David Gregory speculates that the Edwards' affair may be bad news for Obama. I have a very hard time seeing how Edwards' affair reflects on Obama. What I do know is that this is another of those cases where there is a tacit but uniform agreement among pretty much all reporters and close campaign watchers not to publicly state the obvious: that this is a perilous development for John McCain. Just as Bill Clinton's public undressing in the Lewinsky scandal led indirectly to the exposure of several high-profile Republican affairs, Edwards' revelation will inevitably put pressure on the press in general to scrutinize John McCain under something more searching than the JFK rules they've applied to date. I assure you that this dimension of the story occurred to every reporter even tangentially involved in reporting this race soon after the Edwards story hit yesterday afternoon.Indeed, it's already begun. Take a look at this from Slate.com. After point out the nightmare that could have been had Edwards won the nomination, and how Senator Obama is more or less teflon coated when it comes to his family, Christopher Beam writes:
Yea, I wonder what the self-annointed guardians of our nation's social values, will have to say about this.[I]t introduces marital infidelity back into the conversation.
Recall: John McCain returned to the United States from Vietnam in March 1973. His wife, Carol, had been in a near-fatal car accident while he was gone. She was overweight, on crutches, and 4 inches shorter than when McCain had left. McCain ended up divorcing Carol for Cindy Hensley, his current wife. Carol has remained mostly silent on her marriage to John, except for one notable comment to a McCain biographer: “John was turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again.”
There were legal complications, too. The Los Angeles Times reported in June that McCain obtained a marriage license while still legally married to his first wife. McCain suggested in his autobiography that he divorced Carol months before marrying Cindy. In fact, that period was about five weeks. He also said that for the first nine months of his relationship with Cindy, he still “cohabited” with Carol. Social conservatives were never McCain’s base, but yes, it could get worse.
16 comments:
John K: What to say, Edwards for VP!
John K: A person who will lie to their wife will lie about anything. Now we know two key Democrats who have done this. Of course we have a Republican, GHW Bush, who hasn't.
And that just pisses you liberals off. LMAO
Why lie to your wife when you can lie to a whole country?
What the hell's your point, John K.?
You really think conservatives are going to score any points with the Edwards' affair by talking about a guy who's been out of office for 8 years and another guy who isn't running for office, isn't going to be on the ticket and won't be serving in an Obama administration?
And where exactly does George H.W. Bush come into this? You do know that he was the 41st President, not the current Liar-in-Chief, right?
But I hope the wingers try to make an issue out of this; I hope they raise marital infidelity as an issue, because I know my candidate has nothing to hide, whereas the story of John McCain's first marriage is largely unknown to the public.
Which one do you think the media will focus on if this becomes an "issue"? And we all know that the media love these kinds of stories.
I wonder what the self-annointed guardians of our nation's social values, will have to say about this.
David, there is something disturbingly incongruent in your writings. Just a few hours before putting up this post, you tell us that "Privacy for the Edwards family seems in order" when the Edwards story just broke and the topic is front-page fodder for just about every news outlet in the entire country.
And yet, John McCain isn't entitled to any privacy for a divorce that took place decades ago in the wake of his return from captivity?
I respect you and your views so very much, David, but you really do suffer from some very serious intellectual dishonesty in these kinds of situations. The rightness or wrongness of actions does not depend upon something as meaningless as the political party affiliation of the person who does them. If something is no big deal, then it should be no big deal for everybody. If something like marital infidelity is morally reprehensible for Republicans, and if it is worthy of all of our attention when somebody from the GOP engages in it, then why should we all turn around and ignore it when a Democrat does it.
Put another way, twist this post -- even though it's titled "More Reaction to Edwards' Story" -- into a detailed discussion of something John McCain did 30 years ago. But when it came time to talk about the current story-of-the-moment, you only reluctantly do so under the heading of "I Guess I Gotta".
For God's sake, David, McCain was a naval officer. I've worn that uniform myself. Divorce and infidelity are hardly uncommon among us, and that's just during normal peacetime deployment cycles. In the submarine navy, divorce rates are stratospheric in scope. I can't even fathom what McCain went through, but if 77-day deterrent patrols and 6-month deployments play havoc with even the strongest marriages, I can't imagine what years of captivity would do to one.
I especially love how, within hours of the Edwards story breaking, you have scoured the internet to attach moral equivalency to McCain's actions. Elizabeth Edwards had cancer and had gotten a bit chubby when her husband did the deed, so the writers you quote have to dig deep and note that McCain's first wife "... had been in a near-fatal car accident while he was gone. She was overweight, on crutches, and 4 inches shorter than when McCain had left...".
This all comes off sounding enormously infantile, like some schoolyard argument in which a child whines, "... but he did it first!". It's no more impressive in that context than it is in this one.
How on earth is John McCain any less entitled to this vaunted "privacy" that should be given to John Edwards, especially when his divorce was 30 freaking years ago?
John K: My point Jaywillie is something you will never understand because you are totally consumed by rage. You also Eric.
All this lying you say Bush has done is false. You haven't been able to prove one yet. And this current President treats his wife in an honorable fashion. He doesn't look at the cameras and point his finger, nor does he expect his cabinet to lie for him.
Yet all we hear from the left is Bush lied. No proof of any but that is the mantra.
The left is so dirty they expect everyone but them to lie. It is part of their mantra. Heck even Dr. Dean, who is in town, lied to his draft board. And is proud of it. Lying is so normal to the left they cannot imagine life without it. Look at the lies you have told about me on this board. You so want it to be true you will just say it because it fits your view.
The same with Edwards. He lied to his wife because he is a liberal and can get away with it. You allow that sort of behavior. You provide the excuses and cover. Lying is never a problem for the left as long as their person is doing it.
Which is why the left can never figure out that lying to the person you pledged to trust the most in life means so much. If you can't keep that bond then why would the we expect Edwards or you Jaywillie to treat the citizens any different. Lie to win an election by frauding the vote. Lie about cutting taxes. Lie about the left's agenda. Lie about your past. What does it matter to a liberal consumed with grabbing power over people's lives.
So the only way a liberal can rationalize anything in their mind is that Bush/Cheney lied and Rove enabled it. But Clinton/Edwards/Dean also lied but it was for a liberal cause.
Which is why you left wing kooks are so sick in your brains.
Heck, Jaywillie, lie about my past if it makes you feel good. Because that is the only way your brain can reason anything out.
No LMAO this time, just a putrid smell of corruption.
John K: By the way I love watching the left rationalize this stuff. Conservatives throw their people overboard. The left promotes them.
Edwards for Attorney General! Not because he lies but well because he lies for the left. LMAO LMAO
About our resident 'conservative. troll...
As usual, morality from the waist down. War crimes, imperialist interventions abroad, dropping atom bombs, oppressing the poor, being bought and sold hook, line, and sinker by K-Street, and generally whoring it up to big capital morning noon and night, all this is just another day in the office. But sexual misdemeanours, now that’s a sackable offence. Given that all politicians, especially those in power, lie all the time about everything, is it a surprise when they lie to their spouses about their sexual fidelity?
richmond k turner
I agree that to say Edwards deserve privacy should go both ways, but as David mentioned I too wonder what the "self-annointed guardians of our nation's social values, will have to say about this."
The fact is that they are currently spinning this a poor for the Democratic party, which it is, but it is also poor for McCain if they decide to discuss these family morality issues for all the candidates.
It is fair to report this story along the political issue lines of how he handled the revelation of his affair. Regretfully this is being presented by the media as an issue of morality which is none of my business.
I feel that this is poor taste on all sides and wish we had a media culture that was driven to discuss policy and not people, but that is not the national media we have. If they have decided to open the flood gates on discussing family situations under the guise of morality, McCain is fair game as well for them to discuss.
I won't hold my breath though waiting for them to cover all sides.
issues, i'd really like to see a true reporting on issues.
and i think obama should use the fact that millions and million of people here flock to see him. i wouldn't hide from it. it's not a negative. it's a positive.
i resent being lumped in with celebrity adorers waiting to see some movie star or singer!
i hope obama doesn't continue to let mccain's people make the fact that millions here and around the world come to hear him speak and embace his IDEAS.
so, enough with diversions like edwards sorry life and on to the things that really matter to all of us.
John K: And if you did not understand the above then you would lie to your spouse ( while they are fighting cancer) for votes. And have your spouse forgive you because power is what its all about.
John K., you're nothing but a mouthy, piddling little shit...
You can't even explain yourself without attacking me or address any issue on this site without making it some juvenile attack; you've got your partisan head so far up your ass that you're incapable of seeing anything beyond what Hannity/Limbaugh and their ilk tell you to see.
But let's talk about a few of the lies of the Right-
Remember when we were told that the reconstruction of Iraq would be paid for by that country's oil revenues? Not so much, huh?
Or how the administration pressured the EPA into changing their reports to reflect the White House's position? Not lying, huh? Maybe just creative editing?
Or the current McCain lie about Obama's tax policies?
That's just a few...
And the Right throws people overboard, huh? Except for Larry Craig and David Vitter and they wouldn't have thrown out Mark Foley either if they thought they could get away with it.
Yeah, you're right, this President doesn't point at cameras - he contrives mock photo-ops, like landing on a carrier to declare "Mission Accomplished" or turning the lights on only in the part of New Orleans where he spoke - just for the photo-op.
No one, you ignorant fuck, is rationalizing what Edwards did; no one is making excuses for him or saying what he did was fine. What many of us our saying is that if you twisted, demented bathroom stall sex-jockeys are going to make an issue out of Edwards' affair, then it seems perfectly reaosonable to look into McCain's first marriage, especially since he's running on his life experience - All of it, not what he chooses to show people.
If you can't handle that, you're too soft for politics.
Nice that it's ok for you to put words in our mouths and impugn our motives, but heaven forbid if someone does that to you, huh? No one can question your beloved President, but you're perfectly free to spread all kinds of outright lies about people like Howard Dean; we just can't ask any questions about "Deferement" Dick Cheney.
Just look at what kind of a monstrous person you are - because Edwards' had an affair, I'm a liar? All Democrats are liars by extension?
You're on here raving like a lunatic about Edwards' being VP when a) all of that talk was before people knew about this and b) it's clearly something that's not going to happen...and yet you don't miss a chance to impugn every Democrats' character because of the actions of one man!
You're nothing more than a filthy hypocrite wallowing in his own ignorance. You want people to play the game your way and it's just not going to happen.
Admiral;
I am sorry to have disappointed you - perhaps I was not as lucid as I should have been in my original post. Let me clear up few things.
OF COURSE cheating on one's spouse is a simply reprehensible, whether it happened three years or three decades ago it's wrong - or whether one's a Senator or a submariner.
The issue I was raising with my last sentence had little if anything to do with Senator McCain's privacy but the probable tut-tutting among the nation's moralizers about the "values" of members of the Democratic party.
Indeed we've seen such criticism here at this blog.
If cheating on one's (sick) wife is cause for intense criticism from the above mentioned moralizers, then Senator Edwards should not be the only target of that criticism. And certainly it should not be seen as a reason to smear an entire political party. We've seen similar actions among high ranking members of the Republican party as well (Newt Gingrich and of course Senator McCain?).
My point being that if those "self appointed guardians of morality" within the GOP do pounce on Senator Edwards for his infidelity, they will be showing their own hypocrisy for NOT pouncing on Senator McCain for his similarly checkered past.
Let me ask you, is infidelity any less reprehensible when it's three decades ago?
Especially hypocritical when that party has been the one to flog the rest of the nation on the issue of "family values."
That was the point I was trying to make.
No big deal.
I think I'd let the tall one on the right spank me, though. :)
Oops. Wrong thread. My bad.
Wow, this John K. guy is walking way overboard on this comment board. So far, John K stated that anyone that would cheat on his wife while she was recovering from an illness is unfit to lead.
Does anyone here not know the details of John McCain's divorce? The details are that John cheated on his first wife who was recovering from a terrible auto accident with his now second wife. John eventually divorced his first wife and before the paperwork was finalized, he married cindy.
Personally, I feel these issues are not relevant to the election; however I want to point out the hypocrisy of John K.
Other great republicans of recent note are vito j. fossella, Larry craig, and that great congressman fooling around with underage male interns.
div
Yeah, the republicans are such a noble party.
Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house and John it appears you are the one full of rage.
Post a Comment