affair. But he has NO BUSINESS doing both at the same time. And if he chooses to do both at the same time, he should be crucified by those of us in the Democratic Party who actually want to win the presidency and keep control of congress. If he gets a free pass, what kind of message does that send to others who would consider doing such a stupid thing?

When Larry Craig got caught, we all assumed he was guilty and he was crucified. When Edwards was caught, we all assumed it was the National Enquire making up a story that couldn't be true. And now that he's admitted it is true, people are backpeddaling even more, saying "does it really matter?" I'll tell you one thing... God forbid, if he had gotten the nomination, people would be saying "does it really matter?" all the way to the military draft board which is where our kids are heading if McCain wins.

I think this is a time to show that we are NOT hypocrites and backpeddlars, like those in the other party. We have integrity and we are willing to call a spade a spade, regardless of which hat they're wearing.

I was an Edwards supporter. I am very disappointed in him as a person, but moreso as a candidate. He had no business playing with our future like that. He put our party and our country at risk, just by running. And yes, it does matter.

[Colobo]

1. You're very right- don't let the apologists and moral relativists around

tell you otherwise. We as Democrats deserve more from our officials.

[movonne]

14. Really .....Clinton did it in the white house and most of us stood by

him and he got thought it...these personal problems that families have are really none of our business...it we were so moralistic when JK ran we would have lost a wonderful president and many more of our presidents would not have been president if we had all this stuff about what goes on in a marriages through history we prop ably would not have had anyone who could stand up to the pressure...maybe we should treat this stuff like europe does...it is part of life...

[Taverner]

15. "Moral Relativists" = a Republican loaded word

Face it, we are all moral relativists. Just ask yourself a question:

(1) A man robs a pharmacy and steals painkillers to sell on the market

(2) A man robs a pharmacy and steals painkillers to bring to his sick wife

Same crime, different reasons. "Moral Relativism" says they are different. If you are not a moral relativist, you would argue the crimes are the same.

[panader0]

2. He blames his narcissistic ego.

Kinda puts that $400.00 haircut in perspective.

[TexasObserver]

3. "He can run for president.He can have an affair.But he has NO BUSINESS doing both at the same time"

well said

[RazBerryBeret]

4. Larry Craig

isn't the best example, he kept his day job.

[Taverner]

8. Yes - he is currently under the employ of the US Govt

Edwards is not.

[seabeyond]

5. it is simple. not a tough argument. to bring up what should be, what was in past

matters not. TODAY and being dem we would have lost white house. he knew this. and ran. and had affair. simple, fuck him. i want a dem. he could have taken that away from me for selfish reasons.

that is ALL it is. the rest,.... betweeen him, his wife, the "other" woman and his children, relatives, friends.... yada yada yada

[The Traveler]

6. I agree

And was also an Edwards supporter. While this does not invalidate his body of work, I have to agree with pretty much everything you said.

[Taverner]

7. Fatal flaw in your argument: he WAS running for president

He's not running for anything now

How would it be if, say, an ex Republican Senator had an affair? Page 7 at best.

Yet because Edwards is a Democrat, this leads...

[Colobo]

9. That actually the problem... he WAS running for president while knowing

that this could get out at any moment and he was giving this woman money from campaign funds!

[Taverner]

10. Yes, but is he running for anything now?

And wasn't she getting a paycheck from working on her campaign?

I don't think it was hush money

[garybeck]

11. Nope. He was running for president, knowing he had this HUGE skeleton in his closet.

that's the point. he was putting the party's chances at risk. big time.

[Taverner]

16. Was. He didn't win

In fact, he didn't even get near 20% of the vote. If Mike Gravel did this would it be just as newsworthy?

[garybeck]

18. that's besides the point. he was running. he wanted to win. he had a chance.

[Taverner]

23. And he blundered on the campaign trail

What would be the right response in that case? Closing down shop immediately? Telling everyone about it and then still running, wasting the money?

The fact that his campaign wound down quickly, and he stepped out of the public eye soon after is telling.

He did all he could, short of not making the mistake in the first place.

Besides, I had a boss once - had all kinds of affairs. Used to book rooms at the brothels in Pahrump for weeks at a time. His wife and 3 kids knew nothing of it. He was a great boss - a great leader and we had a blowout year. His affairs were none of anyone's business but his and his family's.

[loudsue]

36. I donated more $$ to Edwards than I have ever donated in a campaign.

I, for one, feel totally screwed. He gets no friggin' pass from me. He watched the Clinton impeachment, and he knows full well what happens when you can't keep it in your pants.

It's more than irresponsible. He screwed me, he screwed his wife & his marriage & his family, and he screwed his campaign. To hell with him.

[dansolo]

22. People have been pushing for Edwards to be in Obama's cabinet

Could you imagine if he was picked as AG and was being blackmailed about this affair? What if Republicans knew about it and blackmailed him to derail any investigations of the Bush Administration? Edwards was still relevant, even if he was no longer running for president.

[Taverner]

25. Yes, but is it really any of our business??

[aikoaiko]

12. I find it pretty easy to not cheat on my wife.

[seabeyond]

20. man these men saying ALL men do it. science. dna. cant help ourselves

forever of men not fucking around, all of a sudden today men just arent capable of a committed relationship is such bullshit

hubby told me last night, they are validating their own behaviors

just as many women fuck around as men. is it that they are all just bitches and the men, innocent.

stupid stupid stuff

but thanks for your post. hubby thinks it is pretty stupid too and kinda offended being told he has no control over himself.

[Skittles]

41. that's exactly what they're doing, seabeyond

do they really want us to believe they have no more control over their behavior than the average dog in the street?

[CitizenLeft]

13. and we'll never know how close Obama came to naming him VP

Guessing that JE was probably eliminated early on because of the rumors... I'll bet members of Obama's staff had heard things from Edwards' staff, even if 3rd hand, and they ran as fast and hard in the other direction as they could. But what if they hadn't been so careful? Imagine if Obama had named Edwards his VP last week - I had, up until recently, a very soft spot for an Obama/Edwards ticket. We'd be fucked.

[Taverner]

17. John Edwards told Obama about it

Consider that small bit of overlooked integrity

[RC]

21. Vice President picks get investigated.

It would have come out then, at least to the Obama team.

[colinmom71]

19. I do agree with you in general...

But to be fair to the board members here, the original source for the Edwards story was The National Enquirer, who have not always been known for reporting truthful accounts (to put it mildly). The original source for the Craig story however was the publicly accessible police record of the incident that was uncovered and reported by a legitimate journalistic source. It's rather understandable then that most people would prefer to wait for more factual reports on Edwards than believing an Enquirer story, versus folks believing the Craig account initially based on it's legally confirmed source.

As for hypocrisy, well, Edwards never argued for adultery to be illegal, but Craig regularly argued against equal rights for our homosexual civilians. That's not to say that I don't find Edwards admitted adulterous conduct to be disappointing. But at least it was not hypocritical to his stated political stances...

[nevergiveup]

24. Best post I have read on this thing

It absolutely matters, big time!

[thecrow]

26. Even though it's a non-issue as far as the election

I think the MSM can't leave it alone because it's just one more instance of a Dem lying about sex, and that rears the Dreaded Clenis all over again for the "moral" crowd. They're going to take votes away from Obama on this one....
and THAT'S the shame of this whole Edwards mess.
How could John do this?
Why couldn't he just shut up about it?
Are they going to have him on Larry King confessing?
God, this country.

[Neshanic]

27. Excellent post.

[RazBerryBeret]

28. Maybe This is why he dropped out of the primary?

[Skittles]

40. no

he dropped out of the primary because he wasn't one of the two media-annointed frontrunners

[Triana]

29. American voters are pretty stupid and the lame$tream media/GOP will try to make this a "Democrat" ..

...issue so because of this shit, we may be looking at a President McCain anyway. Even if not, our job of getting Obama elected isn't made any easier by it.

[Generator]

30. Great summation

And I think everyone does know it does matter. They just wish it didn't ie, me too-that WAR and fucking over the middle and poor for decades mattered MORE. This just in from the Enquirer: The Republicans have fucked your kids for years and are paying NO child support ever. In fact they want them to pay those that have fucked them!

They want them to die for them in bullshit wars. OH YES. IF only what mattered in this country mattered, then shame on that damn Edwards. Of course the shame over MCA, Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, the entire Iraq War, the bullshit answers about 9/11-you know the worst terrorist attack on American soil-but who cares-all of that for starters, oh and I didn't even mention the constitution trampling-but who cares-THE GUY CHEATED ON HIS SICK WIFE.

So he's a bad guy-but the other stuff is the stuff that's actually going to harm my kids and loved ones. But don't let CNN know that. Because we wouldn't want a Democracy or anything. It's easier to pretend we have one. Because I know we don't. And at this point my faith in Obama is barely any higher than any faith I have left in Edwards.
But as they say-he's all we have standing between us and the end. I don't think I could ever get fooled again.

This just in: LONE anthrax, LONE gunman. Thank you Pravda aka CNN.

I'm done with thinking there is any objective truth.

Oh and I do HOPE it matters in the end. Because if Obama doesn't change anything then it won't. So GO OBAMA!

Note to Obama: Don't cheat on your wife. Not just because it's wrong. But mostly because I don't want my kids and all of our kids to be poor and die in needless wars. And the world needs a STRONG American president with a brain. Please.

[corkhead]

31. no flames from me

He was my first choice in the primaries, and I am much more disappointed by this revelation than I was when he lost. Had he become the nominee when this came out, we would be looking at President McSame for sure. If he didn't have the good judgement and dicipline to keep his dick in his pants when he knew he was running for president with so much at stake, he was most certainly not the correct choice to turn this country around.

I take pride in my being a good judge of character, but I was wrong on this one. I am surprised and dissapointed in how wrong I was.

This is all I am going to say about it.

[Beregond2]

32. Just what I've been saying, only you said it better.

[hisownpetard]

33. Great well-reasoned post. I can't for the life of me understand how John and Elizabeth - two such

intelligent people, knowing what they knew - could decide that it'd be o.k. to run for the Presidency
and that no one would ever find out about his lies. WTF??!

At a time in our history when the election of a Democratic president is paramount and of utter urgency, how
could he so arrogantly toy with our future? Talk about narcissistic! He could have ruined everything.

We're very fortunate that this came out now, and not after he was nominated or appointed to a high position in our government.

I was an Edwards supporter (post-Kucinich and pre-Obama) and am sorely disappointed in him, as a person and as a candidate.

Johnny, we hardly knew ye.

[Tab]

34. I'm inclined not to be too harsh, but I will hold him to the standards he offered

I don't even know why this is a topic, frankly, since he's out of the race, but regardless...

Like everyone else, John is human.

I have a problem with hypocrisy, though. I'm not electing a pope, I'm electing a president. I don't really care who sucks him off in the wee hours as long as the country and the economy hum along. It's a job with intense pressure and charismatic (hopefully) candidates, and I'm not surprised stuff happens.

That said, if you're going to present a picture of being anti-homosexual (I'm not saying he was doing this), you better not get arrested in a bathroom stall.

If you're going to present a picture of having the warmest, loving, all-American family, then make sure your house is in order first.

I know that during election season, everyone wants to be a "family" man/woman, which is fine, but he did overdo the mom-and-apple pie stuff, which is a dangerous tactic if you have skeletons in your closet.

Stuff happens, and frankly it's between Elizabeth and John. I'm not privy to their family moments, nor should I be. You do, however, need to be careful if you're going to put yourself up as one image but you have a different reality. I'm not begrudging him, and I don't like the publicity this is bringing to his family, but hypocrisy of how you portray youself and how you really are can often come back to bite you.

Frankly, people like John, or Bill Clinton, or JFK or whoever, I don't have as much of a problem with as I do with the Larry Craig's and Pat Robertson's of the world (or whoever that preacher was that got caught with that low-level prostitute) - don't demonize one section of society when you're secretly a member of it yourself. THAT'S the stuff I truly dislike.

And to John's credit, this happened a few years ago, he came clean to his family, and they dealt with it. Why it's popping up in the news now, I don't really know - he's not even a political target, aside from just being a representative "Democrat", but let's leave them alone. I better not catch him running on some sort of "family values" platform, but a few years ago was probably a pretty heady time for JE and he made a mistake. He came clean, and did so long before it hit the news, so I credit him for that.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

35. I agree with you entirely and was an Edwards supporter too. His judgement and lack of

realizing the consequences of his actions is deplorable.

[Hidden Stillness]

37. Meet John Edwards--Behind the Mask

This incident shows not only that people on DU, the "liberal males," and others are so often hypocrites, but that Edwards supporters have been all along, no matter what evidence or clues came out, eternally, willfully, clueless, oblivious, refusing to notice what they must actually know. Edwards profits off of hedge-funds and does not give them up or fight the investor to change their practices, gouging and killing poor people on usurious loans and foreclosing on homes the people should still have--that's okay! The Edwards's carve up a section of a forest and build a new, gaudy-huge mansion--that's okay! They do not fight for universal health care, but for forced commercial insurance, the same as Clinton and Obama, yet they are "so different." Edwards was never a lawyer for the poor or to change corporate law, but an ordinary "ambulance-chaser," but that is "so different." Edwards was for NAFTA, still belongs to the "D"LC, and supported the war in Iraq--but forget about it!

I always got the sense that Edwards was insufferably selfish and self-absorbed, every single thing was "me, me, me," that even the announcement that Elizabeth Edwards's cancer had returned was all about whether or not she would "be a sport" and support Edwards's candidacy. Now to think that the "oh how compassionate rich boy" would cheat, over and over, inflicting untold pain on a woman suffering with cancer, painful and afraid already, the brutal cruelty of it, really and totally caps it--like Hillary Clinton being trotted out and made to pretend to be "happy" (God!) after Bill Clinton's affairs were revealed. People on DU, especially the increasingly belligerant males, are deluding themselves if they think women do not feel their own oppression from all this enforced behavior.

Yesterday, David Bonior, who had been with the Edwards campaign, expressed outrage at being lied to by Edwards; but every Edwards apologist was denying and lying about a thousand other clues all along before that, starting with the appalling outrage that Edwards was and is a hedge-fund profiteer! WHY did that never bother anybody? I have thought Edwards was a phony for a long time, and that the sudden "concern for poverty" sprang up during a campaign when Edwards was being ignored, after no such public concern as a Senator, lawyer, or otherwise, pasted on the way George Bush pastes on a veneer of "solemn Christian" between stockholder meetings. Think about how cruel it is to cheat, over and over, on someone sitting home alone with cancer--and don't make the typical mistake of getting one "liberal male" excuse and "justification" after another, attacking everyone who is offended--(and awakened)--by this. Now you know what Edwards is, finally. Just like the rest of us who always knew.

[Skittles]

42. the man co-sponsored the worst foreign ploicy blunder in American history

his credibility has always been shot

[Snarkturian Clone]

38. DUers are fickle, inconsistent, and immature. NT

[Duppers]

39. wanna know how CRAZY this skank is

please read this:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/151783


Fuck both the Edwards for risking our future, betting this would not be found out.

[EFerrari]

43. He didn't put your party or country at risk. Good grief.

How does it forward a progressive agenda to push the rightwing authoritarian premise that your sex life is anyone's concern?

I won't flame you, Gary, but it seems to me that things worked out exactly as they should have and we don't need a good honor killing to square things away.