Reply #126: You have a wonderfully innocent view of politics [View All]

if you don't think that Edwards encouraged Shelton's smear. Edwards was asked, point blank, if he would be willing to repudiate Shelton's unsubstantiated smears about Clark, but he never did so, even though (1) Shelton was unwilling to substantiate those remarks, and (2) the remarks directly contradicted other statements Shelton made.

Washington press reporters have been telling us for months that Edwards staff was helping to shop Shelton's smears (see Elizabeth Drew's excellent article in the NY Review of Books as well as a piece by another journalist in the Village Voice).

I am not saying by any means that Clark's campaign didn't do any of this. Can any of you pin down a single smear spread by Chris Lehane? No? But do you doubt that he was digging stuff up? Given the preponderance of evidence here, Edwards and Shelton were connected and Edwards was given the chance to pull the plug on it or at least wash his hands of it. He never did.

If everyone smears, what's the big deal about this one? The big difference here is that Shelton's smear was especially egregious. Because of his previous position and the unique character of service and responsibility in the armed forces, he crossed a line. And it shows something about Edwards' knowledge of how military culture works that he thought that this was just politics as usual, because it wasn't.