John Edwards – from golden boy to national disgrace

The Independent

Once upon a time (less than two years ago, to be exact) John Edwards was a narrowly defeated one-time candidate for the vice-presidency, who along with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was one of the "big three" Democratic contenders for the White House in 2008. Today, he is a pariah, shunned by those he used to count as friends, ruined beyond redemption by the scandal that will not die. In American public life, the old saw runs, it's not the crime but the cover-up that's fatal. Get the truth out at once, straying politicians and celebrities are invariably advised, and careers may be rescued and reputations saved. In this wretched but oddly compelling saga, however, Edwards was doomed by his own hand on both counts.

(snip)

Now that he has been so comprehensively disgraced, it's easy to forget how, in the interval between the Bill Clinton presidency and the advent of Obama, John Edwards was the Democrats' great young hope, a charming and handsome trial lawyer who had launched a meteoric political career by winning a Senate seat in traditionally Republican North Carolina in 1998 when he was just 45 (and looked 25). Many already saw him as a future president. Two years later, Al Gore almost chose him as his running mate, and in 2004 John Kerry did so, after Edwards had run a highly creditable primary campaign. It was a foregone conclusion that he would try again in 2008 – and it's also easy to forget that on healthcare reform, now the burning issue of the hour, it was Edwards, not Hillary Clinton or Obama, who put forward the first and, by common consent, the best plan for universal health coverage of any candidate.

But Edwards is an object lesson that, in life as in politics, few things are what they seem. Yes, he was glib and glossy, with impossibly perfect hair and an impossibly dazzling smile. But Elizabeth, with her bravery, her grace and her common sense, was surely guarantee that John was for real when he campaigned so passionately against poverty, social injustice and the gulf between the "two Americas", rich and poor. Even she, however, could be no guarantee against the certain disaster for the Democrats that would have ensued had he won the nomination only for the liaison with Hunter to become public knowledge – as it would have done. Sooner or later, such secrets always come out. Indeed key Edwards staffers, convinced by the start of 2008 that despite the denials the rumours were true, are said to have devised a "Doomsday plan" whereby they would deliberately leak the affair, if ever their man looked to have a serious chance of winning the nomination, in the higher interests of the party.

In fact he never did, even though Edwards finished second, ahead of Hillary Clinton, in the Iowa caucuses that kicked off the primary season. Soon he pulled out of the race and endorsed Obama, in the hope of a senior post in the next administration. But any such prospect vanished in July 2008 when the Enquirer caught Edwards as he visited his mistress and her child in a Los Angeles hotel, and ran a detailed story, complete with photographs. A few days later, Edwards admitted the relationship, but still denied paternity.

And so, more than 12 months on, the revelations continue, each one tackier than the last. A fortnight ago The New York Times reported the inevitable: plans by Andrew Young for a book in which the loyal aide will be loyal no longer. Not only will Young explain how he facilitated the trysts between Hunter and his boss (recounting how Edwards once promised his paramour that, after his wife died, he would marry her at a rooftop ceremony in New York, serenaded by the Grammy Award-winning Dave Matthews Band), he also claims that Edwards had other affairs during the campaign. Mercifully, the closing chapters of the story may be at hand. Edwards is said to have changed his mind and is ready to admit he is the father of Frances Hunter, who is now 19 months old. Hunter and her daughter are reportedly moving to North Carolina, closer to the child's father. As for Elizabeth, the Enquirer claims in its latest issue that, her patience exhausted by the alleged serial infidelity of her husband, she is about to do what most people reckon she should have done long ago and seek a divorce.

With the sole exception of the Enquirer, there are no winners in this miserable yet transfixing tale. Not Elizabeth Edwards, who must fight her illness without her husband of 32 years; not Rielle Hunter or her daughter; and not John Edwards, who has fallen further, faster and more completely than any American politician since Richard Nixon.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-john-edwards-ndash-from-golden-boy-to-national-disgrace-1797350.html

John Edwards needs to be slid down a razor banister that has a kiddie pool full of lemon
juice waiting at the end of it.

Does it get any slimier than this?

Jesus. What is Elizabeth supposed to do? She's dying. She'll be without the person with whom
she shared her entire life. The person who knows her best. Plus, she's got to keep it together
for her kids.

Fuck John Edwards. Miserable, scum-sucking piece of shit.

come out for a divorce.there has been NO statement to that effect.The only statement she has made is that she and John both plan to stay in their marriage .And Reille Hunter has never admitted to a DNA test.Edwards did ask for one but Hunter refused,at least publicly and the results are not publicly known.

if I'm ever in trouble I would hope to have a friend like you. ;-)

dispute based on known facts rather than conjecture and gossip and known gossip rags saying what you want to hear?

and don't understand the tone of yours.

I took the friend post to be sarcasm. If that is not accurate then I apologize.

;-) no...truly admire saracat's loyalty despite my disappointment with JE...and still find EE a truly admirable woman. Perhaps in the early days when I had so much anger I may have said something about her being in denial? Trying to remember...but am not a hater. These days don't have much confidence in any politician as my heart was broken. Just like Bill broke it before for being an idiot as well.

:sarcasm:

and has been forgiven by the French people and continues to serve. The sexual escapades of Berlusconi in Italy have not ended his political career as far as I know. Sanford and Ensign continue to hold offic e, and let's don't forget John McCain. Who knows what is in his past?

I I agree with the political stands that John Edwards took in the 2008 election. When I first learned of this scandal, I was furious that he ran when he must have known he could not win.

But now that I have seen what Obama has done, how he hired the same Goldman Sachs crew that wrecked the country under Bush and Clinton, I am thankful that Edwards ran. Edwards risked the shower of shame that has been brought down on him in order to speak truth to power. He was the only candidate in 2008 who really stood up for the working people. He set a standard that the other Democratic candidates at, at least, to respond to. He put health insurance reform and the environment at the forefront. He was the first politician to make me aware of the problems with hedge funds and lending -- maybe precisely because he had worked for a hedge fund and knew intimately what was going on.

After I learned about Edwards' scandal, I wished at one point that I had supported Kucinich. The reason that I am now so grateful to Edwards is that I recognize that Kucinich, as wise as he is, as honest as he is, as much as I like him, does not have the charisma that John Edwards had. It's unfortunate, but Kucinich just does not have that.

All I can say is thank you, John and Elizabeth Edwards. Had John Edwards not run for office, had he not spoken up about the closed factories in North Carolina, the obvious solutions to our health care crisis and the need for change regarding the environment, other candidates, especially Obama, would have focused more on appeasement of the right and less on change in 2008. Edwards must have known after the way that the right-wing tried to destroy Clinton over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky just what he was risking by running when he had such a past.

During the campaign, I often wondered where Edwards found the courage to stand against the tide of media opinion, to denounce the popular cliches on so many issues.

Edwards is a very smart man and a good strategist. Maybe he always knew what he was risking. I would like to think so. I'm sorry that we are not hearing from him at this time because we need a strong, charismatic person to speak for us more than ever. Edwards was the only candidate speaking often and loudly about poverty -- and our national complacency about poverty is our greatest crime.

And he spent the next weeks in thr Elysee moping around depressed and reportedly suicidal. Bruni was simply one of a list of women suggested to replace her as First lady AND the deal was that she is TO BE PAID! A friend of mine from France told this to me. The Sarkozy-Bruni affair is not the great romance evryone thinks it to be.

So it's a sham marriage?

:o

and apparently so does infidelity

and Vitters and on and on still in office? Why did we so readily forgive Clinton?

And why didn't we ever manage to learn about Bush's sex life prior to his marriage. I do not believe of one second that a guy with his reputation for alcohol abuse was anything near celibate prior to marriage.

and someone running.

Had Edwards still be a Senator it would have been left to his constituents to decide whether to "throw the bum out," as is true for the rest of them.

But when you are only a candidate, you have to realize that whatever you have said and done, from the day you were born, can and will be used against you.

That we are more puritans than the French and the Italians - these are facts of life. If you are running in this country and not in Italy or France, you have to realize this. As a matter of fact, not realizing it may cast a doubt on the candidate's ability to correctly read the political map and, later, other maps.

whose terror at angering the right wing, whose insistence on bi-partisanship, is harming the country. I guess the nation is getting what it deserves.

Of course the most comprehensive and cost-effective plan has to be off the table, along with any candidate foolish enough to advocate it.

How many of you do not like JFK because he cheated on Jackie O????? How many of you have never cheated on a spouse or significant other? Did it have an impact on your job???? His private life is of little or no importance and has no bearing on his public life. Martin Luther King is alleged to have had many affairs too. That was between he and his wife and children and did not diminish the great things he did in his public life.

Good grief. JFK lived in a very different news world.

John, "the ambulance chaser," Edwards. C'mon, now. :rofl:

character and trustworthiness. He himself linked private personal conduct with public trustworthiness. So he hoisted himself on his own petard by his sanctimoniousness on matters relating to personal conduct in a public life. (Reference his comments on Bill Clinton's personal conduct.)

Edwards has the rest of his life to do good works and help others if he really wants to and if he really has, as he claimed, a passion to do so. That remains to be seen.

Many did not know that FDR was crippled with Polio. And the reporters, who knew about JFK and, perhaps, MLK, chose to keep mums.

But today, when every thing about a public figure is out there for everyone to see and to comment, you have to face it if you want to be a public figure. And in this country personal affairs of public figures are subject of debates and decisions. You cannot change it. Not yet, anyway. I did not like it when Bill Clinton was asked about the kind of underwear he used, and I did not like it when Michelle Obama said that her husband's feet are "smelly."

Had he been the candidate when this thing broke out, we would have lost. We would have lost the White House and we would have lost our majority in Congress. These are hard cold facts that we have to accept, whether we like it or not.

And if you are running for office and refuse to realize these hard cold fact, then I will have to question his ability to make other, more complex decisions. And this coming from someone who supported him in both 2004 and last year. Donated to him, even met him and shook his hand.

he cried about the war, but had co-sponsored the iraq war resolution with neocon Joe Lieberamn

he cried about jobs, but co-sponsored S-2045 in 2000, the h-1b increase to the unbelievably obscene level of 195,000 per year with endless exemptions to the cap. Many tech careers have never recovered from this death blow

he also voted for MFN China, which wiped textile jobs off the face of north carolina


these are big, big issues, central to everything he claimed to be about

It's not the infidelity--it's the things he did later to cover it up. That's what ruins his public political reputation. How do we believe what he says now?

If JFK or MLK had gotten before cameras and lied about their private lives, and then were found out, the damage would have happened to them, too.

I feel so sad for Elizabeth to have to deal with this on top of her illness. He doubtless lied to her over and over.

people in other parts of the world don't give a damn about him so he does nothing to disgrace the USA. George W. Bush and the Republicans have disgraced the USA and continue to do so as well as Democrats opposed to the public option. The USA is the laughing stock of the wealthy countries of the world for not providing health care for all. That is disgraceful. Berlusconi has just as many if not more affairs than Edwards, recently with an 18 year old girl. His second wife is over 20 years younger than his first so the Italians think she should not be surprised and genearlly his affairs are his personal life and have nothing to do with how he runs Italy so Italians are not so corncerned. People cheat, not all of us, but many of us. It is part of life. It does not make people bad at their professions or disgraces to the people they work for.

But not if they're Republicans. Then it's NOBODY'S business.

But the fact remains, Edwards was a fuckin' clown for running, knowing he'd be annihilated if exposed. Luckily he wasn't nominated, or we'd be discussing President McCain.

Maybe, just maybe it's time to consider the alternative scenario that McCain could not have won, regardless of who he was running against.

Perspective!

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

Edwards, and any other politician who takes it upon himself or herself to grandstand against equal rights for all under a flag of religion and personal morality better be living the perfect Christian life, or they will have their truth told to the world. Period. Until they stop the slander, the lies, the shouting about 'Baptist values' and the like, they will get no mercy. Those that wish to pretend this is about private sexual issues and should not be public ought to take that to John 'traditional marriage values are simply a part of me Edwards and tell him he never should have held up other people's marriages as being unacceptable to his high horse morality.
There is an old saying about people who live in glass houses. They should not throw stones.

I don't vote for "preacher/minister/christian-in-chief". That's what republicans do.

I make my vote based on policies that run the country. If that makes me slow in your opinion, so be it. I don't care.

Edwards about our private lives, in which he paints us as sinners and himself as a marriage traditionalist for political advantage, and you wish to frame your opinion as being about liberal views of sexuality, you are slow.
He stood on stages and spoke against equal civil rights on the basis of his traditional Baptist views of marriage as being between one man and one woman. He did that while also doing as he pleased. He said 'these values are just a part of me' and invoked his Deacon father.
Hypocrites who attack others for being in breach of their religion while they themselves make mockery of that religion are vile people.
Had Edwards not grandstanded about his religious opposition to marriage rights for all, he'd not be on my list of hypocrites, but he did, and so he is. Had he left my house alone, I'd agree with you, but he attacked millions of Americans with his 'traditional view of marriage' by choice and with intention.
Do modern thinking Europeans who don't care about affairs preach against gay people under the color of Southern Baptistism? Well do they? Is it cool in your book to attack others for sexuality and then cry to be left alone with yours? Are your rules that heterosexuals get to say and do anything, and gay folks have to just take it? He's a hypocritical homophobe. But he's your hypocritical homophobe, not mine. That is something you dig, but not many of us do. He is the same as Haggard or Ensign. The same. A liar, a slander merchant, and user of others for his own advantage.
He has yet to apologize for his slanders and lies about his marriage compared to gay unions that he called unacceptable to his religion.

There is a difference. The wall between church and state which Obama continues to obliterate in the tradition of Bush II.

is disgraceful, cheating on ones spouse, not so much so.

It seems that those who are dog piling on JE are doing so mostly based on the fantasy conjecture that he would have lost to that old republican't and his shrill shill from Alaska running mate.

That is by no means assured. And if it is then what does that say about American's and putitanism. Rmember that the puritans were KICKED out of ENGLAND for being WAY TOO UPTIGHT. Out of England. For being uptight. That is some kind of uptight.

his platform. Edwards is the one who proclaimed that he held 'traditional Southern Baptist' views of marriage being between one man and one woman. He invoked his Deacon daddy, and said that thinking of marriage as a holy Sacrament was a part of himself that he could not set aside. These religious views he said meant that he did not see gay people as equal.
He's the uptight liar and hypocrite here, he is the one who called out others for breaching his faith, while he himself was not keeping that faith at all.
He was the prude, the Baptist, the Deacon's son who saw marriage as a Sacrament. That was his spin on himself. A lie he told. Because at the time, it worked. Elizabeth did not call him out on it as he pretended to be what he was not, for political advantage.
He spoke against gay people, on the basis of Marriage being a sacrament. He's Ted Haggard. No better at all.

And one CAN be hypocritical on issues other than sex and marriage.

Noun 1. hypocrisy - an expression of agreement that is not supported by real conviction lip service
2. hypocrisy - insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or beliefs that you do not really have

Again. I wouldn't have cared if he hung by his knees from a chandelier as long as he put the country on the right track. I don't vote for people because they meet my moral values. I vote for them based on whether I think they're willing to get this country back up and running.

I don't know if you posted these clips thinking that they showed Edwards railing against gay marriage or you posted them to show that he didn't rail against gay marriage?

After watching the clips it's pretty clear that these clips don't show Edwards railing against gay marriage. Clinton, Obama and Edwards had the same position on gay marriage. They were for civil unions but not for gay marriage. They were all for legal rights with the exception of marriage. Do I agree with them? NO. I'm personally in favor of gay marriage.

I think it's very unfair and inaccurate for someone to say that Edwards railed against gay marriage when he did not. He answered questions that were put to him about his personal views and his view was the same as the other candidates - no to gay marriage and yes to civil unions and legal protections.

ASSHOLE!!!

He was railing against Gay Marriage because of the "sanctity of marriage" CRAP while his dick was poking someone NOT HIS FUCKING WIFE!!!

He DEMANDED that Clinton RESIGN while HE was FUCKING SOMEONE OTHER THAN HIS WIFE!!!

You assholes just will never get it...

Posted by TankLV

ASSHOLE!!!

He was railing against Gay Marriage because of the "sanctity of marriage" CRAP while his dick was poking someone NOT HIS FUCKING WIFE!!!

He DEMANDED that Clinton RESIGN while HE was FUCKING SOMEONE OTHER THAN HIS WIFE!!!

You assholes just will never get it...

Do you have links to support what you've said here? I don't remember Edwards railing against gay marriage. Obama, Clinton and Edwards all supported civil unions. None of them supported gay marriage.

I found this statement from Edwards about his position on gay marriage.

Edwards indicated that this issue was the "single hardest social issue" for him and that he had engaged in a lot of "personal struggles" over this issue. He believes that same-sex partners in committed relationships should have civil rights and should be afforded the dignity and respect to which they are entitled. He struggled with the question of "how we achieve this?.whether it is through civil unions or partnerships." He indicated that he is certainly for all of the non-discrimination and equal benefits provisions.
However, he said that it was a "jump for me to get to gay marriage?I am not there yet." He said that this was a "great conflict for him" and that he continues to struggle with the question internally. He ended by alluding to the fact that his daughter (and most in her generation) support marriage equality. (The crowd applauded after this last statement).

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=302

Edwards was the man specifically selected to defend Clinton in the Senate and he did a great job defending him from removal so I don't understand why you are trying to mis-characterize what Edwards did FOR Bill Clinton. Frequently when a lawyer defends someone they will admit the small stuff in order to get their client off. Any fair reading of the transcript of Edwards closing statement to the Senate would tell you that he was defending Clinton not attacking him.

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/edwards.html



Please provide a link to show where Edwards was railing about Gay marriage and one where you say Edwards demanded that Clinton resign.

Here is Edwards on Clinton on Feb. 12, 1999:

"I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen."

http://www.slate.com/id/2221253/

This is one part of his defense of Clinton speech in the senate. I posted the full speech above where you can read it in context.

Disgrace is what others think of us.

He's a source of national ignominy. What others should think of us, and what we should think of ourselves.

Edwards conduct, having been held on such a high pedestal and judged such a paragon of virtue, should cause us to lower ourselves in our own self-opinion and be a bit more humble.

It won't, of course. But that's a different post for a different thread.

Vitter, Ensign, Burton, Sanford are still in office

is not because of the infidelity or infidelities; instead, it's because he was the only candidate who was talking about the class war in this country who had a chance to be president.

I supported him because of his message, not because I worshiped him. I am not sorry I supported him.

He had the plan for health care with the best chances of getting enacted and actually doing some good. Kucinich is right as rain on health care but no way in hell would his plan have gotten through a corporate controlled congress.

I liked his policies and I thought he had the ability to get them sold to the public while at the same time had the fortitude to actually get them enacted. We needed a junk yard dog, a scrapper, in the WH. We got a tap dancer who claimed to be a boxer. I'm still waiting for him to stop the fancy footwork and throw a punch.

Other than certain segments of the media, no one's paying attention to him. He holds no national office. He is not a symbol of anything.

Those of us who supported him, including me, now don't think about him at all.

to the Senate as a replacement for the fascist bastard, Lauch Faircloth, and a counterbalance to the other fascist bastard N.C. Senator, Jesse Helms, we N.C. Dems hoped that Edwards would be the Senator from North Carolina that we had long hoped for.

Instead, within two years he had all but abandoned his Senatorial duties and his representation of our state to pursue his personal ambition to become President. The people of our state had elected him in hopes that he would be the example of the best kind of Senator we could have and his election would lead to ANOTHER Democratic Senator defeating Jesse Helms. But that didn't fit into Golden Boy's plan.

Edwards is an egomaniac who has gotten his comeupance. I'm sorry it was at the expense of the party, but I'm glad it has happened. We do not need more politicians like him.

Incredibly intelligent man, with presidential-bid-ending flaws.

of cheating on a sick/dying wife. I shows us what kind of a person he really is, and that matters in a public figure.

he cried about the war, but had co-sponsored the iraq war resolution with neocon Joe Lieberamn

he cried about jobs, but co-sponsored S-2045 in 2000, the h-1b increase to the unbelievably obscene level of 195,000 per year with endless exemptions to the cap. Many tech careers have never recovered from this death blow

he also voted for MFN China, which wiped textile jobs off the face of north carolina

guy was 2 faced scum, and that was knowable in 2002, not 2008

why was this man never vetted?

why did it take 'but, she was in remission when I cheated on her' to see him for what he is?

the refusal to accept criticism of 'our own' almost set up the party for a catostrophic collapse in 2008, had he made the ticket (and it's plausable, he was VP candidate in 2004)

squeaky clean reputation for a while, but eventually it ran off the track. All of his populist speechmaking about being the son of a mill worker. He truly was all hat and no cattle. I always sensed something phony about him. I was a big Kerry supporter in 2004, but never really warmed up to Edwards. I had a chance to shake his hand that year, but decided to skip it. I think on some level I knew he just wasn't for real.

You almost expect these politicians to screw around on their wives, but the details of Edwards' transgression was really beyond the pale for me. Who knows what the reality was, but he and Elizabeth certainly seemed to be a couple that genuinely loved each (in public anyway). I was a supporter of his up to the time he dropped out of the race, but I kinda wish I could ask him refund the $25 I sent him two years ago after the affair revelation.

The funny thing is that I have a friend who writes for the tabloid rag The Globe, and she was e-mailing me months before the affair became public that this was going to come out. I refused to believe it of course, but obviously I was as wrong as could be.