Why John Edwards Hacks Me Off
I have been completely fascinated with the John Edwards thing.
I supported the guy because I thought he was the real deal, and the reason I thought he was real is that Elizabeth Edwards said so. But she also continued to say so even when she knew for a fact that he wasn’t the real deal.
He is such a jerk. I gave up money for something else I wanted to give to his campaign. I want my damn money back. I do. I think I should get a refund. And a big apology.
I think I keep reading about the trial to see how the dickens I could have been so fooled by this guy. It scares the heck outta me that this guy actually thought he could be added to the ticket as the vice-president after what he’d done. Can you imagine him campaigning with his ho in tow?
And I also wonder why I was willing to forgive Bill Clinton, but not John Edwards.
I don’t think he broke any laws, but he’s such a sumbitch that people want to find him guilty of something.
They say his daughter Cate will take the stand today. Hasn’t he exceeded the number of women he can use in one lifetime?
Jerk. The guy is a jerk. But, I think he should be found not guilty, and it pains me to admit that.
Personally its easy to hate John Edwards because the wonderful, classy Elizabeth Edwards divorced him. Back in the day, Hilliary was a bit harder to love. I love her now, but then it was a different story. She also never seemed upset about it (in public anyway), so if she wasn’t why should I be?
There are a large segment of women who adore powerful men, and men, being men, love being adored. I think a better story is who has kept it in their pants (sorry Mama).
The most fasinating thing about this story for me is that the National Inquirer got it right. Wow.
1I share all of your anger at Edwards for his betrayal. Why do we forgive Clinton? Isn’t it because Hillary was a strong woman who probably no longer had any illusions about Bill Clinton? And Bill did not callously hurt a dying woman. Edwards can never out live his shame.
2I have to agree with Uncle Dave … Bill Clinton was just a “rounder” … but he didn’t get any of his “flute players” pregnant and have his baby and try to hide it from a dying wife. John Edwards did the whole enchilada bit with Ms. Hunter while poor Elizabeth was dying of cancer … she tried her darndest to stick by her man but in the end he made her even sicker then her cancer did! John Edwards is scum!! And you know who he will have to answer to in the end … it won’t be pretty!!
3I’ve always wanted to have coffee with Edwards just so I could yell at him in public. Silly, childish and idiotic I know–but so is he.
I too seethe when I think about him ( with Elizabeth’s knowledge) holding onto his delegates knowing he was creepin’ on his wife and putting democrats in jeopardy. I swear– the oncoming tide would have made the Clinton debacle look like tea time at the nursing home.
A married, cheating, democratic politician with a baby out of wedlock?
Everybody knows only a republican can pull that off.
4I hate to be the defiler of idols, here…. well, no I don’t, I’m an iconoclast at heart, I just hate the thought of people hating my thoughts which aren’t themselves hateful…. where was I?
Oh, yeah… in the nonHBO sections of Game Change we read that Elizabeth was really really really not the saint she was belived to be. Not that that’s an excuse for cadly behavior (is “cadly” a word? If not, it ought to be) but the growing consensus seems to be that these two deserved each other.
In fact, everyone in the whole sordid tale just has a huge coefficient of “Ewww” to them.
5Like you I have given this quite a bit of thought and I am inclined to believe that there are several reasons we can’t forgive John Edwards in spite of the fact that we seem to be able to forgive Bill Clinton.
First, we all figured that Hillary knew, how could she not, and that if it was OK with her well, that was her choice not ours to make. She was and is a strong, competent woman who was actually far smarter than her husband and we all figured she could take care of herself. She was also surrounded by a group of equally supportive, strong, competent women – all of whom rallied around her and did what good friends do at such a time, told her it was her decision to make and that they would stand behind her regardless of what she decided. Our guess was, that when confronted with the age old question, “Are you better off with him or without him?” she decided that she was better off with him and since she knew him better than anyone else did we should probably accept her decision. Besides, in a fight – my money is on Hillary.
Don’t get me wrong, I still blame Clinton for Bush, and I am still pissed that if he could not keep his fly zipped and that he did not choose to get it on with a woman who would at least do the country and his wife the courtesy of keeping her mouth shut. OK, perhaps a bad choice of words given the circumstances but you get the idea.
John Edwards however, slept around on his terminally ill wife. We all liked Elizabeth, a lot of the people I know wished that she was the candidate and not her husband! She was a strong woman who was fighting a losing battle with a deadly disease. We all felt that she should not have to engage in more than one battle at a time and that only a jerk of MAJOR proportions would ask her to go to war on more than one front. The fact that she fed his ambition and encouraged him to run for office again in spite of her illness and that she campaigned arduously for him even when she was undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, when she was sick, losing her hair and exhausted makes his betrayal all the more hideous. How can you not despise anyone who would do this, particularly to such a lovely woman? The fact that Ms. Hunter is well, there are no nice words that can be used here and Mama would be real unhappy if were to use them so I will simply say that not speaking lunatic, prevents me from being able to assess her mental stability and that a walk through the ocean of her morals and ethics would scarcely get your feet wet.
Like you I am peeved that I find myself recognizing that the narcissistic former politician needs to be found innocent (I was hoping for a refund and if not jail then maybe a special section in one of Dante’s levels of hell – one without mirrors), but the fact remains that he clearly found a way to avoid the campaign finance laws not to evade them – there is a difference. And let’s face it, what with the advent of the Super PAC he would have gotten off scot-free. This irritates me because I would like to sue him for my campaign contributions – unfortunately there are also no laws governing false pretenses regarding ones humanity. Let’s face it, if there were most of DC would be sitting in a jail cell.
Having said that, I don’t think we can actually say that he is not being punished even if he is found innocent, as I think he should be. Remember that video, the one of him endlessly primping his well coiffed locks in the mirror? What woman, or for that matter what man, can honestly look at the pretty boy now and see anything but ugly?
Mirror, mirror on the wall John Edwards is no longer the fairest of them all and that is the one thing that has the capacity to hurt him. Couldn’t happen to a nicer narcissist.
6I think it’s disgraceful that he was hit with these trumped-up charges. He got his friends to pay to cover up his “indiscretions” so that Elizabeth wouldn’t find out. How did that work out for ya? Still, it’s quite a stretch to consider these illegal campaign contributions. He may well be a first-class cad; but, he is undoubtedly also a first-class lawyer. He also still has two fairly young children, who recently lost their mother, to raise.
Put me in the mixed-feeling column about Elizabeth. She always set my “Spidey” sense vibrating for reasons I can’t explain. The stories (which could be untrue) near the end of her life that she was training Kate to raise her siblings (and not their father) struck me as being both vindictive and wrong.
7Edwards was the only politician that I ever put a support sign for in my yard. He cured me of that. It still makes me ashamed of myself for reading him so wrong. Wish he’d just go away.
8ARe you saying Edwards didn’t break any laws? Didn’t he promise when he married Elizabeth to keep himself true to her and all that stuff? Isn’t that kind of a law thing? The worst part is that I’m not sure God rates sins. I kinda think that self-righteousness is a pretty bad sin whether it’s illegal or not. I just take comfort in reading that God will do the getting even so we don’t have to.
9You CAN get your money back. All you have to do is ask the campaign in writing.
10I don’t know about having forgiven Clinton or not. He very likely tipped the balance for Bush even though Al’s wooden demeanor may have lost the election on it’s own. So he kinda still owes us for 8 years of Bush Lite. But like Ted Kennedy, Clinton seems to be trying to atone by working his butt off for things we believe in. And Hillary has risen to the status of giant with the work she’s doing.
11John Edwards on the other hand was willing to throw the election for the sake of his vanity. He was willing to flush all his fine talk about working people for the sake of a wet winky. If he had won the nomination, the Republicans would probably have done all they could to keep the news under wraps until 3 weeks before the election when it would be too late to salvage anything. In addition to the Presidency, the House and the Senate would in all likelihood have gone Republican. Edwards knew that and still went ahead. And like Susan, my friend Will Jennings, a fine man and a labor activist gave his time, money and an eloquent, impassioned speech at the caucus here in Iowa on behalf of that man. John Edwards sure as hell is guilty of something. And he should crawl across broken glass to apologize for being such an ass while acting in Will’s good name.
I read the same “Game Change” book da Chipster did, and Elizabeth came off as condescending, petty, and unprincipled, being furious with John while also being willing to go along with the monstrous charade. Maybe living with him abetted her attitude, but there are no heroes in that affair.
Sorry, but if he’s found guilty of the hanky-panky with the hanky-panky funds, I hope he does time.
12John Gall, Don’t go John Galt! Keep looking for candidates that you can support. Humans are by nature flawed and this system is definitely not perfect but it is the tool we have to make things better. I’m still ashamed I voted for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in ’76 and then I did it again with John Anderson in ’80. Carter, the most honest man ever to sit in the Oval Office and I didn’t have the sense to vote for him!
13Don’t give up.
One of my daughters, in her capacity as an officer of her county’s Young Democrats, met John Edwards at a campaign event and shook his hand. She says that now whenever she sees him on the news she feels compelled to go and wash her hands.
14I never cared for John Edwards, but did respect Elizabeth; however, she was willing to place the Democratic election in jeopardy by supporting John even after knowing of his affair. Had John won the nomination and the affair then became known (and you know it would have), the Repukes would have won the White House. It’s hard to imagine the harm that would have been done, particularly with two more conservatives on the Supreme Court.
15I think for me it’s because he, Edwards, denied the child. Clinton did cheat, but I can’t imagine him doing that. Edward’s kid has to grow up knowing dad tried everything possible not to acknowledge her.
I’m a little ticked that we’re spending money prosecuting him, however. Jerk though he is, as screwy as the campaign finance laws are, I don’t think he actually broke them. I would much rather the time, energy and money be spent revising the laws.
16Agree with you on all counts. I worked for him, sent him money, and was so glad to find someone willing to speak on behalf of working people. We have nothing to be ashamed of.
17I am mad at John Edwards but am more mad at myself by being taken in by him!
18I live down the road from him, in Chapel Hill, and was seated near him and his kids in a local cafe some time ago. As awful as I think his behavior was, he is still a dad and his kids have to live in this town, and it isn’t easy. I was working on a senate campaign back in 2008 and knew a lot of extremely hard-working, dedicated people who were volunteers for his campaign. I think I am the most angry that they got so badly burned. As far as being taken in, he was great at speaking to the issues of the poor, and I think people still keep that phrase about “two Americas” in their heads. It is never bad to have a candidate put forward progressive issues, just a shame when they are so fatally flawed that they damage so many.
19Perhaps we find it easier to forgive Bill Clinton because he seems to get better with age, and, despite his zipper problem, he remains the Democrat many Republicans fear and begrudgingly admire.
20I remain frustrated with my past vocal support of this cretin because of how he so cavalierly regarded his marriage vows to a woman facing eventual death. I lost my first wife, as well as a beloved sister-in-law, to breast cancer and can’t for the life of me imagine being able to live with myself if I had violated their trust. I know he’s human, and all humans make mistakes, but it really frustrates me to have believed this was the man I so badly wanted to lead our country.
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