MIsguided Prosecution of John Edwards

[From article]
the rule of law, which depends on clear rules and dispassionate judgments. Every wrong — even flagrant wrongs, played out in public and involving mind-boggling deceit — isn’t a crime. By stretching the laws to try to reach Edwards, the government is creating the predicate for ambiguous, politicized prosecutions, perhaps of figures much less blameworthy than the reviled man currently in the dock. John Edwards belongs under a rock, but not in jail.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/creep_not_crook_jV1SOEELKEimUHcAqv1WeI

A creep, not a crook
The people v. John Edwards
Rich Lowry
New York Post
Last Updated: 12:49 AM, April 24, 2012 Posted: 10:43 PM, April 23, 2012

John Edwards Crashes to Earth

[From article]
"Edwards was a gifted orator who stirred audiences with his advocacy for the poor and the common man.

But he turned out to be a sleazy fraud and hypocrite.

It was five years ago -- on June 7, 2007, to be exact -- that Edwards, sounding as sincere and earnest as a multimillionaire trial lawyer can, instructed the nation's dads on how to uphold family values, as he accepted a Father of the Year award in Manhattan.

"It's true: Your children learn not just from what you say but from what you do," he told the National Father's Day Committee attendees."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/edwards_baby_booty_rap_cVTTG3lcePYpez9vey0k4O

Edwards' 'baby booty' rap
Feds indict disgraced pol over campaign's love-child 'hush fund'
By ANDY SOLTIS and CARL CAMPANILE
With Post Wire Services
New York Post
Last Updated: 9:02 AM, June 4, 2011
Posted: 1:10 AM, June 4, 2011

The Liar's Party

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/05/blumenthal_and_the_liars_party.html

May 22, 2010

Blumenthal and the Liars' Party

By Bruce Walker
American Thinker

Media Bias Against Palin No Surprise

Weinstein makes the case for media bias against Palin and in favor of Edwards. But the same can be said about bias against McCain and for John Kerry. If it was a mistake for McCain to choose Palin for VP why was it not a mistake for Kerry to choose Edwards? I do not agree with Weinstein that Palin was a mistake. She energized Republican supporters. She shows how much of a attractive candidate she is by her high support among ordinary American voters.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/02/19/2010-02-19_palin_vs_edwards_a_case_study_in_media_bias.html?page=0

Palin vs. Edwards, a case study in media bias
By Jamie Weinstein
Special to NYDailyNews.com
Friday, February 19th 2010, 3:00 PM

John Edwards Politician, Not a Democrat?

"Since Friday, ABC has devoted 60 minutes and 23 seconds to interviews covering the most salacious details of John Edwards' sex scandal. Yet, the network's anchors have refrained from referring to him as a Democrat. 20/20 on Friday spent the entire hour talking to Andrew Young, a former top Edwards aide who allegedly holds a sex tape involving the politician. The D-word was never used by reporter Bob Woodruff."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2010/02/01/abc-devotes-over-60-minutes-john-edwards-avoids-labeling-him-democra

ABC Devotes Over 60 Minutes to John Edwards, Avoids Labeling Him a Democrat

By Scott Whitlock (Bio | Archive)
Mon, 02/01/2010 - 12:38 ET

Edwards' Money Lady

“When he sat down in a chair, Bunny told him, ‘That was one of President Kennedy’s favorite chairs to sit in!’ I know he had to have been smitten with that fact, too.” Huffman adds with a chuckle, “The very next week, the Edwards people called and they asked her for a million dollars.” 

[. . .]

she came to despise Young, who persisted in shaking her down, even after she told him the well was dry because she was having “liquidity issues.” According to the confidante, Young cheekily suggested that she take out a mortgage or perhaps sell some of her priceless paintings, to meet the "need." It was at this point that Bunny Mellon had enough."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-01-29/john-edwards-sugar-mama/

John Edwards' Sugar Mama

Daily Beast
by Lloyd Grove
January 29, 2010

John Edwards' Unique Abilities

"He is a failure as a father and a husband and even managed to disgrace the business of being a politician, which is pretty hard to do these days."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/zero_pity_for_sorry_sleazy_ruin_6jdJ0CiKJUfDDs8P0JXj2O

Zero pity for sorry, sleazy ruin of a man
Last Updated: 7:14 AM, January 24, 2010
Charles Hurt
New York Post
Posted: 4:52 AM, January 22, 2010

National Enquirer Gets No Respect

There is no rational reason for disrespecting the National Enquirer. They enjoy the same legal standard as all media with regard to libel laws. It is a matter of elitism with what Thomas Sowell calls "the educated class," which thinks itself better than the rest of us.

When R.W. Apple received an award at the Harvard School of Government from the Neiman Foundation, he spoke on this issue. I said to him, the so-called irresponsible press often publishes a story earlier than the responsible press. And on occasion the responsible press gets it wrong. Instead of responding to the question he asked me to give an example. 

I said the previous year Bob Woodward got an award in the same room. I asked Woodward why he denied that he was a briefer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff before he was a journalist. That was never reported by the responsible press.  Instead of responding to the example, Apple said to me, "You keep coming here and asking the same question?"

 * * *

News
Apple Blasts Media in Speech
Veteran Reporter Warns of Irresponsible Journalism
April 9, 1993 12:00:00 AM
Harvard Crimson
By JOHN A. CLOUD


New York Times reporter R.W. Apple Jr. railed against the current state of American journalism in a speech at the Kennedy School of Government.
[. . .]
Brandishing a copy of the National Enquirer along with a recent Newsweek article, Apple said the "standards and practices and mores" of irresponsible journalism are increasingly seeping into mainstream news outlets.

[. . .]

Apple said the Flowers' allegations of martial infidelity against Bill Clinton appeared first in The Star, the tabloid sold widely in supermarkets. He said reporters who had investigated Clinton in 1990 and 1991 had heard her story but rejected it because she lacked concrete proof and corroboration.

[. . .]
"We had all allowed our agenda to be set by a supermarket tabloid...that we would not give shopping cart room to," Apple said.

[. . .]

Apple said "vigilance on the part of journalists," a "multiplicity of [news] outlets" and public pressure for ethical standards might help reduce irresponsibility.


http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=220857

* * *

"It is more difficult for the Enquirer's editorial staff to win the respect that they feel is their due.

[. . .]

"There's still this stigma that the content is not true until proven correct by the rest of the media. They have a very uphill battle to fight."

[. . .]

Emily Miller, a columnist for politicsdaily.com, recently wrote an impassioned essay asking whether the Enquirer deserves a Pulitzer Prize for its political reporting: "The time has come for the media elite to admit that it has an excellent investigative reporting team, which broke the biggest political scandal of 2009, the John Edwards affair."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/enquiring_minds_Wea3zhhuzN1c4s8qNJdVKP

Enquiring minds get news first

Tabloid's hoping a string of scoops rocks circ, ad sales

By ANDREA SACHS

New York Post

Last Updated: 11:14 AM, January 22, 2010

Posted: 1:02 AM, January 17, 2010

Book Excerpt About John Edwards' 2008 Campaign


http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster
A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.
By John Heilemann & Mark Halperin
Published Jan 9, 2010

Captain Louis Renault

Captain Louis Renault

Expressing shock at John Edwards' proposal for mandatory health care
screening Boston Herald editors show they are clueless about what the
psychiatric industry has been doing for many years. (Herald editorial staff,
"Big Brother health care," September 9, 2007) Saying "mandatory medical checkups
would be a step toward a repellent dictatorship" shows there is no awareness
that began many years ago.
Civil commitment statutes show that campaign contributions created a system
of taking freedoms based upon personal opinions. Psychiatrists have been
"empowered and dangerous" for many years.
Illinois has a law requiring pregnant woman and all persons zero to 18
years to be evaluated for mental health. George Bush has a New Freedom
Initiative which has only been minimally funded to do the same for all citizens.
Why are the nefarious machinations of psychiatrists and their drug company
mentors been ignored by the watchdogs of American freedom, the journalists? Is
there a prejudice among us?
Asking "What will happen to them? (people who don’t choose to see a doctor
when there’s nothing wrong) Prison terms?" Well, that already happens when there
are allegations and accusations of mental illness. Why not do it for rashes and
broken legs too?
The editors lament "the government would make medical decisions." Well,
duh. They already do that with accusations of mental illness. Police make
medical diagnoses now. Relatives, neighbors, lovers make psychiatric diagnoses
that are reported by journalists. Why not for real illnesses too? Why
discriminate against the psychiatrists? They claim to be human too.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

Big Brother health care
By Herald editorial staff
Sunday, September 9, 2007

John Edwards wants to coerce us all into good health. He’s said so flat out and
practically nobody has called him on it.

This isn’t another nanny-state proposal. If he could pull it off, it would be
Big Brother in the saddle, empowered and dangerous.

In Tipton, Iowa, last week, discussing the health plan he would try to get
enacted, Edwards said, “It requires that everybody get preventive care.” And he
elaborated a little bit, “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose
not to go to the doctor for 20 years.”

For example, women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to
find the “first trace of problem.” (Edwards’ wife has breast cancer.)

These quotes come from an Associated Press story that was ignored by the
gatekeeper newspapers in Washington and New York. Even so, candidates monitor
each other and you’d think one of them, especially a Republican, would have
raised questions. (The Captain’s Quarters blog alerted us to the issue.)

Edwards left a host of questions screaming for answers. If his $120 billion
system (which hasn’t been specified in detail) covers “every single American,”
as he has been at pains to stress, it can’t expel people who don’t choose to see
a doctor when there’s nothing wrong, can it? What will happen to them? Prison
terms? Fines? Bigger co-pays? Getting thrown into a police car for a trip to a
physician, where the hapless miscreants have to read gardening magazines from
1999 until the doctor could see them?

This would mean the government would make medical decisions - and waste
resources right and left, since most checkups will find nothing wrong. At what
age would doctor visits for adults have to begin? Where professional societies
disagree on what should be done and when (as they have with breast cancer), who
decides?

Requirements may well be an essential part of arranging health care - an
individual mandate to carry insurance is the heart of the new Massachusetts
health plan for example, just as auto coverage is mandatory in many states. But
mandatory medical checkups would be a step toward a repellent dictatorship.
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorial/view.bg?articleid=1030204

Get a Spine!

Get a Spine!

John Edwards' spokesman, David E. Bonior said, “Since they have nothing
real to use against him, Coulter’s resorting to the classic right-wing strategy
of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion.” (ADAM NAGOURNEY, "G.O.P.
Candidates Criticize Slur by Conservative Author," The New York Times, March 4,
2007)
If being homosexual is no longer illegal, how can an allegation of being
homosexual be a slur or a smear? But even if it were a slur, it is speech
protected by the U.S. Constitution. Due to the pervasive spinelessness of
political leaders the number of words prohibited in the public discourse grows
each year.
If these alleged leaders would grow or purchase spines, perhaps we could
have a rational discussion about issues of substance instead of the inane
discussions that pass for debate.

--
Roy Bercaw, Editor
ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA

March 4, 2007
The New York Times
G.O.P. Candidates Criticize Slur by Conservative Author
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, March 3 — Three of the leading Republican presidential candidates on
Saturday denounced one of their party’s best-known conservative commentators for
using an antigay epithet when discussing a Democratic presidential contender at
a gathering of conservatives here.

The remarks by Ann Coulter, an author who regularly speaks at conservative
events, were sharply denounced by the candidates, Senator John McCain of
Arizona, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Their
statements came after Democrats, gay rights groups and bloggers raised a storm
of protest over the remarks.
[...]