Radiating all the vigour and enthusiasm Kerry had surgically removed at birth, the honey-toned Edwards found himself adored by the media for his "two Americas" stump speech, a Disraelian portrait of Dickensian gloom conjured in the tones of a Depression-era sob-sister.Ha ha. I came up with a Mark Steyn column when I Googled for what I was looking for:
Even if you have never heard it, you know how it goes: there's one America where Dick Cheney's oil buddies are swigging down Martinis and toasting their war profits; but there's another America where "tonight a 10-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm".Oh, what a huckster that John Edwards was!
I embarked on that Google search as I was writing the previous post, disapproving of reasoning/arguing with empathetic anecdotes. I thought it might help you, as you steel yourself against the political rhetoric that comes in the form of anecdotes, to remember that disgraced prettyboy John Edwards and his 2-Americas mascot, the (nonexistent) coatless little girl.
I've been writing about the shortcomings of the human imagination as we get hung up on one thing — such as a person in the room pleading with us — and neglect to think about all the people who aren't here in our presence. But when politicians use anecdotes, they merely paint a picture for us to see in our minds, and the thing that we fail to see may be more real in the world than what's painted in that picture, such as Edwards's nonexistent coatless little girl.
There must be a little girl, you were supposed to think, because her story is specific. She's 10-years-old and I see her there, kneeling by the side of the bed, and it's a cold night.
You can see it — the unseeable nonentity — in your imagination. The anecdote-purveyor clogs up your head with phony pictures. Fight the fake little 10-year old that the ultra-fake politician would use to gum up the imaginative mechanisms of your mind. Feel the oiliness of the fakery as it lubricates those mechanisms, and visualize the things they'd prefer to be left unseen.
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61 comments:
Too bad they did not have any morals.
John Edwards - lawyer, cheater, and North Carolina's gift, when combined with the other John, to Volvo bumpers nation-wide.
You are welcome.
"go with Hillary for a hair upgrade."
Reminds me of the old John Wayne joke: it's real hair, it's just not my hair.
-XC
Seriously, local Texas talk show hosts call Perry, Governor Good Hair.
I should note those are talk show hosts on conservative radio stations.
Barack Obama, John Edwards--the idiocy of the American left personified
It's amazing how pussified candidates become when women are the swing group of the election cycle. Hair? Really? We've got better hair? Trying to pull as many security moms into the soccer mom camp, I guess. I hope NY09 made Jews the swing group to pander to this cycle. "Oy vey," says Obama, "Romney is such a putz."
" the things they'd prefer to be left unseen. "
Ann, you're channeling Frederic Bastiat. I approve. He's smiling down on you from heaven.
So Palin wins by an inch of fullness. Her hair is her best feature.
But Romney's hair is to short. He still looks like the Mormon Missionary coming to tell us whatever we want to hear if we will join up.
I never noticed Perry's hair because his eyes are so expressive.
Do you want to know how much trouble the democrapic party is in right now?
On Tuesday they learned that a Catholic republican got elected in Wiener's old district! To lose this one they had to start some sort of bonfire. This isn't a district that votes for republicans!
It is, however, the "home base" of Chuck E. Cheese Schumer.
Democraps also know they don't, as yet, have the Electoral College "advantage." And, republicans are threatening to change Pennsylvania's "20" ... into columns. Where all the democraps would get are "3." ... And, 17 would be collected by ANY republican.
November 2012 will be a wild ride! Because Obama is useless to them, in their own re-elction bids.
Coming soon? The EURO fails.
Coming soon, too, a bid in the UN that will create a palestinian terrorist state; at least on paper.
What does Obama want? He wants NOT to be any part of the two breaking foreign stories.
Did something happen behind the scenes? YES! With Obama's help 6 Israeli security guards were extracted from the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. However, close to 100 Israelis got extracted. When you include their ambassador. (Who left with the vault combination in his pocket.) And, small children. Women. Staff. And, grandparents. All of whom had been living in Egypt for a very long time.
(At least for some of the 6 days ... Obama found his voice to be cooperative with Bibi Netanyahu?)
The NO SOUP FOR YOU charade has ended.
It's gonna get worse in Europe before it gets worse "over here."
The foreign news doesn't help hillary! Obama got the phone calls.
Oh, well, of course you're channeling Bastiat today.
I've been busy and not checked in for a while.
I'm reading Dick Cheney's book, now. And, I've learned Colin Powell's behaviors were TREASONOUS!
the good news is that both Colin Powell and Condi Rice have not "advanced" among republicans.
Sometimes, you can just sigh relief at the good luck cards the republicans pick up. And, produce.
Kerry and Edwards: Better hair, but no morals or character.
I say the first GOP debater that come on with a Mohawk haircut gets a bonus of 100 Convention points for dedication.
They also may get the youth vote.
And, it turns out, Edwards also has great pubic hair!
"visualize the things they'd prefer to be left unseen."
Like the fact that Obama's mother wasn't really victimized by a health insurance compnay at the end of her life?
I think the world of Michele Bachmann but she's really gotta do something about that hair. It kinda droops down around her head. She's gotta give it some lift. Unfortunately such things are dealmakers or dealbreakers for a pol.
Can we take this as an indication that Prof. Althouse is trying to figure out (by intellectual analysis) how in the heck did she get so thoroughly conned by that grifter? Especially when so many others from the beginning knew him for what he always has been.
If time itself was his demeanor
There’d be no sunlight or a glimmer
Of sunlight landin on the street
Sunsuit girls must be discreet
Sunsuit girls must be discreet
Nursing their fathers locked inside
They masqueraded as his bride
I might like you better
If we slept together
But there’s somethin
In your eyes that says
Maybe that’s never
Never say never
The slump by the courthouse
With windburn skin
That man could give a fuck
About the grin on your face
As you walk by, randy as a goat
He's sleepin on papers
When he'd be warm in your coat
ndspinelli said...
And, it turns out, Edwards also has great pubic hair!
9/16/11 3:27 PM
I do not want to know how you know that!
Can we take this as an indication that Prof. Althouse is trying to figure out (by intellectual analysis) how in the heck did she get so thoroughly conned by that grifter?
No.
Did Kerry have great hair? I never could get past that horrible long horseface of his.
Carol Herman said:
Democrats also know they don't, as yet, have an Electoral College "advantage."
Unemployment is at depression levels in California and yet the Dems have a lock on that state: an enormous Electoral College advantage. Why do you think the holy mantra of the Dems is NO borders? The Mexican invasion is their guarantee of victory in The Golden State. And that invasion if not slowed will soon put Texas up for grabs.
...how in the heck did she [Althouse] get so thoroughly conned by that grifter?
Ever hear of a willing mark?
...how in the heck did she [Althouse] get so thoroughly conned by that grifter?
Ever hear of a willing mark?
If it's hair, Perry's got it. Miss Sarah may be better coiffed, but she ain't in the race just now.
As for the unseen entity, I think we concentrate on what the person speaking is trying to convey to us, especially if we think the subject is important.
Later, we might think of how he might have been trying to hustle us, but, unless our sleaze meter goes, off, I think only Althouse has brain power enough to concentrate on what is being said and all the things that are and might be unsaid.
PS As an example, I said Ann was in a frisky mood last Sunday, answering back so many comments on so many threads.
Now we know Meade was out of town, so we were her substitute husband.
(I feel so used...)
All I see are fat kids.
Everywhere I look - fat kids.
The poor kids? They are fat too.
Seen/Unseen? Let me introduce you to The Forgotten Man.
I think it would be cool to have a bald president.
I like Ike!
The seen and the unseen;
The known and the unknown:
Unless you're friggin' Einsteen
Throw in your cards, hang up the phone.
A little girl with no coat sounds like a good description of a little girl whose father lied about his involvement with her mother and wouldn't publicly acknowledge her as his own until 2 years after her birth.
Hair is important.
Althouse is referring to the hair that is seen.
I put more stock in the hair that is unseen.
Keep re-arranging the chairs on the SS Obamatanic and see where that gets you.
If Hillary was his VP pick, she would just go down with him.
He is a looser and everyone knows it. And joining a failure just makes you a failure to.
Edwards was very bad, and a lot of folks in Madison, the usual suspects, bought him hook, line and sinker.
As I looked at one of the linked stories in the Daily Mail I saw the photograph of Andrew Young - the campaign staffer who claimed he was the father. That is pretty creepy as well - I think it would be interesting to check back with Andrew Young in a few years to see what he is up to. You can lose your integrity in a million ways, but that particular manner (being a married man who publicly, falsely, claims paternity of a bastard child to maintain the chance the boss goes to the big dance and you get to go along) is quite bad. The only way anyone would trust him is if he changes his identity.
John Edwards is second only to Barack Obama in the category of frauds. The man claimed he was literally, LITERALLY!, channeling the spirit of a dead girl in court, yet he wasn't laughed off the public stage.
I'll never understand that.
Yeah, well, John Edwards is going to wind up the little girl in a cold prison cell.
Edwards channeled for a dead baby, so why not for a fictional 10-yr old?
And Steyn rocks.
""We've got better vision. We've got better ideas. We've got real plans. We've got a magic hat. And we've got better hair.""
FIFY
@Kenington
I'll never understand that.
I trust you've never sat on a jury.
Edwards is a pathetic person, but that does not mean he was not an effective trial lawyer (the creepy channelling thing aside). Nor does it mean that because Edwards is a pathetic person, all trial lawyers are just like him. And nor does it mean that the jury system is flawed because Edwards managed some pretty big hits on some cases.
Edwards has not been a real lawyer for years. He has been a politician.
Oh, what a huckster that John Edwards was!
Took this long for you to figure that out?
Ann, you're not comparing Rick Perry to John Edwards, are you?
"go with Hillary for a hair upgrade."
Not based on her pic today at Drudge!
YUCK!
If only silky hair and bullshit stories made fantasy economics come true, then every day would be beautiful and the sun would shine always and golden.
Then farcical energy and car companies would be rich and imaginary little girls would be cold and hungry no more.
Oh! In Dick Cheney's book ... he goes back to the veep debates in 2004. What surprised him, given that Edwards was supposed to be a "first class" defense attorney ... was how ill prepared he was for the vice-presidential debate.
Perhaps, you don't remember?
Edwards was asked about the homosexual marriage act ... And, he responded by saying "Mary Cheney is a lesbian."
And, Dick said: "Thanks for your kind words about my daughter!"
Who could forget the hairbrush or the hair pouffing? Clearly, hair is important to those two.
Obama had great hair when he flew the fro. Can't do that anymore, though. His hair now makes him look prim and pinched. Michelle has good hair. But if you look at her high school picture, it had to be the worst hair in Chicago. She figured something out at Princeton and Harvard.
You know, bad times actually helps a candidate "stay in." Bad times for FDR meant he kept getting re-elected. But his main feature was that he could entertain the press!
Obama lacks this skill.
Jay Carney doesn't have it, either. And, I don't think FDR used someone else to "talk to the press." (Eleanor just talked to the unemployed. She seemed to have a great knack at talking to the people.)
Make fun all you want.
You're not going to be able to foretell the future.
You can bet, though, that politicians try to learn their lessons ... not from what you see in front of the cameras. But what goes on behind the scenes.
Oh, and for November 2012, it's not the popular vote ... but the Electoral College vote ... that somehow Pennsylvania republicans want to put into play ... by dividing up the total 20. Among their districts. (Or whatever they're called in Pennsylvania.)
Republican insiders also want to attract the independent voters. This is not done through the "self-select" method used in Iowa. Or even New Hampshire.
One way democraps may try to survive is to start swearing they're going to be cutting the budget ... but it won't involve school vouchers.
John Edwards has long since gone from the scene.
What if "RICK PERRY" becomes the democratic "mantra?"
I thought I heard Jon Stewart did a "schtick" of waking up the day after the president's election ... with "OMG RICK PERRY IS PRESIDENT."
When it's put in as a comedy laugh line, doesn't it look like the republicans haven't, as yet, fielded a "winnah?"
Is the republican shop so closed ... that average businessmen can't run?
Only this really weird parade.
Think about this when you laugh at John Edwards. (Who really was a turkey of a selection.)
I turned against the Democrats when Kerry ran because of his hair. I can't stand the way it sits on his head like mist rising off a lake. It makes me itchy to think of his hair, or the hair of Edwards.
People should not think about their hair. Hair doesn't have nerve endings. It's just another hippy birdbrain thing to think about Hair.
Back in the day - I was absolutely amazed at the way so many of my friends and relatives "loved" John Edwards......I always saw that he was that creepy kind of ambulance chasing lawyer who made a fortune suing doctors (ergo elevated Medical Malpractice coverage) for anyone who had a developmentally disabled or cerebral palsied child....you know - the old 'forceps damage' childbirth scheme he employed to the max....NEWVER trust a lawyer who chases ambulances or works as a collection agent (and BTW - isn't this what most lawyers end up doing to scrape out a living in this culture where we overproduce lawyers with a lot of promises about how they will change the world that never come to fruition?).
AS someone with a developmentally disabled sister, I assure you, we siblings never wanted no stinking John Edwards sleazeballs trying to sue my sainted mother's OB/GYN doc.....who delivered all her other nine healthy children...to us, Edwards was then and still is the scum of the earth kind of person.
And the idea that Edwards had good hair.....as related to Perry.....kind of too sexist to be real, don't ya' think?
Let's remember how he made his money as a lawyer. This should matter.
It reminds me of the times many years ago, when my folks used to say: 'think of all the starving people in Europe.' They stopped saying this when I asked, 'Name Two!'
If Solyndra gets much bigger look for Obama to throw Biden under the bus via 'retiring' from a lengthy career in politics and implying he is taking the rap by doing so. This will allow Ax-Rod to find a middle ground candidate or Hilary as you state (though I believe she knows too much to stay with him after this run)
Ron Klain will see more of the real heat as CoS to Biden via hearings.
And when the One does that, it is over. The question then becomes does he win a state?
He like most hard core liberals is suffering from "welded to his belief system" Syndrome. He is driven to power and appear on top of it, because as Rush has stated he was always covered for by others and not 'allowed' to fail. That gives him a false sense of he knows what he doing.
When in fact, listening to him discuss the economy and how jobs are created, even the most mundane retail clerk or stocker at a grocery store, realizes he never worked in such a role.
Barack Obama is going to suffer a 57-state landslide electoral loss.
Why would somebody as smart as Hillary Clinton willingly hitch her star to this fucking anchor?
He's destroying the Democrat Party and they're going to need someone to pick up the pieces when he's finished with it.
January 31, 2004
In Trial Work, Edwards Left a Trademark
By ADAM LIPTAK and MICHAEL MOSS
In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl.
Referring to an hour-by-hour record of a fetal heartbeat monitor, Mr. Edwards told the jury: "She said at 3, `I'm fine.' She said at 4, `I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing O.K.' Five, she said, `I'm having problems.' At 5:30, she said, `I need out.' "
But the obstetrician, he argued in an artful blend of science and passion, failed to heed the call. By waiting 90 more minutes to perform a breech delivery, rather than immediately performing a Caesarean section, Mr. Edwards said, the doctor permanently damaged the girl's brain.
"She speaks to you through me," the lawyer went on in his closing argument. "And I have to tell you right now — I didn't plan to talk about this — right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you."
The jury came back with a $6.5 million verdict in the cerebral palsy case, and Mr. Edwards established his reputation as the state's most feared plaintiff's lawyer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31EDWA.html
Professor Althouse:
Why did the Judge in that case let him get away with that argument?
I guess his wife lived in the OTHER America than his girlfriend.
Fat Man: just once, ONCE, I'd love to read about a judge who would turn to a John Edwards channeling a child in the womb and say:
Mr. Edwards, just SHUT THE FUCK UP and get on with your closing statement!
I was living in France when those dunderheads were running, and Kerry/Edwards bumperstickers were everywhere. Later it was Obama/Biden.
They have a thing for driving us to disaster.
John Edwards is everything that is scary about plaintiff's lawyers and the Democratic party is a plaintiff's lawyer; so I was about to have cerebral palsy myself when he was a possibility. Ann, seems to have reversed or changed her perspective on Mr. Perry. The Kinkster got weird on the subject of Perry's hair, said that when died he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes blown into Perry's hair. Carol H, that was kind of cool the Orthodox Jews putting the Catholic in the House, hope we live up to the honor. Peggy Noonan pointed out that Weiner had won with 93% of the vote in 2008; wow! what a reversal.
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