the rix mix

Elizabeth Edwards Dies of Cancer at 61

She wasn't Saint Elizabeth. She was supposedly hell on campaign staff. I never quite discerned her motives, aside from flacking a book, in making the talk show rounds & airing the marriage's dirty laundry even more than was already being done. But she was married to a cad - worse than a cad.  He fooled me. He fooled her for awhile. John did seem like the too-perfect candidate with the too-perfect marriage. But he had a heckova campaign website & platform, & much of that was Elizabeth's doing. She was the real deal on the issues that mattered to her; smart, informed, compelling, activist. Give her the forum & she turned people around. A great woman, a great American.

Labels: John Edwards, obituary, THE election

Ex-aide says Edwards fathered mistress' child

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A man who once claimed to have fathered the child of John Edwards' mistress says in a book proposal the former presidential candidate is the real father and that Edwards and worked with his campaign finance chairman to hide that secret, according to a newspaper report published online Saturday.

The New York Times said the book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young states he helped facilitate the affair between Edwards and Rielle Hunter. According to the newspaper, Young wrote that Edwards once told Hunter they would wed after Edwards' wife, who has cancer, died.

Chatter now is Edwards will own up to paternity. As if it should matter to anyone but Elizabeth Edwards. She's had problems accepting this. But Elizabeth was, before John's downfall, one of the most persuasive, sensible, listened-to advocates of "family values" in America, if by values we mean issues of family health care & education. If she hasn't handled it so well in her public appearances, just ask yourself, Why is she supposed to? She's neither Hillary nor Laura.

One commentator at the Star-Ledger version of this news story wrote: "Can you imagine this sleazeball as president?"

In reply, I can imagine John Edwards as vice president, & he would have been a lot less harmful to our nation than Dick Cheney. In America's skewed morality, the nasty, deceitful manipulator behind the Iraq War, secret prisons, torture, & assaults on the privacy of American citizens, who thinks it's sport to buckshot captive quail on a game farm & is so inept he shoots his pal in the face, isn't a sleazeball.

(Cheating on a sick wife is alright, too, provided you Praise the Lord when you marry your mistress soulmate.)

Labels: in the news, John Edwards, media madness

This is sad for number of reasons:

WASHINGTON - Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday admitted to an extramarital affair while his wife was battling cancer. He denied fathering the woman's daughter. Edwards told ABC News that he lied repeatedly about the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter but said that he didn't love her.

He said he has not taken a paternity test but knows he isn't the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.

& we have to credit the National Inquirer with staying on the story.

So, John Edwards went ahead with a serious campaign knowing he had a time bomb scandal. We're lucky not only that he wasn't nominated, but that he quit early. (Write it. Leno's gonna say it anyway : "Withdrew early.") His "What were you thinking?" moment. Thinking of sex. It doesn't matter politically now except he won't get his poverty speech at the Convention. His supporters, like myself, viewed John & Elizabeth Edwards as a team candidacy. Sad. But since he's not in office or running for office, it's mainly a family matter. According to Elizabeth, it's already been dealt with in the family.

Take the paternity test, John. Inquiring minds want to know.

Labels: John Edwards, sex, THE election

We've had seven years of utter insanity in the White House. Where's the righteous anger? Got it for you right here: John Edwards.





I'm not inclined to put out language about the Democratic presidential candidates that I'd have to eat in September. Because no Repug can cut it for me. Nor can Mike Billionaire Bloomberg, now associating with the "moderate" Christine "It's My Party" Whitman; neither one has uttered a bitter word about George W. Bush. Whose Party are they?

The endorsements of Obama by John Kerry & Bill Bradley could not induce me to vote for Barack, but those endorsements are reassuring because I think both men would have been fine presidents, & they wouldn't support somebody who wasn't up to the job. I didn't want an uncertainty about Obama's qualifications & preparedness to be a factor in choosing Edwards. Nothing the Obama or Clinton campaigns say convince me that the most serious problem is too much partisanship, or temporary incompetency. Both view the Bush adminstration as an aberration, & the Republican leadership as open to reason & reasonableness. A kind of forgetfulness has overtaken those two candidates, with their gauzy appeals to our desire for unity & experience. Fine, but first the Bush machine must be shut down & dismantled, the White House swept clean of neocons & theocrats.

John Edwards has experience, & unity of purpose. He tries, against massive media resistance, to stay focused on the particulars of why this election is so crucial. He has listened, learned, & grown since 2004. John Edwards is the best candidate for pissed off progressives & populists, & for America, & he is electable.

(The New Jersey Democratic primary is proportional with a 15% threshold for the allocation of district & statewide at-large delegates, so a vote for John Edwards really matters. No need to explain why if the primaries fail to give Obama or Clinton the nomination).

Labels: John Edwards, THE election