Planet Abell

When his corruption trial ended yesterday without a conviction on any of six counts John Edwards was all about John Edwards again, looking for love in all the wrong places ... again. Redemption comes to those who wait, not those who ask. OJ had it right: After he was acquitted of double murder he let his lawyers announce a fund to find the real killers and lived in the shade for as long as ego would allow . Edwards thought instead that  the Anthony Weiner gambit was the way to go. This is neither colossal misjudgment nor uncharacteristic hubris from a guy who thought that going to Haiti after that country's devastating earthquake was a good idea. Like many others I thought the prosecution was a bad thing, probably political — but that's about process and the next prosecution and the rule of law, not about the " awful, awful " things that this once rising star did while he was on the ascent. There isn't much more to say, so, from the archives, here...

It's rare for someone in the moral cesspool that is often public life to be as utterly shameless as John Edwards, so I feel compelled to write a few things down to keep track of it all. Let's see: You have an adulterous affair with a woman, from the office, who is younger than your dying wife, whose incurable cancer is a matter of public record. You apparently have unprotected sex with this woman. A child is born, and you deny paternity so she will read all about that in a few years. You not only pointedly lie about all this but you convince or force other people step up to publicly support your lie. You say you will take a paternity test you cannot be compelled to take and have no intention of taking because you know it will expose your lie, a litigator's trick that is slimy even by litigator standards. All this is going on as you try to get elected president of the United States. Disclosure of your sins during the campaign or after your election would stigmatize your ...

O bama will win convincingly. Hillary will place, pushing Edwards to third, but Obama's margin of victory will exceed his eight points over both in Iowa, and his near cornering of the market of self-described independents will be a dominant general election narrative. Hillary will portray the loss as entirely media/momentum driven, citing the only five days since Iowa (she has already begun to put out the message that the race really beings in California). Edwards, who has declared he is in the race through the convention, just needs to stay in the hunt, and he will. If he remains in the race much past New Hampshire it will only serve to emphasize Obama's claim as the more legitimate agent of change versus Clinton. The Democratic nomination is now Obama's to lose. Still, for the superstitious, consider these facts: One -- and only one -- modern-day candidate has lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and gone on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency: Bill Clinton ...

O K – so the most composed person at the Democratic debate was Brian Williams. And Dennis Kucinich seemed mainstream by comparison to Mike Gravel. And Joe Biden didn’t muck up his a Calvin Coolidge moment by being even slightly verbose about being too verbose. But anyone looking for something other than lackluster job interviews was bound to be disappointed despite the chorus of hype by every MSNBC talking head on the payroll. It's a shame that neither Barack nor Hillary showed off why they are considered first tier candidates rather than maybe just the best of the lot at raising money (ask Howard Dean about the difference). What is Edwards waiting for -- and I don't mean the suspiciously long time he took to answer a question about who his moral authority is (I guess Edwards' opposition to gay marriage stems in equal parts to "my lord," his wife and his father). The First Taste is -- Dull People: these early debates are for political junkies. Given NBC’s onerou...