Mickey Kaus will never forgive you for this.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Fred Thompson cheated on his wife. They divorced after their children graduated, but there was no infidelity. Fred Thompson was a notorious dater after his divorce.

Rasselas, Chapter 18.

This is very, very well-written, Ezra.

Thanks Ezra.

As far as I'm concerned John Edwards' legacy remains profoundly important and he remains a model citizen - if not husband. That's not our concern though - I don't need a moral compass to lead, I just want someone who's not an idiot and an ideological hack. Anyone who does need a moral compass or is preoccupied with character - I present the long unmitigated disaster of the G.W. Bush presidency...enjoy.

ProJo reader/RI resident here: Froma Harrop hates EVERYONE.

That said, I don't think this will completely kill Edwards' career or his marriage. Both he and Elizabeth have done enough wonderful work on their own to overshadow this story.

I think the idea of the 24-hour news cycle has made this seem worse than it is. The whole thing could have blown over in a day, but why stop there? Why not drag out every single person Edwards has ever known to pump them for any possible details or flimsy assumptions, so long as it gets a few extra viewers? Hooray, tabloid culture.

"His $400 haircut was somehow far more damning than McCain’s $500 loafers."

A haircut last 2 weeks, a good pair of loafers can last a decade or longer, you honestly don't see the difference in the two? Can you live in a thicker polital fog?

This is a great, great analysis.

I also enjoy how the entire media is gasping over the "selfishness" of Edwards runing for office with Rielle Hunter in the background while pretending Vicky Iseman is a problem for McCain because she is a lobbyist.

It's not just McCain cheating on his first wife that led Edwards to conclude he could get away with it. It's that up until 2 weeks ago, the press had more on McCain/Iseman than they did on Edwards/Hunter--and it didn't seem to be much of a problem for McCain...

Goodbye John Edwards.

Not a fan.

I can't believe that after the Lewinsky nonsense, so many people are still pretending to care where a politician puts his willy. It's pathetic, and it is stupid shit like this that will doom our country.

That's right: if you care about where John Edwards puts his willy you are ruining this country. Not because John Edwards would have been our savior but because we are choking on our societal inability to approach the world with a modicum of rationality.

Martin Luther King put his penis in lots of vaginas that did not belong to his wife.

And 100% of those men tut-tutting about Edwards either have fucked around on their wives, or they would if given the chance. If a decent-looking woman were willing to go near Mickey Kaus's skanky ass, you think he would hesitate for a second?

I never liked Edwards, for a reason aptly summed up by Russ Feingold:

The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.
When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn’t, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you’re playing the game in Washington and another way when you’re running for president, there’s some of that going on.

Very nice work, Ezra. Smart and thoughtful and beautifully done.

Thanks for posting this, Ezra.

I haven't blogged about the issue (I've posted occasional comments and responded to a bunch of emails from friends.) What I told them was a combination of this:

Proof of infidelity could detonate a candidacy.

with horror at what could've been, and particular horror at being someone who hugely supported his candidacy. And this, with pride:

Edwards set the bar on health care, pushing his competitors to field better policies and offer more concrete commitments. He helped redefine the foreign policy discussion by arguing that, in supporting the Iraq War, Edwards – and other hawks -- were not merely misled, but fundamentally mistaken.

But I didn't think of this:

The candidate the media accused of relentless self-promotion and hollow public policy commitments ends his career with his personal image wrecked but his political commitments ascendant.

Whether the media is right or not (and even today I'm sure they're wrong) it's poetic justice. Either he's a phony who feels like he's gained nothing, or he's genuine and he sees through his current misery that really, he's gained everything.

Every weak person whose heart is in the right place should be so lucky.

I think you make a good point about how affairs shouldn't discredit a politician.

But you're overlooking how reckless this all was--especially in light of the recurrence of Elizabeth Edwards's cancer. Remember those couple of days when it looked like he might drop out? That would be the time to have a frank discussion that affair + cancer was deadly math for Edwards and that unlike Clinton in 1992 and 1998, Edwards would not survive this scandal.

That's frankly where I put the blame on the Edwardses: they should have been able to see beyond their own personal dreams to realize that their whole campaign was a ticking time bomb. To me, their arrogant belief that they were so important and so much better than the other candidates that they just had to risk our nation's future is the real sin. I do not care about the private state of their marriage per se, but once you decide to make your marriage a public commodity and a selling point to elect yourself president, you unfortunately give a warrant to the panty police to start snooping around.

Don't like it? Then either disclose the affair and run, or go run in another country.

When you add in the other nasty stuff--the payoffs and such, and the fact that John may well have been schtupping that woman after he claimed it was over and may well have fathered that kid--only make it harder to mount a defense of the guy. (And don't respond that he's claimed otherwise.)

I still don't understand the liberal Edwards fan-boys like Ezra, Neil, and Petey who act like he's the only true progressive voice, when he's really a johnny-come-lately who's 2008 campaign was a far cry from his 2004 one. Also, the fact that he's abandoned his poverty center does lead me to believe that the caricature is correct. John Edwards is indeed a narcissist, a man whose political vision does not extend far enough beyond his own reflection.

Personally, I'm still furious at the guy, and I wish some of the bloggers who spent so much time pumping him up would also express this anger as well. He's a stupider and more selfish version of Bill Clinton, with the same broad streak of self-righteousness and self-pity. And I don't think the fact that he has a better plan for universal coverage lets him off the hook.

I would like to take the time to point out what all these MSM Edwards' criticizers wrote about Edwards before the scandal broke...but I just don't care because I know they are a bunch of a-hole hypocrites.

A haircut last 2 weeks, a good pair of loafers can last a decade or longer, you honestly don't see the difference in the two?

Really? Thats the best you got? Like it matters...

And whose f'n loafers last a decade?!? Mine are good for no more than two years. Hmm, maybe thats because they don't cost $500...

The reason we're fans, Philly, is that Edwards moved the debate to the left on every major issue area. We had a fairly progressive primary electorate and we needed a credible candidate to bid up the price of progressive support.

On health care, global warming, the War on Terror, and of course poverty, Edwards was doing that throughout this primary campaign. He came out early with plans further to the left than anybody expected to see -- not just from a Southern Democrat, but from any major candidate. After that, the other candidates had to follow suit. And with the Southern white guy staking out new progressive terrain, they were able to stand there too without being tarred as crazy lefties.

That's right: if you care about where John Edwards puts his willy you are ruining this country.

Well just excuse me if marital infidelity is a sign of bad character. Yes, thats right, I said MLK had bad character. Its not about penis. Its about breaking that solemn contract called marriage. If John and Elizabeth were swingers I'd have no problem with it, because they'd be doing it with the full faith and credit of both persons.

You know Edwards himself said many times that this was never about himself and i have to agree. He fucked up bigtime, but the positive contribution of his campaign in making the Democratic party a more populist, progressive place again can't be denied. Thanks for writing this.

Thank you, Ezra.

The media never like Edwards much, because he didn't fit a simple narrative. While an up from the bootstraps story is always good, however, these days, it's usually used as a bludgeon against poor people. Well, Edwards was complicated. He was a son of a mill worker, which our well-heeled, overly indulged press hated and could not contextualize to their world.
On the other hand, he was a "trial lawyer," whom the press universally despise. So he made his money suing corporations and negligent doctors rather than through the methods of our vaunted CEOs, "creative" tech blue-chippers, or private equity "gurus" who collectively form the paragon of successful and "decent" capitalism.

And finally, and most importantly, he spent his time talking about economic inequality and class. The "c" word is none too popular in an America that it infatuated with CEOs and disdainful of labor and the poor. This is especially true of the media, most of whom are well-off, educated and feverishly moderate on economic issues.

At the end of the day, Edwards was never one of "them," and unlike the nice "othering" that the media so gleefully indulges in, he was not a war hero (McCain) or faux tough guy or the goofy,colloquial spitting southerner (Fred Thompson or Bush) they like.

He was publicly educated southerner that made good for himself and sought to change the American discourse in ways that were unpopular to a media that plays such a large role in shaping that discourse. By calling into question the American enterprise, he was calling into question their jobs and worth. Something they would rather not do. Rather than reflect on the state of America(and their occupation) its much easier to heap scorn, scream phony, and call someone angry and opportunistic.

But at the end of the day, he was never one of them. He was ambitious which is ok, but was unwilling to play by their rules and categories. And as result, that ambition is evil and nebulous.

Im just glad that I got to here a person in power talk about what really matters in the American polity, and for that, I thank John Edwards.

I think his calls for large scale economic restructuring will be seen as prescient to future scribes worth a wit. But watching the glee surrounding his fall from grace, I don't think we will see any politician "really" talking about these issues in such a forthright manner.

A damn shame.

Philly:

Perhaps the reason bloggers who were Edwards supporters during the primary have not come out in droves to express their anger, condemnation and pile on the voyeriusm with regard to this recent news is because as Ezra points out, very insightfully in his article, Edwards raised the bar. He drove progressive issues into the national dialogue. He was successful in that respect.

So while Edwards’ campaign put forth the most progressive policies, he lost the primary. Our work for his campaign was done and we were successful as progressives to the degree that this election would allow.

It is counterproductive to play “what if” mind games. The fact is, the “ticking time bomb” did not go off during his campaign. Only after he dropped out, did the truth of his affair come to light. After the fact. Long after we stopped blogging about his policies and donating our money and time on the ground. After we came to learn that Elizabeth had been carrying this burden in order to advance the issues and policies that go beyond any “self importance” or ambition on her part. Elizabeth Edwards is in no way at fault here.

Neil, I appreciate that Edwards moved the primary campaign leftward, I really do. But you really undersell the power of the netroots and the Dean campaign if you attribute the changing Democratic positions solely to Edwards.

Look John and Elizabeth Edwards are certainly not bad people. They saw the netroots rise, they honestly identified with the movement's central goals, and they both genuinely and opportunistically built a second campaign that was more boldly to the left. All great stuff, but their riskiness and selfishness call this all into question.

If their dedication is true, they'll redeem themselves with actions, over time. I hope they do. But what the Edwardses don't need and don't deserve is to have the very people they could have fucked over the worst to come rushing to their defense.

I agree with Emma, above, and Russ Feingold.

And I don't agree that he made the campaigns of his fellow candidates
"more progressive, courageous, and humane."

But then I must be part of the political establishment, since I really, really can't stand Edwards. I wish someone could explain his appeal in a way that makes sense to me. I guess I should ask Rielle.

A worthy effort, but this Ezra post is total wank.

The fact that the DC establishment have it out for Edwards doesn't mean he -- AND ELIZABETH -- aren't contemptible assholes who very easily could have, right now, had the aspirations of a hundred million Democrats bent over in the shower.

"His political commitments ascendant..." Oh yes. Those grand political commitments. What were those again?

Honestly, this is just a pile of horseshit, and you can do better.

NCDem Amy, I appreciate the point that you and Neil raise, but I believe it's foolish to suggest that this wouldn't come out. Edwards got taken down by some hack working for the National Enquirer. If you really think that some other reporters wouldn't have sniffed this out if the rumors were about the actual nominee, you have an even harsher view of journalistic laziness than I do.

Look, I'm not saying that history won't vindicate Edwards to some extent. But let's let Edwards rebuild his own reputation. The blogosphere has done him enough favors.

It's essential that we consider "what if" outcomes so that we can try and learn the most from history.

The bottom line is we got lucky - the two Edwards pushed the Dems in the right direction without getting JRE as a crippled nominee. That was lucky and also not what Elizabeth was trying to achieve.

Re the Cinton comparison, I believe his affair with Flowers was much earlier, and he semi-admitted it in his 60 Minutes interview. Had Edwards made an "I've caused pain in my marriage" disclosure early on, my current anger as a former Edwards supporter wouldn't exist.

They put themselves first, and we're lucky things turned out otherwise.

As a precinct captain who worked hard for Edwards in Iowa, I am mad that he was sitting on a time bomb that was sure to reinforce the worst possible narrative about him: big phony.

I defended Edwards a hundred or more times when voters brought up his haircut and his big house. I used to joke that if I ever came into possession of a time machine, I would use it to go back and tell John and Elizabeth Edwards to hire the Not So Big House woman to design their home.

The media were always full of it when it came to Edwards, but politics can be unfair, like life. He knew this "phony" image was a problem for him. I was at town-hall meetings where people asked him about it. He had to know that this affair wouldn't stay secret forever, and when it came out it would hurt him more than a comparable story would hurt a Republican. Them's the breaks.

I think he should have either declined to run or answered honestly when first asked about the affair.

Another thing that bothers me about this is that Hunter appears to have been hired as a filmmaker (in fact, her firm appears to have been created) solely to give Edwards a way to travel the country with his girlfriend. At first I thought this was just one of those things that happens when people spend too much time together, but now it appears that the affair came before she started working for him. That's unfair to those who donated to the One America Committee.

Oh yeah, I also don't like getting his staffer and friend to take the fall for him in December.

Of course people like KathyF and the Villagers, who have always hated Edwards, are going to cite this as "proof" they were right all along.

I only hope this whole mess doesn't hurt my ability to help the statehouse candidate I'll be doing GOTV for in Iowa this fall. I will be contacting many of the same voters I contacted several times on behalf of Edwards, and I feel I have lost some credibility with them.

Ezra, you nailed it.

Personally I don't feel fucked over for supporting the most progressive candidate in the field at the time. The media wanted $$ for their greed, and Edwards wasn't willing to go there; he was about the ideas. Now while the cable networks have nothing to do but watch the Olympics or ponder about VP choices, they are endeavor to complete a narrative of buyers remorse--even though they never supported him in the first place. Instead of thoughtful analysis that Ezra put on this blog, they are like paparazzi on a cheap assignment and making cheap comments--as though they are holier than thou, when many of them have cheated on their spouses, blamed trial lawyers for their lots in life, and cannot defend their own reasons why Edwards deserves this much vilification. He didn't tell them the truth at first? Wow, what a headline. What a surprise.

Philly:

I didn't suggest there was no way it wouldn't come out, but stated it didn't come out while he was still in the campaign.

Point being, we could pose all sorts of what if theories.

Thank you, Ezra.
I, like Neil, haven't written on this except to close friends and supporters; and people that I’ve known since 2004 in Iowa. We all shared a common dream of birthing a new system of economic justice. It was also Dr. King's dream.
For now, I'll just ask:
If John Edwards was a phony, why did he pick poverty and defense of unions as two of his primary positions? If John Edwards had the presidency as his sole goal, why would he choose economic populism in a conservative corporate run country and take those corporations to task? Far better to go the centrist route of Clinton and Obama.
For all their ambition, the Edwards had the core values of social democracy; libertie, equalitie, but also fraternitie. Their priorities were clear. They wanted the rest of America to have what they had; good health care, a good education that was affordable if not free, the security of a job and a home, if you wanted one. They wanted a world that cared about ending poverty and called on Americans “To be patriotic about something other than war.” He was the closest thing we’ve had to a main stream candidate running as a social democrat. I don’t believe in the ends justifying the means, but the Edwards obviously did and took a tremendous risk to get their message heard.

Perhaps one of his chief transgressions was leaving the most elite club in the world, The U.S. Senate, bought and paid for by Wall Street. Those blowhards (that do little and like the British House of Lords should be downgraded to ornaments at state occasions) didn't like the bright young lawyer who didn't want to stick around that moth eaten place.

Yes, he should be running in France. Not just because of their tolerance for sexual matters, but because the French, unlike us Americans, emphasize fraternity. Will we ever hear another candidate use the phrase with ease, “my brothers and sisters”? Will we have a candidate who calls for "rewarding work over wealth"?Will we ever see another candidate walk picket line after picket line? Will we ever see a candidate again champion the people in the dark and low places?
Maybe Edwards biggest mistake was to think that he could somehow get past the corporate hounds guarding the gates. Why would they let him end “disaster capitalism” and the shock doctrine? But then again maybe he knew that he couldn't really make it. Maybe he knew that he could only serve as a Jeremiah.

Well, it worked partially. We have universal health care in the Democratic plank. Now without Edwards, can we push the agenda further? Is social democracy possible here?

Solidarity, my brothers and sisters.

John Edwards stayed married. McCain divorced his wife and married his mistress. I think the public sees that as better - he's made an honest woman of her, and nobody objects to divorce anymore.

I tend to favor keeping the marriage together. I think a lot of liberals do. Notice how the Dems stay married, the Repubs get divorced? Funny, huh?

The Acela-corridor media establishment has a gut aversion to Southern white male politicians with working-class roots. Read the past few years' "yes, but" verbiage on Jim Webb, or Sally Quinn on Bill Clinton, or just about anybody on LBJ.

The "phony" vibe that Edwards is said to give off is actually a nouveau-riche vibe, which establishment types despise even more than an unrefined Southern accent. This is why Edwards' mansion puts off people who aren't offended by Gore's mansion or the lavish accommodations of McCain, Kerry or the Bushes. (They do sneer at the Bushes pretending to bond with white trash - papa's pork rinds, W whacking brush at Crawford, etc.)

Jeff: Establishment types don't despise all trial lawyers, just the ones who represent low-class people. They're fine with Bob Bennett.

I think it was a pretty selfish act for Edwards to think he could run for president with potential baggage just beneath the surface. On the other hand, one has to think that had he secured the nomination, he wouldn't have been so foolish to actually take the risks that ultimately ended up getting him caught.

But putting that aside, I think Ezra hits the nail on the head here. There are plenty of great leaders in history who were absolute scumbags in their personal life. I'm not saying that one's political life and personal life are entirely independent of one another, but I think we should recognize that its quite possible to be great in one and terrible in the other. Edwards did do more than any other candidate to swing the debate in the democratic party further left.

Plenty of people cheat on their spouses and, frankly, I'm sure I call some adulterers friends of mine. Edwards did a reprehensible thing in his personal life, but his political life since 2004 has been one of the more admirable lives of any major politician out there. Since I don't know him personally, but I do know him politically, I still admire him deeply.

I admire your piece.

My comment is that Richard Nixon, while admirable as a father, wasn't that hot as a husband. I don't know if the old story of his Chinese mistress is true or not, but I think no one who watched her up close envied Pat Nixon. Strangely enough, marriage turns out to be about more than sexual fidelity.

One other point to make is that John and Elizabeth couldn't have realized in late 2006 how central his marriage was going to be to the campaign. After March 2007 when Elizabeth announced that her cancer had returned and become incurable, she and his marriage became a part of the story in a way she'd never been before.

Of course, it was going to be a pretty huge deal, big enough that there's no way I could've supported him if I had any idea about the affair, and big enough that people ought to criticize him heavily. But he could've had some thoughts of just making like Bill Clinton or any of the other adulterers Ezra cites and pushing through it. After the cancer news of March 2007 made his marriage such a big human interest story, the affair became utterly devastating in a way that it wasn't at first.

I'm not part of the political establishment and *I* hate John Edwards too.

The gall of somebody to govern in the Clintonian Imperial Free Market style and then to campaign like he's the second coming of Karl Marx is ridiculous, and ought to be ridiculed.

I agree with a lot of this but must disagree on one big thing: there is NO way Edwards would have survived this scandal if he were the nominee right now. Thinking otherwise is absurd.

Yes, adulterous politicians have survived. And yes, we elected Clinton. And yes, McCain ALSO cheated on his sick wife.

But Edwards' case was different -- the affair occurred during the time when he was running for president. Politicians seem to be able to get away with infidelity - if it happens well in the past and is already known when they run.

Edwards may have been able to survive this had he, before he announced, admitted he had an affair. Yes, people would have criticized him for it, but it being out there would have greatly lessened the impact.

Of course, that assumes that the affair ended before he ran for president, as he claims. And it's far from clear that actually was the case.

Allbetsareoff is dead on. I had a wealthy guy who looked like William Buckley with those droopy lids say to me, "I don't ike Edwards. He's a social climber." I said, "But isn't that what American is based on? The ability to climb up the ladder?" "Not really," he yawned and tugged at his fancy dude cowboy hat.

And you are dead on about the "unrefined Southern accent." Rhett Butler was trash. Ashley Wilkes was the preferred accent.

Well just excuse me if marital infidelity is a sign of bad character. ... If John and Elizabeth were swingers I'd have no problem with it, because they'd be doing it with the full faith and credit of both persons.

Guess what? You have no fucking idea what goes on in other people's marriages.

Philly: Neil, I appreciate that Edwards moved the primary campaign leftward, I really do. But you really undersell the power of the netroots and the Dean campaign if you attribute the changing Democratic positions solely to Edwards.

Oh, baloney. Without Edwards, both Hillary and Obama were willing to play a much more cautious game with respect to Iraq, universal health care, and global warming. On those and on a bunch of other issues, Edwards led, and they followed.

I'm bothered a lot less than I was initially by the prospect that his affair might have come out after he won the nomination, for one simple reason: there was almost no way he was going to win the nomination, going up against two of the most formidable Democratic candidates of our era, and a MSM that wanted to all but silence him.

I'm deeply thankful that he and Elizabeth moved the ball as far as they did, from their position as underdogs.

Great piece, Ezra.

Emma:
Feingold was just pissed because someone ran on the issues he would have. My guess is that he would have run had Obama not. I think Feingold saw the writing on the wall re: Hillary and Obama. They would, and did, suck up all the oxygen in the room.

Jeremy: The gall of somebody to govern in the Clintonian Imperial Free Market style and then to campaign like he's the second coming of Karl Marx is ridiculous, and ought to be ridiculed.

Oh, gimme a break.

While there was an enormous tonal shift between Edwards' 2004 and 2008 campaigns, his 2004 campaign was about what?

Oh, yeah: "Two Americas." One that the richest 1% live in, and the other that the rest of us inhabit.

By 2007, Edwards had greatly fleshed out the policy specifics and wasn't quite the cheerful nice guy about America's inequality anymore, but the fact that his populism was out in the open instead of sugar-coated by an upbeat approach didn't change the fact that he was already singing the same song four years earlier.

If John Edwards was a phony, why did he pick poverty and defense of unions as two of his primary positions? If John Edwards had the presidency as his sole goal, why would he choose economic populism in a conservative corporate run country and take those corporations to task?

Because that was the only place left to pitch the "jury" of likely Democratic primary voters, as long as Clinton and Obama were in the race. As Mark Schmitt put it, it's what your policies say about *you* that matters, and it was a way for him to distinguish himself.

Moreover, none of the examples of affairs Ezra lists are affairs that were ongoing at the time of the candidacy. Had Rudy's thing with Judi Nathan come out in 2007, while he was still hypothetically married to Donna Hanover, it would have ended his campaign immediately.

The difference, of course, is that the other candidates cheating happened many years ago so people don't care anymore. Edwards was only just NOW found to be cheating, and that's bad. If he had cheated on his wife ten years ago, no one would care. People just like a scandal.

wow--brilliant and right-on analysis, must-read for critics of the DC elite and populists like me--what I cannot understand are the nastiness of some of the commenters. Whew!

This is a brilliant thoughtful honest piece and I admire it greatly, as well as some of the comments

Because that was the only place left to pitch the "jury" of likely Democratic primary voters, as long as Clinton and Obama were in the race. by Adam B.

Here we see an excellent example of the backward-facing proof, and as usual (if this is the same Adam B I'm accustomed to seeing take every opportunity to bash John Edwards) the logic is backwards as well. In fact, here we have an excellent example of revisionist dreck.

*If* Edwards was staking out the most progressive, most populist positions, it was not to "distinguish himself" from Obama or Clinton nor did he shift his positions leftward "as long as Clinton and Obama were in the race." (At the risk of repeating myself for the 100th time) Edwards looked back on the 2004 race, and decided to go with his gut rather than the mealy-mouth pap he'd been handed by Wolfson in 2004. Between 2004 and 2006, he worked to refine and further develop the "Two Americas" concept. In launching his candidacy in December 2007, he made it clear and he remained consistent that he had thrown off the cautious poll-driven rhetoric and was going full-bore at the issues he felt most important. His "Plan for One America" is a progressive blueprint that neither Clinton nor Obama equaled and both copied.

By his human failings, John Edwards may have lost the mantle of leading a strong progressive populist movement. But without him in the race to begin with, the poverty would never have been spoken, universal health care would be (and now probably is) a pipe dream at best, and there would have been a race to see whether Clinton or Obama could out-macho the Republicans on national security. Hell, it was Edwards who finally killed the GWOT rhetoric.

If the messenger of progressive populist politics has been silenced for now, the politics of the movement has not. No thanks to folks like Adam B.

Since the scandal broken, I've been trying to work out the progressive that Edwards shouldered aside as he "selfishly put his personal ambition above his purported policy goals" ...

... and I can't find one. Kucinich was a non-starter with or without Edwards in the race. Dodd had some progressive cred, but Biden and Dodd canceled each other out. Without Edwards in the race, half of the progressive policy that either Obama or Clinton set out would have been omitted.

The bench for progressive populist candidates is so shallow that there was nobody being pushed aside by Edwards candidacy.

The ultimate gall is Russ Feingold, complaining about Edwards taking a stronger progressive populist line than Russ ... when Russ was not running.

Without someone pushing a progressive populist agenda with an outside shot of actually getting nominated ... Russ Feingold gets to be the Liberal Hero in the Senate without doing the hard grueling work of running for President.

Ezra,

Thank you for not being afraid to talk about Edwards. I campaigned for him and Elizabeth for a year. I don't regret it for the exact reason you wrote...he made the Democratic field more progressive...more humane...It is thanks to Edwards. Sadly,if Americans had been so passionate about his policies as they are about his sexual encounters, they might have known what he really stood for....he stood for all of us.

Edwards actually dropped the vacuous "hope" rhetoric way back in November of 2003 when Axelrod was demoted. Did people think the "Two Americas" was referring to Harvard/Yale rivalry or the Knickerbocker/Bohemian schism?

Thanks, Ezra. I agree. Phonies don't take the long, hard route of Populism. Instead, phonies fall off the log and become triangulating corporatists. In America, being a Populist involves rowing uphill without a financial paddle. The Edwardses take their politics very seriously and SINCERELY.

The Establishment hates Edwards because he regards them as corrupt suck-ups. Yes, they are. He's also too action-oriented to endure Washington's byzantine legislative process. Yes, it is.

One the Hunter videos shows Edwards's handwriting sample. Last fall I clipped the screen and analyzed it to see what manner of political figure he was (i.e., worthy of donations?). Edwards possesses a very demanding conscience with firm ideas on right and wrong, but also very very strong physical drives. Edwards is overcharged with what Hillary would describe in Bill as "force of nature." Like Clinton, he handles 36-hour days effortlessly, possess stores of energy and overabundant optimism, and has unruly, Kennedyesque hair.

The lower case g's hint of literary skills. His capitals are unpretentious. The middle zone is thin and joyless (he got the haircuts and house out of insecurity to announce, "I have arrived"). His d-stem is very tall--evidence of taking great pride and responsibility in his work. In summary, it was a fine handwriting to have. With that, plus the electability, delivery, and the issues, I became a supporter.

Also analyzed others' handwriting. Barack's handwriting has great fluidity, but his compromising k reminded me of Ronald Reagan's all-too-short l's and d's and Bill's too-short upper zone. I thought Hillary's handwriting very fine, though a bit full of itself.

Thanks, Edgery. Adam B. seems to have memory loss. John Edwards ran in 2004. Neither Barack or Hillary ran that year that I can remember. That was when he bravely went out and talked about 2 Americas. The last time 2 Americas was talked about was in 1968. (I'm reading "Nixonland". After 2004 he refined that and consistently kept moving ever left. It's because of what he believes, not some sort of calculation to capture the paltry liberals. It was to capture the hearts and minds of those who have been ignored. He did believe in the power of his voice and his message. Call it pride or call it passion.

no matter how brilliant his ideas were, his recklessness and inability to tell the truth would have been dangerous qualities in a president.'
i, for one, am deeply thankful that we did not reach this moment in time, with john edwards as the nominee.
what one chooses to do in one's private life is a personal decision, unless it can compromise the well-being and security of other people....in this political climate, he would have created a disaster.
if his purpose in the design of things was to enlarge and affect the thinking of others with his policy, then he affected some good...and that is the most charitable way to remember him.

Thank you so much for writing this. Other people have said this before, and I have as well, so I won't go off on it too much, but I don't think that Edwards' affair even discredits his love for his wife. It may, but I am not the one who can tell or who should care, but many people cheat and still love their spouses. It just means he's human, he has failings, he makes mistakes. More important, however, is everything you said: this man (and his wife) changed the dynamic of this election, and while I wish more of his policies were being pushed forward, I am so glad that he ran and pushed the party toward progressivism rather than timidity. It always bothered me that the same people who accepted Al Gore's genuine leftward shift discredited Edwards' similar shift. Feingold is wrong, simply because Edwards did not ride a wave of liberalism, but rather nurtured that sentiment. I am very grateful to him for that, and would vote for him again given the chance. This was a beautiful piece, and I was glad to read it.

The post is great -- and I do think it's true that affairs should get in the way with politicians and their credentials. But in the other way, this stuff is really part of the political dog eat dog world and its kind of like taking away from a thriving ecosystem. Edwards was my pick...but I guess this is just the way it goes. It really is -- how far will a candidate go to get elected for the Oval Office? In the end -- the press know and the public knows -- its all about what the candidate has to offer. I wrote a post on this over at my blog here's the link: http://culturedecoded.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/is-john-edwards-finished-lets-let-the-press-decide/

pacer521 author of culture decoded

The major question I have about this whole situation has been answered. Most of the media has surely been vicious, all the while bemoaning how awful poor Elizabeth must feel.

The minor question I have will probably never be answered - I just cannot understand how anyone who had Elizabeth Edwards at home would jeopardize the well-being of his marriage for a "spiritual" floozie like the one the Senator apparently chose. Good grief!

all you edwards apologistas are pathetic.

the phony IS STILL LYING TO EVERYONE!

the phony is denying his own child!

Elizabeth Edwards is a LIAR who helped perpetuate a coverup and payments to Rielle.

Give us a break with the bull! John Edwards has shown himself to be a liar and a total disaster of a man and a politician and yet you still defend him?

Fact is, Edwards is a loser. When he ran with Kerry he didn't fight AT ALL, he curled up like a possum and got kicked around.

L-O-S-E-R.

and so is Ezra. mama said wonk you out? what are you, twelve?

I just cannot understand how anyone who had Elizabeth Edwards at home would jeopardize the well-being of his marriage for a "spiritual" floozie like the one the Senator apparently chose.

Maybe it was the pain and despair he was trying to escape from that led him into having an affair much like people who turn to drugs to escape.

He had just been through having to witness his wife who he obviously loves deeply go through painful cancer treatments and wonder if she would survive.

Despair and stress can drive people to do destructive things to escape.

Freakshow: "L-O-S-E-R"?
What, are you twelve?

Fact is you said nothing of merit. Now, you can sit at home and think about it, because mama's not driving you to the mall tonight as punishment for your adolescent behavior.

You nailed it, Ezra.

Obviously this isn't JRE's shining hour, yet didn't kill anyone, out a covert CIA agent, rape the environment, further impoverish the poor, rob retirees of their pensions, or take health care away from children.

If we wait for perfection, we will never have leaders, spouses, children, or friends--and will be unable to live in our own skins.

JRE stood up to big corporations for the common good. THAT's why entrenched powers hate him with a vengeance.

Big corporations have a stranglehold on our democracy and Edwards dared to stand up to them.

Unless you believe him that he is not the father (I think most people don't) he simply is now unfit for public office. Illegitimacy is a problem and we can't have a pres., an a.g., or whatever, having a child he has publicly repudiated. It's really beyond his having an affair at this point. It's about the consequences, and about the way he behaved upon discovery -- lying, repudiating, slinking into a men's room in terror. There might have been a higher road to take in all this than he has -- and certainly he should have NEVER given press conferences with his wife about her cancer, under the circumstances, for starters. In that way he made himself, his character and his life the focal point, rather than his positions or political intentions.

"His $400 haircut was somehow far more damning than McCain’s $500 loafers."


Loafers may last longer than haircuts, but you can get a good pair of loafers for under a hundred bucks.

The larger point is McCain wasn't browbeating the "rich" for having money (or spending it) or saying they weren't doing their fair shair, McCain wasn't trying to punish "the rich" for having money and spending it on goods and services that end up employing so many people in the middle class. McCain wasn't trying to make everybody who was able to make a house payment on a modest home and pay for cable feel rotten because they were somehow responsible for the "two Americas". McCain wasn't making himself rich at the expense of employees let go or budgets cut because of the huge tort settlements he was able to extract out of juries against big companies using questionable tactics.


When a Republican ends up being a philandering sex fiend or (horrors!) a closet homosexual, liberals trot out the charge of hypocrisy with great relish. These supposedly moral people having all the sex or being gay isn't the problem, they say, so much as the huge hypocrisy of these folks who supposedly hold themselves up as moral paragons.


Apparently, folks on the left have a harder time recognizing hypocrisy when exhibited by their fellow travelers. Anyone with even a mildly objective eye could see the problem, and the easy target, Edwards made of himself with $400 haircuts and speechifying about two Americas. "Yeah, sure, John, there are two Americas. One where you get $400 haircuits, and the other where you blame me for--and plan to tax my $50,000 a year salary in order to 'solve'--poverty."

That's right: if you care about where John Edwards puts his willy you are ruining this country.

Can I care about the fact that I see John Edwards as the kind of political rube and generally duplicitous simian that most folks on the left regard Dubya as being? Is that all right.

Frankly, I don't care where he put his willy. His self-serving legal career, that's a little more off-putting. His blatant hypocrisy about his wealth (what's good for the goose was never, apparently, good for the gander) was something I found irksome. His typical, failed liberal blame America, tax-the-rich (oh, and then everybody else, too, sorry about that, was that not what I said, whoops, my bad), blame the corporations, redistribute the wealth sort of policy solutions made me think he was a boob. You know, like Dubya. Only a lot worse, from my perspective.

Frankly, after the minor blogger scandal Edwards had, I knew he was incompetent, unable to manage even the simplest aspects of his campaign. So I knew he wasn't going to get the nomination. And, if by some miracle he had, I knew he would never win the presidency. And this sort of vindicates that view, for me, so . . . too bad. I kind of wish he was the Democrat nominee. It would certainly make the current news cycle, and the Democrat convention, more interesting.

"Yet, somehow, the establishment manages to forgive him [McCain]."

False. When John McCain cheated on his wife he had just returned from 5 years of torture in a North Vietnamese gulag. And, oh by the way, he wasn't running for PRESIDENT. And let's not forget that he actually CARED for the woman he was cheating with, eventually marrying her, unlike your hero-douchebag John Edwards, who was just looking for some disposable female with a pulse (he found one).

John McCain makes no excuse for the stupid immoral choices he made as a young man, unlike said uber-douchebag, who has been lying, obfuscating and paying people off with campaign funds for the last year.

But now your golden boy is cornered, isn't he? Cornered like the narcissistic, empty-suit, lying jackass I always suspected he was.

The press isn't coddling McCain. If anything, they've turned their backs on this story to protect Edwards. But it's not going to work. Sooner or later John Edwards is going to have to tell the truth, hopefully to a jury.

Russ Feingold's quote bears repeating:

The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record. When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn’t, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you’re playing the game in Washington and another way when you’re running for president, there’s some of that going on.

John Edwards is the only "progressive" Presidential candidate I know of who managed to convince full-time volunteers not to vote for him.

As far as I know, not even Hillary's campaign managed to do that.

A haircut last 2 weeks, a good pair of loafers can last a decade or longer, you honestly don't see the difference in the two? Can you live in a thicker polital fog?

Ten years, eh? Thanks for the tip. Being of the humble upper-middle class, neither I nor anyone I have ever known could tell you how long a $500 pair of shoes last.

For all I knew, a master cobbler might fashion a $500 pair of shoes from fine filaments of precious metals hand-woven into a delicate but luminous fabric that wears away over the course of a single evening from a coruscating bit tasteful high brilliance to a warm low hypnotic glimmer.

So it's not like that. They last ten years. Good to know.

Let me ask you, for the shoelaces on a $500 pair of shoes, can you use just the regular kind from the drugstore? Or do you need ones with, like, special aglets that can only be made in a particle accelerator or something?

Guess what? You have no fucking idea what goes on in other people's marriages.

Really? Cause I believe I just heard a story around here somewhere about someone being an adulterer...

If you want to argue that it shouldn't matter, thats certainly something worth debating. But to argue that its solely a private matter is being really blind to political realities. I appreciate that you might want to "move on" so to speak, but there are many of us out there who think that acts like this are despicable. Good luck.

This was really well done, Ezra, one of very few things written since the affair was exposed that's thoughtful and informative.

I really hope that at some point in the future, Edwards can find a way to continue contributing to the public what he has to offer in a way that will allow him and his family more security from the harms of political life. We all grow thicker skins over time, but we all long for the days before we had to.

My girlfriend makes the astute observation, or comparison, between John Edwards and Harvey Dent.

"Its not that anyone expects politicians to be perfect. but if you run a campaign as the golden boy, you'd better effing be a golden boy because no one will forgive you when it becomes public that you're not"

I like the analogy, although I'm not sure it quite fits the transition that Ezra astutely points out. They can sign up Aaron Eckhart for the movie version, though. I wonder who Batman becomes then...

You're right Ezra. The fact that the guy cheated on his dying wife wouldn't have been that big of a deal. I'm sure the press would've forgiven it, and wouldn't have made it into the story of the campaign at the expense of all the important issues we face. They would've tried, but the liberal blogosphere would've been able to talk reason to them. I mean, Edwards is just as sympathetic as the POW who cheated 30 years ago, and just as politically brilliant as Clinton...right?

Upon reflection, the media would surely have said "Hey, this isn't so bad. I mean, none of those other cheating whiteys fucked around only a year ago while their wife had cancer and then paid to cover it up, but we'll let it go, because, hey, we love giving Democrats breaks on stuff like that."

Right. Here's some advice: if you're going to go back and revise your position on something you've recently posted on, don't eat a burlap sack full of paint chips in between.

Edgery/MontanaMaven: It's undeniable that Edwards moved to the left from 1998 to 2004, and again from 2004 to 2007. Health care's a perfect example. Or take a look now at his post-campaign abandonment of his College for All nonprofit.

Moreover, the idea that a guy who started off as a community organizer in Chicago wasn't going to talk about poverty until Edwards raised the issue? Come. On.

Um, all Democratic candidates mention poverty. It's part of the usual laundry list. What made Edwards different was that it was the centerpiece of his campaign. Everything from health care to world peace was part of this vision of a nation and a world without poverty. It was the essence of the statement "it's time to become patriotic about something other than war."
I'm afraid that we will see that the fall campaign will be framed, as always, in the context of an imperial and Superpower vision of America. not on the cruelty of poverty or the abuse perpetrated on the taxpayers by the financial flim flam artists and shape shifters that Naomi Klein talks about. We will hear about personal responsibility more than why so many African Americans are incarcerated. We will hear about security, but not about removing mercenaries from Iraq or the streets of New Orleans.
We will hear about the fictitious global war on terror instead of energy companies holding us hostage.
I hope that I'm wrong and that the word "union" will be talked about over and over. That employees should have choice. Because a good job is the best way out of poverty.

Edwards' leftward drift didn't seem to bother you in 2004 when you supported his run then, Adam.

Wow. Didn't realize I was that important to be tracked like that. Yes, I preferred Edwards among the 2004 candidates; I believed him then. I was deeply disappointed in his campaigning as VP later that year, and didn't believe who he said he was in 2006-07.

Adam B: Let's set aside the "community organizer" for once--it was 20 years ago, for 3 years. Did it inform Obama's later choices? Likely. Did it make him the candidate who pushed poverty issues to the forefront? No.

As for the program you claim Edwards abandoned, you are simply demonstrating your penchant for twisting information about Edwards to suit your narrative. The College for Everyone program was a 3-year pilot program developed and put into place in 2005 to test whether such support to disadvantaged children would increase high school graduation rates and college attendance. Amazingly enough, 3 years after 2005 is ... 2008! You do know what a "test program" is, don't you?

I've never been entirely convinced by the "elites hate Edwards because he's a populist" theory. I'm sure it's part of the story, but only part. Ditto the nouveau riche theory.

I'd argue that Edwards' status as a TRIAL lawyer is more distinctive and perhaps more relevant in explaining the unreasoning hostility. For Republican elites, hostility toward trial lawyers almost goes without saying. Trial lawyers are a convenient scapegoat for systemic flaws. Hate your healthcare? Don't consider changing the system, just throw out all the malpractice lawyers and everything will be fine. For Democratic elites, I'd theorize it's more a case of intra-professional snobbery. Most (many?) of them are lawyers, but I'd guess vanishingly few of them are TRIAL lawyers, namely solo or small-firm practitioners who represented individual clients in jury trials. Very few students at the elite law school that the DC mafia are likely to have attended will confess to planning on going into solo practice or working for individual clients outside of a non-profit institutional framework. And those students who do have such plans are not likely to be among the class leaders, the law review editors, etc. Edwards is associated in their minds with the dolts they looked down in law school. Anyone who makes a living arguing to a jury can't be all that bright...

Or there's the pretty-boy/too perfect theory. Mitt Romney seemed to generate similar unreasoning hostility on the Republican side. Not sure how to quantify it, but both Edwards and Romney appeared to be genuinely hated by their colleagues.

Again, I have no doubt that populism and nouveau riches are part of the story, but there are some populist and plenty of nouveau rich politicians who don't generate this kind of hostility. (Though I'm hard=pressed to think of anyone else who has a foot in both camps.) There's gotta be more to it...

It bears repeating.

Beyond the media's disdain for Edwards the person. More profoundly, the media was disturbed by his message: that things were not all right. That the bag of goods we have been sold was a a ruse. The press refuses to talk about class because they are comlicit in its persistance and it's not a very simple, easy to transmit message. It requires an ackowledgment that the American enterprise is broken and that tinkering around the edges is too little.

Instead of treating class as a significant, if not a primary issue, it is ofen ascribed in cultural rather than economic terms. Nascar, guns, religion blah blah. Rarely do we talk about in monetary terms.

Well, Edwards was the first significant American politician to make class and economic inequality the issue of the day of recent.

This message does not sit well with the media, and it showed in the poverty of coverage he received.

As a parting note, to all you Feingold is the truth, he disparaged Edwards schtick,thus it must be true.

Feingold is great. I really appreciate him and his contribution as a U.S. Senator. He is my favorite member of that body.

But no one can tell me that Feingold has run on a solely class based message or made poverty a focal point of his Senate platform. Does he talk about? Yes. But it's not his primary focus. Feingold prefers to skew toward civil liberties and anti-war sentiments. All great, but not the same thing.

Edwards, whether you like him or not, did.

Do I find it surprising that many of the "progressive" liberal blogosphere crowd dislike Edwards? No.

The blogosphere tends to be more educated, upwardly mobile, and generally removed from harsh world of American inequaluty. It just does not register too high on their radar. Often, "progressives" use labor, minimum wage and other issues as tools for partisan political gain. But for all the actblues, FISA tirades, Iraq war angst, economics is often tangential to this crowd. Are those other issues important? Damn skippy. But have noticed, to these folks, it seems to be all that matters.

Ezra,
Gutsy and thoughtful, and absolutely, we should not forget the good stuff Edwards has done. But not only was he less progressive in 2004, when he arguably had the opposite effect that his positions did this year, but his focus on poverty as a main campaign theme is counterproductive. Appeals to moral urgency almost always backfire, and understandably so: the main problem we face domestically is not poverty but the features of our economic system that hurt almost all Americans, especially since the exploding financial crises. Ironically, Edwards’s more conservative campaign in 2004 had the better approach on this issue by emphasizing “Two Americas,” one for the rich and another for *everybody else.* Unfortunately, despite its valuable aspects during both campaigns, his approach to politics seems less thought out, less grounded, than it ought to have been and needs to be in the future. Effective politics functions at its center by building coalitions and movements based on people’s needs and how they overlap with those of others they might not have identified with previously. It doesn’t work by focusing on a cause outside of most people’s experience, which balkanizes the electorate, leaving people emotionally susceptible to various backlash tactics while flattering those susceptible to the often short-lived moral projects a campaign may highlight.

Right on, Ezra! John Edwards is a good man who has made a terrible mistake.

Having spoken to Senator Edwards on several occasions, having spoken to cohorts and friends of his, and having seen him bravely and gently stand down a crowd that was verbally attacking a woman at one of his town hall meetings, I can tell you John Edwards is no phony.

It's because of John & Elizabeth that the Democrats are talking about health care, global warming, standing strong for labor, and ending the undue influence of lobbyists in Washington.

Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Gandhi, FDR, JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr. all erred in the same way, yet they were considered great leaders...

John and Elizabeth had every right to run...Their campaign was all about taking bold, courageous steps, and not accepting politics as usual...Why should they let the media or the chance of their private lives becoming public deter their efforts?

John and Elizabeth's love of their country inspired legions of supporters, whom the press chose to ignore...We are not going away!

Kathy, Edgery (I remember you from Kos), and Montana Maven: you are my people.
The comments on this blog from our perspective have been deeply heartening. Thanks to Ezra for opening the conversation.