Category Archives: John Edwards

Hoosier writes that Edwards stiffs the little people up there, too

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Here we go again. In no way did I solicit this affirmation; I just picked up my ringing phone today and the city editor of the paper in Michigan City, Indiana, told me that he had just written a column telling a tale similar to my own. And I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, and I have never met nor worked with Mr. Rick Richards before today.

Here’s the link to his column, and here’s an excerpt:

Edwards Avoids Average Folks Here
Rick Richards
City Editor, The News-Dispatch
    I’m not sure what to think of John Edwards, but I know what my grandfather would have thought: To hell with him.
    My grandfather was a died-in-the-wool Democrat. When the Great Depression hit, he left West Virginia because he couldn’t get a job in the coal mines, and headed for the small east central Indiana town of Dunkirk, where he found work at the Indiana Glass factory. He didn’t have much of a formal education, but what he knew about glass making machinery would fill textbooks….
    My grandfather believed — as I do — that politics is personal. No, not in a get even personal (as too many in politics believe today), but personal in that candidates shouldn’t be afraid to get their hands dirty by shaking a few that are covered in grease….
    My grandfather didn’t have a degree in political science but he knew a phony when he saw one and I’m sure that if he saw John Edwards, he’d vote for someone else.
    Why?
    Because John Edwards thumbed his nose at Michigan City. Sure he was here, but those of us who work for a living didn’t have a clue. Edwards only had enough time (and he showed up an hour late at that) to talk with about 150 local residents, but only if their pockets were deep enough to hold a big wad of cash or if they were politically connected. And if the rank and file couldn’t be there, then he surely could have spent a few minutes with someone from the newspaper to get his message out to the local voters here.
    Alas, there were no grease-stained – or ink-stained – wretches to mingle with. This was strictly a wine and caviar crowd – most of them physicians – who don’t have to worry about paying their kids’ college tuition, their hospital bills or their mortgage payments….

What can Edwards defenders say to this? Well, suppose they could say that here’s a journalist who felt stiffed personally, so consider the source. In fact, I’m sure they will, because they said the same about me, even though my own story was that he kow-towed to me and my fellow board members, but jilted the folks downstairs. Now it appears that if you are a newspaperman who doesn’t hold in his hands a needed endorsement, you, too will be out in the cold.

But hey, candidates can’t be all things to all people, any more than you or I can. And there’s something about this latest tale that sounds an awful lot like the one I drew your attention to yesterday regarding Barack Obama, and I don’t blame Sen. Obama for that. See 12 people, and 100 will feel neglected. See 100, and 1,200 will gripe. That’s life.

Still — Sen. Edwards has a track record that goes beyond that fact of life. Time and time again, he has blithely brushed off those who are not sufficiently important to him. He does it to an extent that he stands out in this regard among the thousands of politicians I’ve observed closely in my career. And his populist stance imbues that fact with meaning.

What’s the word? Well, I won’t say it again. But Mr. Richards’ grandfather knew one when he saw one.

Hey, AP guy: That’s MY word

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This came in from the AP. It appears that I am part of some vast left-wing conspiracy involving Hillary Clinton (or maybe Obama). Dang. Somebody must have seen Zac Wright and me plotting over coffee:

{BC-SC-Edwards-Authenticity,0901}
{Analysis: Is Edwards real or a phony?}
{Eds: Also moved nationally.}
{An AP News Analysis}
{By RON FOURNIER}=
{Associated Press Writer}=
   NASHUA, N.H. (AP) – John Edwards’ presidential campaign is not so much about the "two Americas" as it is about the two John Edwardses.
   One image of Edwards is that he’s a champion of the embattled middle class and poor, an up-from-his-bootstraps populist waging war against special interests who favor the rich and established.
   The other take: He’s a phony.
   Which is it? Is the Democratic presidential candidate a man of the people, as he says, or the fake his rivals call him?
   It may be that Edwards is not quite either caricature – that the answer, like much in politics, is less black and white than gray, and discerning voters in Iowa and New Hampshire will give Edwards his ultimate gut check.
   "It’s just politics," Edwards said of the questions about his sincerity. "I know who I am. I know I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same person I’ve always been."
   His rivals are working behind the scenes to exploit the "three Hs" – haircut, house and hedge fund. Edwards’ $1,250 haircuts, his new 28,000-square-foot estate in North Carolina and his consulting work with a hedge fund that caters to the super rich undercut his everyman image.
   Some who call Edwards a hypocrite assume that a multimillionaire trial lawyer can’t be an authentic advocate for the poor and working people. That’s nonsense. You don’t need to be blind to help those who can’t see or crippled to aid those who can’t walk, and wealthy families like the Roosevelts and Kennedys had no problem connecting with working-class voters.
   But those fabled Democrats never made lame excuses for making money, as Edwards seemed to do when he claimed to take the lucrative hedge fund job because he wanted to learn more about financial markets.
   The political opportunism of the Kennedys and Roosevelts – as brazen as it was – seems in the rosy glow of hindsight to be less of an issue than it is with Edwards.
   He ran as a moderate Democrat for the Senate in 1998 and the White House in 2004, calling universal health care policies irresponsible and impractical. Now he is more liberal, shifting to the left along with Internet-fed forces within the Democratic Party, and vows to give health care to all.
   After the 2004 election, he stashed his political team on the payroll of a nonprofit anti-poverty group that kept alive his public profile.
   He demanded that all Democratic candidates return their contributions from Rupert Murdoch and executives at News Corp. in a gambit to portray rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as a creature of the corporate establishment. It turned out that Edwards got $800,000 in a book deal with HarperCollins, a subsidiary of News Corp.
   Although he donated his profits to charity, Edwards looked like a hypocrite again.
   A political attack doesn’t need to be right to work, which is one reason why he is on the defensive.
   "I think any time you’re a strong, passionate voice for real substantive change there are very powerful forces that would love to silence you," Edwards said in an interview between campaign stops.
   The theory goes like this: Edwards is viewed as a threat because he embraces bold changes for foreign policy (withdraw from Iraq), health care (universal coverage), education (college for all), and even for his own party (ban lobbyist donations to Democrats and the party).
   These are his solutions for uniting what he calls the two Americas – one for the advantaged and the other for the rest of the people.
   Who are these forces trying to silence him?
   " … In some cases they’re political and in some cases they’re just entrenched power," Edwards says.
   Do they include your Democratic rivals such as Clinton?
   Edwards breaks into laughter. No comment, he says, at least not on the record.
   What he does like to talk about is his storybook life, a tough and tragic narrative that rings familiar to many voters.
   Edwards, 58, was born in Seneca, S.C., to parents who worked at a textile mill. After spending a summer clearing the mill looms – a dirty, dreary job – Edwards graduated from law school and discovered a talent connecting with juries. Along the way, Edwards overcame the nagging feeling that he was not as smart or sophisticated as the students and lawyers around him.
   "It turned out that if you’re willing to work hard enough, you can do OK," Edwards says, though he adds: "I’m still the same 18-year-old boy who went away to college scared to death."
   Edwards squeezed millions of dollars out of personal injury and medical malpractice cases, representing "the kind of people I grew up with" against corporate interests.
   Spending time with Edwards can leave the most cynical person believing that he’s still fighting for those people, driven by the hard knowledge of how short life can be. His son, Wade, was killed in a car accident in 1996 ("I think of him every day.") and his wife, Elizabeth, has incurable cancer ("There have been two huge events in my life").
   That is one John Edwards.
   The question voters need to answer is whether it’s the only one that matters.
   —
   EDITOR’S NOTE: Ron Fournier has covered politics for The Associated Press for nearly 20 years.

And now, for those of you who take interest in the esoterica of journalism… "Analysis" is a word that news people use to allow them to tiptoe up to, if not walk all over, my turf — opinion. Some do it better than others.

The Associated Press is the vanilla news service. It’s great value is that it is good, solid, basic newswriting. You get the who, what, where, etc., presented in a the basic inverted pyramid style, without mucking about with such frills as "why." As I noted about my old colleague Jim Davenport in this post, and about Bruce Smith (somewhat obliquely) in this one, AP writers are expected to write The Official Story of the Day, as unconsciously agreed upon by the great colonial animal composed of the MSM, the talking heads and the Blogosphere. If you want nuts or fruit on your vanilla, you can add it, but that’s up to you — it’s not the concern of the AP.

Consequently — because they do use the Newswriting 101 manual — the writing is flat, matter-of-fact, and yes, boring. Useful, but boring. Because it’s like that, when the AP ventures into "Analysis," which it does daily on a couple of stories per cycle, the parts that read like opinion are particularly jarring against the plain, unassuming style of the rest of the piece.

This piece contained a particularly discordant example of that. In reading it, were you not taken aback when you saw this sentence: "That’s nonsense." It’s like another voice injected itself. Nothing about the tone of the preceding, or following, material seems consistent with that flat statement. The first time I saw it this morning was on a Treo, and I found myself, and I found myself scrolling back to look for the open quotes mark, because surely this was a quote and not the writer himself saying it. The "voice" I had been reading up to that point would not have written that.

But it had. The writer was saying it. It was just really awkward.

A month of meetings

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Consider my last post to be the beginning of a perfect record for September.

Way back when I started this blog, I promised to use it as a medium for reporting on the many meetings, some of them interesting, that we have as an editorial board and never get around to writing about. The idea was not only to disseminate stuff worth knowing, but to lower that ol’ drawbridge to the ivory tower I keep talking about. You know, if someone is talking to us and helping shape our world view, readers should know about it. Transparency.

But as I quickly discovered, you can either have interesting meetings or write about them all in detail — a 24-hour day isn’t enough for doing both. I’ve tried ever since then to, at the very least, get a paragraph or so in about each meeting. I have failed, largely because it’s not that much easier to post something short. Often, it’s harder — if you’re trying to represent the session in a comprehensive, yet brief, way. The old saw about not having time to write a shorter letter has much truth in it. You have to go through all your notes and recordings and video to make sure you don’t miss something — which takes longer than the meeting itself, and which is hard to justify to your overworked colleagues if it isn’t going to help the greater cause of filling the editorial pages.

So here’s what I’m going to try to do: I’m going to say something about every meeting in September, even if it’s just something off the top of my head — even if it’s just the fact that we MET. Anything else I say about each of those meetings will be suggested by your comments — your expressed interest, or lack thereof.

And to show that I am indeed serious about this, here is a brief capsule on each face-to-face contact I had (and for which I find evidence to jog my memory) during the month of August. This is made a lot easier by the fact that I was off and at the beach through Aug. 6, then kept my calendar free of extraordinary meetings that whole next week so I could catch up. And so we begin at almost mid-month:

  • Monday, Aug. 13: John McCain. Well, you’ve already read about this, and if you were so inclined, you even watched video clips. Aside from the meeting I reported previously, I went to hear him speak to my Rotary Club that day, but really didn’t have much to add from that, except it was the biggest crowd I remember at Rotary. (Help me out — any Rotarians who were there remember a bigger one?)
  • Tuesday, Aug. 14: Lunch at the Capital City Club with Teresa Wells, S.C. communications director for John Edwards. Teresa and I had a few sensitive issues to talk out — well, really, just one. She was very professional, and it was very amiable, and we left with her determined to get me back together with her candidate, and me open to such an eventuality. Neither of us changed the others’ mind, but it was — for me, at least — a pleasant meeting. To add a little substance to this, Teresa talked about why she went to work for Edwards and believes he should be the nominee and president. She was particularly impressed by a speech he delivered to the DNC Winter Meeting in Washington back in February. At my request, after lunch she sent me links to video and text of his remarks, which I now finally get around to sharing with you. Beyond that, there’s not much to share with you. Teresa wanted the meeting to be low-key, so I left most of it off-the-record and didn’t rush to write anything about.
  • On the way back to the office from lunch that same day, I stopped at the convention center to shoot a little video of Rudy, which you’ve seen.
  • Wednesday, Aug. 15, we met Sam Brownback, about which you’ve also read, and seen video, and heard audio. I felt like I got a lot out of this meeting — enough that I told my colleagues I wanted to step up the schedule of getting in other candidates we haven’t me before.
  • Tuesday, August 21. I was the only member of the editorial board to sit down with Dr. Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general, who was here on behalf of a group trying to raise awareness of issues relating to chronic disease. Increasingly, as we approach an election year with a smaller-than-ever editorial staff, requests for meetings such as this will either be turned down, or only one of us will be there. A reporter also sat in this time, so I was not entirely alone. I posted these clips from the session.
  • Wednesday, Aug. 22. All of the associate editors and I sat down with Nick Kremydas of the S.C. Realtors Association. Why? Because he’s a mover and a shaker on some hot S.C. issues bearing upon our communities and how they develop, taxation, the relationships between state and local government, etc. We had been impressed when we met with him a year earlier by his grasp of issues, and thought he had a fairly ambitious idea of his role and that of his employers. He’s a man of respect. So we met with him for the same reasons Don Vito met with Solozzo, you might say. The main topic this time was the association’s rather creative proposal for an alternative to impact fees. There was some brief, off-the-record discussion of the column Cindi had written about him the year before. Below you find a rough, unedited clip from the meeting (I started to put together a highlights clip, but just didn’t have the hour or more that would have taken today; this way, you can see once again just how boring unfiltered information can be.)

       

  • That same afternoon, I received Her Majesty’s Consul General, Martin Rickerd, in my office. Also, in my book, a man of respect — but not one that everybody on the board needs to know or talk to. Mike Fitts might have sat in normally, but he was so backed up from the Kremydas meeting that it was pretty much out of the question. I probably would have said no myself (and colleagues who advise my on time management would say I should have refused), but I’m such an anglophile. (I had wanted to fly a Union Jack along with the U.S. flag, but my wife, who is Irish, wouldn’t have it.)
  • Thursday, Aug. 23. Mike and I had lunch with Zac Wright of Hillary Clinton’s campaign (that’s Zac atWrightzac3
    right; I shot him with my phone at the Capital City Club). This was a get-acquainted sort of meeting, ostensibly to start talking about dates when the candidate might come in for something more formal. I had a high old time, and Mike was sort of bored, because it turns out that Zac is from Martin, Tenn., which was on the outer edge of the coverage area for which I was responsible as Gibson County Bureau Chief of The Jackson Sun back in the late 1970s. Although we were a generation out of sync (he worked for Harold Ford Jr.; I had written about his daddy), we knew a lot of people in common, and swapped some good stories. Zac and I plan to get together briefly tomorrow for coffee and talk old times some more. Also, hopefully, he’ll know more about getting Mrs. Clinton in for a meeting.
  • Monday, Aug. 27. Breakfast with Zeke Stokes (Cap City Club, sort of my default location). This had come out of one of those usual "we should get together and catch up" exchanges from when he wrote that letter to defend Mr. Edwards from my meanness. That reminds me — Zeke said it would be OK to publish a memo he had sent Cindi Scoppe re ethics, based on his own scrape with the authorities in that area. I need to go find that and put it up. Anyway, this meeting was probably the impetus for Zeke sending me this heads-up, which I think got him into some minor trouble. Sorry about that, guy.
  • That same day, Joe Wilson spoke to my Rotary. I made some notes, but not about anything substantial. I was just trying to keep up, by scribbling notes on a handout left on the table, with Joe’s desperate attempt to recognize everybody in the room that he thought he should recognize, which is a chore with the biggest Rotary in the state. If I find the notes, and they seem worth it, I’ll post them.
  • Tuesday, Aug. 28. Having requested an edit board meeting ASAP, Jon Ozmint came in that very day. I posted about that already.

On Thursday the 30th, I would have dropped by a Mitt Romney event at Adluh Flour, and the McCain official HQ opening, but I was busy (all I missed at the McCain thing was the unveiling of this video). I had taken the day off to: Pick up my wife at the train station in the wee hours, and drive to Savannah and back for a follow-up appointment with my surgeon down there.

Anyway, as I said — I’ll do better this month. So far, I’m at 100 percent.

This is what conventional wisdom holds to be ‘solid evidence’

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One of the most common criticisms aimed at my infamous Edwards column is that my "evidence" was "thin" or "flimsy"– a mix of casual personal observations and "hearsay" (God forbid we should trust anyone else’s account, right?).

Conventional "wisdom" puts a whole lot more stock in this kind of evidence, which was in the WSJ today:

Edwards, Foreclosure Critic, Has
Investing Tie to Subprime Lenders
By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
August 17, 2007; Page A1

As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.

The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006….

Well, I don’t roll that way. D-Brad doesn’t roll that way. Most of my colleagues do. They treat "Deep Throat’s" suggestion to "follow the money" as some secular equivalent of Holy Writ, brought down on stone tablets from Mt. Vernon.

My problem — and it is indeed a problem, as you can see by watching me struggle with such basic tasks as paying monthly bills — is that I don’t find money very interesting. I don’t find it solid and meaningful the way most hard-headed, sensible folk seem to do. To me it is ephemeral, abstract, gossamer stuff. It’s slippery. Its very fungibility causes me to feel like I’m gazing into a shifting cloud when others see sharp outlines.

I prefer personal observation of an individual’s behavior. Preferably my own observation, but the reliable accounts of others as well. And reliability depends upon the circumstances. When my discrete, reserved assistant, whom I trust absolutely with all that money stuff that so befuddles me and who never says a bad word about anybody, is so struck by a candidate’s callousness that she says something about it, that has meaning to me. When a guy tells me about the candidate jogging by his house after an event was supposed to start, it’s just interesting. But when an independent source sufficiently unimpeachable that he will never speak on the record because it would ruin the connections that give him such access backs it up without my having mentioned it, and even throws in such unnecessary details as the wetness of the candidates’ hair from his post-jog shower, and there are hundreds of sweaty witnesses to the fact that the candidate was two hours late to said event — well, it  becomes memorable, and gathers meaning.

But if the WSJ wants to document the candidate’s insincerity by following the money, fine. Better them than me.

A dialogue on the Edwards flap

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After spending a good bit of time in e-conversation with this reader, I thought I might as well share it with the rest of y’all. This is the message that started it:

From: Amy Holleman
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 9:35 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards and other Candidates

Mr. Warthen,

I continue to disagree with your claim that John Edwards is a phony and just love (note sarcasm) the way you used editorial space to toot your own horn and describe all of the attention you got.  Your editorial response to the responses you got make me wonder who the real phony is here.  While we’re all happy you got a good ego stroke, I hope you have not somehow damaged the reputation of a man who seems to really care.

At any rate, it is not my intention nor desire to figure out how genuine you may or may not be.  I can tell you though, as a person who has "bird-dogged" candidates since I was in high school (I’m in my 30’s now) on various issues, Edwards seems to me to be one of the most genuine politicians I’ve encountered over the last 15 years on the face-to-face level.  I cannot say that I’ve found any other candidate in any party this particular go-round who, face-to-face, seems so genuinely concerned with the problems that the majority of Americans face.  I cannot say that I’ve spoken to any other candidate about issues, such as AIDS, who seems to really care. 

Do I think politicians in general are phonies?  You bet I do.  Politicians, or the majority of them, do not seem to be in "the game" to make the country or world better anymore but for their own power gains.  Am I saying John Edwards is the perfect candidate?  Not at all.  No one’s perfect.  Am I saying that I believe you need to give John Edwards another look?  Not really, your opinion seems to be quite strong and one that probably will not change.  I’ll tell you one thing though, while I would never stifle another’s right to say what he or she wants as I believe strongly in our Constitutional rights, I believe the media hurts the American public more than anyone when it comes to elections.  Where people get off thinking it is OK to tell people how to think, I’ll never know.  The media, especially outlets such as The State and Fox News seem to completely disregard concepts like informing the public in an unbiased manner.

Amy Holleman

To which I replied:

Well, I don’t — think most politicians are phonies. And my somewhat more positive assessment is based on having observed these folks professionally for 30-something years. I’m afraid that my impression of Mr. Edwards is that he is a bit of a standout on this point. Do you believe, for instance, that Barack Obama is a phony? I don’t.

Meanwhile, I agree with you that "the media hurts the American public more than anyone when it comes to elections" — or at least, just as much as. Mostly, they hurt it by shaping everyone’s political vocabulary so that most folks find it difficult to engage anything like my column for what it was — they try to force it into their narrow little polarized boxes, and that makes it into something else entirely, and THAT is what caused all the hullabaloo last week.

I have a great deal of distaste for the way media cover politics in general. And I don’t hold out a lot of hope for it getting better.

Ms. Holleman replied today:

I think the hullabaloo last week was seeing an editorial writer for the only newspaper we have around these parts (the corporate trash that is has become at that) take a candidate that people overall see as sincere.  I can admit to being a fairly liberal democrat (and don’t try to hide it by saying things like "I’m not liberal; I’m progressive"), but I’ve even got a few Republican, Libertarian, and independent-minded friends that were turned off by your column.  These friends are all quite intelligent and do not need the media to tell them what to think; the majority do not read The State but read the article because someone sent it to them.

I do not think the Barack Obama is a phony.  I think Hillary Clinton is, but if it comes down to it, she will have my vote.  I think that McCain, Romney, and Giuliani are all phonies.  I do not think that Brownback, Paul, and Huckabee are phonies, but I’d never vote for them regardless.  I think our current "president’ is the biggest phony out there.  I think that many who are most sincere about making our country and world better, many with the most passion for politics and the like, do not ever get a chance to be seen or heard because money rules the game and the people with the most of it often do not even know how to be genuine anymore.

I’ll tell you one thing though, even though I whole-heartedly disagree with the words you wrote, I do thank you for initiating the discussion.  I’ve heard people defending Edwards whom I never thought would defend him, and I’ve seen people who are big supporters question their support.  It is always good to question ourselves and why we feel the way we do about things, especially something so important as the presidential race.  The next POTUS, no matter who he or she may be or which party he or she is affiliated, will have a big job to do that will involve a whole lot of trying to mend this great land of ours and the ties we have outside of our borders.  W. and his puppet master, Cheney, have created a holy mess.

And, a few minutes ago, I sent this final rejoinder:

Well, I’m glad you could thank me for one thing. That’s some consolation. But I think you have a broader definition of "phony" than I do, since you can apply it to Sens. Clinton and McCain, Gov. Romney and Mayor Giuliani. I find it hard to understand why you could cast your net that widely, yet still miss Sen. Edwards — who still seems to me the likeliest fish in that sea.

I would not label any of those as "phony," with the possible exception of Romney — but I still haven’t been exposed to him enough to know. In fact, I haven’t met him yet. And among all the Republicans, McCain is the least phony — just as I think Obama is the least phony among Democrats.

Then there’s Joe Biden, the master of "blarney" — which is a different thing.

I realize that "phony" sounds like a broad label, easily applied. But I did not apply it broadly or lightly. Nor am I alone in applying it to him. Quite a few South Carolina Democrats, including some statewide party leaders, see him the same way. They’ll just never say so on the record, which sort of leaves me with nothing more than my own personal observations to back up the assertion — that’s enough for me, but obviously not for you or quite a few other people, which is why I’ve made a couple of (unsuccessful) stabs this week to get some of those folks to come out of the shadows and be honest about what they think. Unfortunately, there’s nothing in it for them. But their private opinions expressed to me provide me with far more certainty of my assessment than I needed to write what I did.

You should know that I don’t have to go looking for such affirmation from these anonymous folk; it finds me regularly. I had lunch yesterday with Teresa Wells from the Edwards campaign, and while I was waiting for her to arrive, someone who was the Democratic nominee for a statewide office in 2004 told me that he agreed completely with my assessment. But he wasn’t around when Teresa arrived…

OK, now y’all jump in.

Faint with damning praise

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OK, OK, I guess I was wrong! I guess maybe there was some fatal flaw in that Edwards column! I say that not because of any criticism leveled up until now, but because Michael Graham praised it. This means I will probably be fired at any moment, and that’s usually a bad sign.

Or maybe, just maybe, he’s settling down. At least, he mentions something about a full-time job in this message:

Your John Edwards piece got a lot of attention. Deserved it, too.  Congrats!

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m retiring the Usual Suspects column. (details attached)

I’m in the Boston Herald twice a week now and that (plus a fulltime job, four kids and Jennifer) are keeping me too busy.

I’m coming to Charleston later this month to do a show at Theatre 99.  It’s comedy based on my experiences of being:

  • Fired from talk radio in Washington DC by the Council of Angry-Islamic Radic…er Council on American-Islamic Relations
  • Jumped by illegal immigrants for wearing my "INS" (I Need border Security) t-shirt to one of their rallies
  • Banned from SC public radio for making fun of the state legislature
  • Shaken down by the Secret Service for on-air comments I made re: Hillary Clinton and a tire iron.

It’s been years since I did stand-up for a living, but it should be fun.  Might (or might not) be of interest to folks in Columbia.

Take care.
Michael Graham

My week in the ‘phony’ Spin Cycle

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
HAD  YOU asked me on Monday what I would be writing about for Sunday, a second column dealing — even peripherally — with presidential wannabe John Edwards would have been the last thing I would have guessed.
    Yet here I am. What choice do I have? I’ve spent so much time this past week dealing with the reaction from the first one that I haven’t had time to develop anything on another topic.
    It was just a midweek column, not worthy of a Sunday slot, a back-burner thing I had promised to address several months earlier on my blog, after readers challenged me for calling the man a “phony” without explaining the series of experiences that had led to that impression — which is all it was.
    (And in case you didn’t read that column and are wondering what those experiences were, I have neither the space nor inclination to repeat them here. They took up a whole column the first time. You can find it on my blog. The address is below.)
    But without ever intending or wanting to, I got caught up in the Spin Cycle of national politics. My musings had become, for that brief moment, Topic A — or at least B or C or D — and believe me: You don’t even want to be Topic Z in that alphabet.
    Subsequent events didn’t follow each other in any way that made sense, so I’ll just throw them out in no particular order:

  • The Drudge Report picked up my column Tuesday morning, which launched the craziness as much as any one thing.
  • The New York Post called asking to reprint it, which it did the following day under the headline, “POOR LITTLE PHONY: JOHN EDWARDS’ FAKE EMPATHY.”
  • Pmgift
    Dennis Miller of “Saturday Night Live” fame interviewed me on his radio show Thursday.
  • I got mocked by the “Wonkette”: “Brad Warthen of the South Carolina’s The State has a controversial opinion about John Edwards! His controversial opinion, which he, Brad Warthen, thought of himself, and which he is going to share… with you now, is as follows: John Edwards is a phony! A big fat phony!”
  • After two more radio shows called — one from Charlotte (for Thursday), another from Canada (for today), I called Andy Gobeil so that S.C. ETV wouldn’t miss out, and he had me on his show Friday morning.
  • My column was the lead political story on the Fox News network Tuesday night. Or rather, the response the Edwards campaign felt compelled to produce — and I do feel sorry for them for that — was the lead story. The story posted online began: “John Edwards’ campaign scoffed Tuesday at a new effort to depict the Democratic presidential candidate as phony after an influential columnist for a newspaper in Edwards’ birth state wrote that his personal experiences only reinforce his image of Edwards as plastic.”
  • My blog had its third-biggest day ever Tuesday with 5,825 page views, and its fourth-biggest on Wednesday. The biggest ever had been in June, when state Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted. That made sense. This did not.
  • ABC News National Senior Correspondent Jake Tapper wrote on his blog about my “rather nasty op-ed” in these terms: “I personally find the evidence rather thin for such a scathing verbal attack.” Hey, if I had meant to mount a “scathing verbal attack,” I would have come up with some thicker stuff.
  • Someone named Pamela Leavey, writing on “The Democratic Daily,” said I was “Spewing Right-Wing Talking Points About John Edwards,” and thereby providing “a classic example of what’s wrong with our media.”

Obama_detail
    I guess I had been spewing “Left-Wing Talking Points” when I said nice things about Barack Obama the week before. Of course, Ms. Leavey wouldn’t know about that, because she had probably never heard of me before Tuesday. That was true of most of the people commenting.
    And yet, they seemed to think they knew an awful lot about me. Their confidence in passing judgment was far greater than my own. All I had done was describe impressions I had formed from actual experiences in my life. I didn’t consider them any better than anyone else’s experiences. When Zeke Stokes wrote in saying that when he worked on the Edwards campaign earlier this year he had formed a very different impression, I urged readers to take what he said every bit as seriously as what I had said.
    But folks out in the blogosphere or in the 24/7 political spin cycle don’t have time for reflections upon personal experience. They have a convenient short-hand vocabulary for passing judgment instantly upon anything and everything, and all of it is based in childishly simplistic, partisan labels: “He’s one of them! I don’t like them!” or “He’s one of us! Everything he says is true!”
    Among the more than 1,500 unread e-mails awaiting me Tuesday morning were quite a few from across the country praising or damning me for having expressed my opinion. Many were as shallow as Ms. Leavey’s “reflections.”
    But here and there were messages from someone who got the point, which was this: We all form subjective impressions, often unconsciously. In my column I tried to determine exactly when and where I had picked up the bits that formed my overall impression of this one guy among many running for president. I thought that such an airing would be mildly interesting to readers, who often wonder what sorts of gut “biases” inform what we write in the paper, and where they come from.
    A few readers appreciated that, saying that there had been something about Edwards that had nagged at them, and my column had helped them define it: “You hit something in me that I had not been able to figure out,” wrote Glenice Pearson. “Thanks for explaining what was wrong with him,” wrote Nancy Padgett. “I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t enthuse even though he is a SC boy.”
    In turn, I appreciate those few readers who got it. The rest of it I could have done without.

Listen to Zeke Stokes

20 Replies

For a whole other perspective on John Edwards, be sure to read Zeke Stokes’ letter on today’s editorial page. For you lazy types, I reproduce it here:

John Edwards
is genuine, caring

During the first half of this year, I was privileged to work with Sen. John Edwards, traveling throughout the United States as he and his wife, Elizabeth, began this campaign for the White House. I have spent hours in cars and on planes with him. I have witnessed him in front of crowds and behind closed doors. And I can tell you without reservation that Brad Warthen misjudged him and painted an inaccurate picture of him in his column Tuesday (“Why I see John Edwards as a big phony”).
    John and Elizabeth Edwards are two of the most caring and genuine people I have met in public life, and they have made it their life’s mission to improve the lives of people like so many of those in rural Lee County, where I grew up, and all across South Carolina and the country.
    While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are seizing the limelight, John Edwards is seizing the hearts and minds of the people of this country who have been forgotten: those in poverty, without adequate heath care, without good jobs, without hope. Our nation would be blessed to have him in the White House.

ZEKE STOKES
Columbia

I wrote my column to explain the subjective impression I had formed of John Edwards from my experience, and it was what it was. Zeke — who is a good, trustworthy young man of respect, an up-and-comer in Democratic campaign circles who helped guide Jim Rex to victory last year — formed an entirely different perspective.

I urge you to pay every bit as much attention to his opinion as to mine. That’s why we have letters to the editor — to foster productive dialogue, from which we can all learn.

He doesn’t change my mind about my experiences, but he does give me another perspective to think about. And that’s the point of it all.

Listen for me on the radio

9 Replies

Over the next two days, I’ll be on three radio shows, starting with this one:

DennismillerHello, Brad. My name is Christian Bladt and I am the producer
for The Dennis Miller Show, which airs on 119 stations for Westwood One radio. I
wanted to extend an invitation to
appear on our show for a phone interview that
would last between 10 and 15 minutes. We do the show from 7am-10am Pacific /
10am-1pm Eastern, and as you would probably have imagined we would have you on
to discuss John Edwards, whom Dennis has spoken about on numerous occassions.
Ideally, we would love to have you on Thursday morning. Let me know if you would
be available.

I said yes, and I’ll be on at 11:15 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday. That one should be fun.

Then, at 5:30 on the same day, I’ll be on this one:

Brad-
Studio_41
My name is Shawn Stinson and I’m the executive producer with the Danny
Fontana Show in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m writing to schedule an interview
with you to discuss your blog talking about why you see John Edwards as a big
phony.
We broadcast from 3 – 6 p.m., Monday through Friday and the interview will
last around 6 to 8 minutes.

I confess I’m not familiar with that one, but I seldom turn town public appearances, especially when I can phone them in.

Then, on Friday sometime after 9, I’ll be back with sidekick Andy Gobeil on S.C. ETV Radio, as compensation for having ruined his regimen, as he griped in this message:

Brad,
Radio4_2
 I’m very upset with you. You’re column -and the voluminous responses-
are keeping me from my run this afternoon (actually, that’s not a bad
idea…it’s too darn hot today).
Great piece…I think you touched on a concern many people have with Edwards.
I’d like to try to make some time for you Friday morning.
Hope you’re doing well.
-A

Hey, I fully intend to work out every day, and don’t, and you don’t see me going around blaming it on other people… But maybe I should blame Bush. It seems to work on everything else.

Anyway, all these shows want to talk about the Edwards column, which, if you’d asked me when I was writing it Sunday night, I would have told you in no uncertain terms would have been forgotten by now. It just wasn’t all that deep — just me explaining how I formed the perfectly subjective impression that this one guy is a phony. Well, as Dennis Miller once said, "There’s nothing wrong with being shallow as long as you’re insightful about it."

Yeah, I like Joe Lieberman. So?

10 Replies

As readers of this blog know, I’m a big Joe Lieberman fan. I’m big on John McCain, too. And Lindsey Graham. I like people who take principled stands — in favor of fighting terrorism even when it occurs in Iraq, or instituting rational immigration reform even when it means being fair to Mexicans — and stick to those stands, even when the ideological nutjobs in their respective parties are skinning them alive for doing so.

So I had to smile when somebody who works for Edwards — feeling compelled, to my surprise, to respond to my column, which turned out to be a WAY bigger deal than I would have expected — dismissed my obserrvations by saying we endorsed Lieberman in 2004:

Edwards spokesman Eric Schultz suggested the editorial is a farce and noted that columnist Brad Warthen of The State newspaper, based in Columbia, S.C., endorsed Joe Lieberman a day before the Connecticut senator dropped out of the Democratic primary race in 2004.

I smile because I essentially browbeat my colleagues into endorsing Joe, in a three-hour talkathon in which I just plain wore them down, on the very day we had to write our endorsement and put it on the page (John Kerry had not come in until that day, and Howard Dean had requested a second meeting — the one mentioned in the anecdote in my column — so we couldn’t have our discussion until then).

And you know, some of those colleagues drew the same connection as Mr. Schultz — they said the fact that Lieberman was going to get creamed in the S.C. primary had something to do with whether we should endorse him. As I respect my colleagues, I respect Mr. Shultz’s observation. But the two fact had nothing to do with each other in my mind. To me, it didn’t matter whether Joe got a single vote, as long as he was the best candidate in the field. And he was.

Anyway, for your nostalgic pleasure, I hereby copy the column I wrote explaining that editorial decision. I wrote it to exculpate my colleagues as much as anything. I didn’t find endorsing Joe embarrassing after his loss, but I sensed that they did. So I explained how it happened. I do stuff like that. I was doing that this morning — and everybody freaked. I guess that’s because it became a national story and the national folk don’t know me. Anyway, here’s that column:

The State (Columbia, SC)
February 8, 2004 Sunday FINAL EDITION
HERE’S WHAT WE LOOK FOR IN A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
BYLINE: BRAD WARTHEN, EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. D2
LENGTH: 972 words

IN THE COUPLE of months leading up to last week’s Democratic presidential primary here, most of the candidates came by our offices for interviews with the editorial board. In chronological order, they were Dick Gephardt, Carol Moseley Braun, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, Howard Dean and John Kerry.
    The moment John Kerry left – on the Friday afternoon before the primary – we gathered to make a decision on our endorsement, which would run that Sunday. Present were Publisher Ann Caulkins, Associate Editors Warren Bolton, Cindi Scoppe and Nina Brook, Editorial Writer Mike Fitts and yours truly.
    It took us almost three hours. For much of the first hour, no one mentioned any candidate by name. Instead, we spent that time discussing the criteria that we should use in making our decision. The points we set out are worth relating because they are relevant not only to the decision we make in the fall on the presidential race, but in some cases to other endorsements we make.
    Mike Fitts, who has had primary responsibility for tracking this race for us, started us off, and pretty much mentioned all the main parameters. With the caveats that some criteria would militate against others, and that no candidate was likely to be the best on all counts, he said that based on what we have written and said in the past, anyone we endorse for president should:

  • Be someone that we, and a consensus of South Carolinians, would be comfortable with philosophically. We have well-defined positions on most issues; so do the candidates. Intellectual consistency would demand that we look for as close a match as possible.
  • Recognize that national security, while not everything, is certainly the first and foremost responsibility of the job. More particularly, given our position, we wanted someone who would be fully committed to bringing positive change to the parts of the world that most threaten national and collective security.
  • Think for himself rather than adhere to any party’s narrow ideology. We favor people who work across lines and are intellectually diverse.
  • Have relevant experience in elective office, which is particularly valuable in itself. A candidate might be a natural-born leader and have all the vision in the world, but probably would not achieve much in office without having mastered the give-and-take of politics.

    Finally, Mike raised a question: In a primary, to what extent do we take into account whether someone would be the best standard-bearer for his party?
    As we went around the table, Warren gave probably the best answer to that one: "We ought to be thinking about who can be the president of the United States, regardless of party affiliation." Nina and Cindi said much the same, with Cindi adding that everyone should feel free to vote in our state’s open primaries. (This was before we knew about the loyalty oath, which fortunately was dropped at the last minute.)
    Warren wanted to make sure we agreed that no one criterion should be a disqualifier, noting that while elective experience is worth a lot, it’s not everything. "People bring other things to the table," he said.
    To Mike’s list, Nina added that we should also not be afraid to be a conscience for the state, even when we’re a little alone.
    I thought Mike and the others had summed it up fairly well, but added two criteria that have long guided my own thinking:

  • Endorsements should always be about who should win, not who will win. We should endorse the best candidate, even if he or she doesn’t have a chance.
  • Presidential endorsements are a different animal. With most local and state races, readers have few or no other reliable sources of information on the candidates. With the presidential contest, they are inundated. They will usually come to our endorsement with a well-informed opinion of their own. Therefore our endorsement takes on a more symbolic value; readers can use it as a guide to see whether they want to trust our judgment on the candidates and issues they know less about.

    Finally, of course, we got around to discussing the candidates themselves. We quickly narrowed it down to Sens. Edwards, Kerry and Lieberman. That’s when the hard part started.
    Once again, Mike helped define the dilemma before us, logically and mathematically.
    He divided the field of three into three overlapping sets of two, with each pair having advantages over the remaining candidate. That sounds complicated. Here’s what I mean:

  • Sens. Lieberman and Kerry had the distinct advantage on experience.
  • Sens. Kerry and Edwards had more dynamic leadership skills – important in a chief executive.
  • Sens. Lieberman and Edwards were closer to us and South Carolina politically.

    A three-way stalemate.
    Still, to me at least, it seemed clear that Joe Lieberman came out ahead on most of Mike’s criteria – good philosophical fit, sterling national security credentials, by far the one most willing to work across party lines, and a distinguished 30-year record of public service.
    The sticking point in our discussion was over one of my criteria: The one about who should win versus who will win. We all knew Sen. Lieberman had little chance of surviving beyond Tuesday, and there was considerable sentiment for using our endorsement to boost someone with a better shot. That would have taken the form of either affirming Sen. Edwards’ front-runner status or giving a boost to Sen. Kerry.
    In the end, we stood by Joe Lieberman. I’m glad we did.
    I share all of this because, even though our guy is out of the race, the same criteria we used will be applied as we look toward November. And while many readers say they just know who we’ll endorse, they’re ahead of me. Based on the criteria we use, it remains a very open question.

The people (some of ’em, anyway) speak out on Edwards

22 Replies

Just got caught up enough to look at my external e-mail account (what with being off last week, I’m up over 1,500 unread messages, even after reading today’s), and a whole lot of folks chose to react to my column there. Assuming they just didn’t know about the blog, I’ll pass on their thoughts here. Y’all will probably find their words more interesting than anything else I might say today:

Good 4 you!  Honesty, that is what the media is missing these days.

________________________

Chad M. Mattison, Architect

Subject: Edwards the Phony

So what else is news???

Anyone who cannot see through left wing hypocrisy is a fool.

As far as Edwards is concerned specifically, I cannot help but be reminded
of seeing the appratchiks’ dachas on the Black Sea during the evil empire’s
reign.

Commies are the same everywhere – they believe the little guy is an idiot
and will swallow any phony, psycho dribble they can concoct.

TJK
Dallas

Subject: From Pimm Fox

Many thanks for your notes about John Edwards – I have always thought
that small things can mean quite a lot – particularly when people who
are supposed to like people turn into self-appointed leaders. Well, it
isn’t a surprise but it is an indication of how unfortunate we are to
have this current crop of pols on the corn huskings. We will probably
get the evil of many lessers. Cheers and thanks again, Pimm

From: Stehpen Mayo [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 9:33 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Phony?… someone Finally noticed….
Importance: High
A very good friend of mine was a pilot, and among a very impressive list of people he has piloted for are many top politicians and former presidents.  He flew Edwards once on the campaign trail and was absolutely startled at how he… switched on and off with the opening and closing of the cabin door… he’d fly into tirades, berate his wife, telling her she’d be riding on the bus next time etc…staffers would cower…
 
I’ve been waiting for a story to appear along these lines because obviously that is something that cannot be hidden… the jeckyl/hyde… to be honest though… I did not expect to see it ever printed… congratulations on exposing a truth that tells people what they really need to know… truth that I believe is deliberately withheld by many so called respected journalist… Thank You…

From: Chris Zarpas [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 9:37 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: God Bless You

Mr. Warthen,

Thanks for calling a spade a spade. I have neighbors with in laws in Mr. Edwards former neighborhood. They told my neighbor that they were driving near their home one day and passed a little to close to Mr. Edwards while he was jogging. He very energetically flipped them off. That is the real John Edwards.

All The Best,

Chris Zarpas

 

From: TOM [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 9:40 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Why I see John Edwards as a big phony
Did you report this in 2004?  If not, why?

From: A Plus Awards Apex [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 9:57 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards a Phony
Sir,
I’m told you paper leans if not tilts to the left but I could care less about that now after reading your article.  You hit the nail on the head, with regard to "mr. Edwards".  As a former citizen of the great state of "Eastern NC" and tobacco farmer, we tend to root out bovine scatology when ever we encounter it.  Edwards is full of it, like most lawyers!  Thank you for printing your ed. piece as it confirms what "we the Regular people" already know. 
God, the South, and God bless Strom Thurmond!
Le Batts

From: Linda Champion [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 9:10 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Why I see John Edwards AS A Phoney
O’ Please write more such as this article on this man. 
Your observations are totally correct!
He’s another black eye for our State!
Keep writing.

From: Glenice Pearson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 9:28 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Thanks

Thanks for your article on John Edwards in today’s paper. You hit something in me that I had not been able to figure out. I am one of those persons who signed on, early on, with John Edwards because I do feel that the plight of the poor in our nation should be on the agenda of all persons seeking the highest office. I am deeply concerned about people entrenched in poverty—especially the bone-grinding poverty that forces working mothers to choose between their jobs and their children’s well-being and their lives. Despite my early entry as a supporter, I was never quite able to send the check. Something always held me back. I think your observations of Mr. Edwards may be what I sensed. Of course, your influence on my decision to withdraw, as of today from this farce, means that I placed a moderate amount of trust in what you write;  itself rather strange given my southern black roots and the segregated experiences of my youth.  But there it is so thanks for the heads up. You probably saved me from some disappointment down the road.

 

From: JOYCE EVANS [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 10:34 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards
Mr. Warthen:
I’m a native South Carolinian, born (Baptist Hospital), Columbia High (1966) and Carolina grad.  I’ve been in Texas for 25 years, but frequently look at The State on line.  (Sidebar: was in the class with LaNelle Dominick Barber, yr. ahead of Robert Barber, and the Barbers and our family were members of the same church, Virginia Wingard.  They were/are good folks but Robert seems to have had quite an interesting career.)
Saw your link this morning and Drudge, and let me say how proud I am of you for saying what needs to be said.  It was a deep analytical piece or scientific research, but ’twas dead on!
I like to think there are good people in both parties and I usually vote split tickets, but John Edwards has always left me cold.   Kinda the way Bill Clinton did – a snake oil salesman.   And that was before I saw the "I feel pretty" clip and youtube!   His hypocrisy, like the Clintons, just oozes out of his pores.
 
Thanks again,
Joyce Evans
Arlington, TX

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 10:52 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Welcome to what should have been painfully obvious to you even before the three strikes….

….he’s a plaintiff’s attorney!!!  That breed operates under the motto:  "Sincerity:  I can fake that!"  That he goes on to fake humility and compassion is why he makes the REALLY big bucks.

I know; not exactly an engaging response, but I’m always concerned when I see someone who claims to be something he isn’t ask to represent me.

Bob Neal

From: BILL RODGERS [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 10:59 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John (phony) Edwards

I read your blog with great interest as I have known for years that he is a big fake. The obsession with his hair, the phony "lit" up smile, etc. all of it looked contrived to me long, long ago. Good article!

From: Mike Garland [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:12 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards a phony

Liberals are so gullible.  Edwards is as phony as a $3 bill, and it takes a normal person less than an hour to make that conclusion.
You seem like a nice man Brad– but you need an education in real people.  Put down your latte, your copy of the NYT, and park your Saab.  Now take a walk somewhere around real people, the real other side of America.

Listen to them, Edwards, Kerry, Clinton, obama, kucinich, dodd, biden etc…. they are all jackasses.  And yes they are transparently phony.

Mike Garland
Jacksonville, Fl.

From: Rick Marsh [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 11:15 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: The Best Evidence of John Edward’s Phoniness comes from his trial practice, and his career in the Senate
Dear Mr. Warthen:
 
I am a tax lawyer in Charlotte, NC.  A few years ago I ran a small law firm.  I had a partner who was a litigator.  She wasn’t available one day, so I handled a meeting with a "Trial Consultant" from Raleigh who was looking to expand his firm’s business into Charlotte.  His firm produced "Day in the Life" videos and other illustrative audio-visual aids designed to prejudice the jury without getting thrown out by the judge.  The consultant bragged that one of his best clients in Raleigh had been our then U.S. Senator, John Edwards.
 
"What was he like?" I asked.  The consultant told me that John Edwards was the most ruthless and aggressive lawyer that he had ever seen, without any sense of conscience or shame.  One time, when another member of the litigation team questioned whether one of Edwards’ flamboyant approaches would work with the jury, Edwards’ whirled on him and said, "My Eastern North Carolina juries believe that the moon landings were faked, and that WWF wrestling is real!"
 
He isn’t just a phony – he’s an anti-social personality disorder in a $5,000.00 suit.  He’s Elmer Gantry and Bill Clinton rolled up into one, except Edwards is more dangerous, because he has a sympathetic wife and he isn’t a lecher.
 
When John Edwards was in the U.S. Senate, fortunately, he didn’t do much.  However, one of the things he did was to smear the reputation of a genuine hero, Judge Charles Pickering.  Edwards falsely accused Pickering of being a racist and an unethical lawyer and jurist.  A close examination of that Senate Judiciary Committee transcript shows how Edwards baited Pickering and twisted the facts.  In fact, Pickering showed Atticus Finch-like courage in fighting the KKK in Mississippi as a young man, at a time when the Klan was something to be feared.  Judge Pickering describes the campaign against his judicial nomination, and Edwards’s central role, in his recent book.  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974537691/manhattaninstitu/. While Edwards may have been no worse than Senators Schumer or Kennedy, it is a telling point of Edwards’s character that he would eagerly do the work of PFAW in reinforcing their stereotype that white Southerners are, even today, racists, bigots, and scoundrels.
 
Thanks for your column.  You are just scratching the surface when it comes to John Edwards’s pathology.  If you would like, I could try to find the contact information for that trial consultant in my old subject files.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
Richard E. Marsh, Jr.
Marsh Law Firm, P.A.
828 East Boulevard
Charlotte, NC 28203

From: John Lindsay [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 11:05 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards

Mr. Warthen:
Your piece on Mr. Edwards phoniness struck a chord with me.  Back in 1992 I
dated an ATF agent who was an ardent democrat as were about half of her
fellow Treasury Department agents.  During that time most of Treasury was
marshalled to supply as many agents as possible for security details to
fill all the demands associated with protecting the presidential
candidates.
My ATF friend told me of an incident involving the Clinton’s that turned
most of those Treasury agents to the Republican camp.  GHW Bush and his
wife were well-known for their friendliness and personal interest in the
lives of those employees serving around them, and were much-appreciated for
it.  The Clintons did not fare so well in that regard.  One agent was
assigned to take therm to church one day and was made to wait 20 minutes
for them to show up for the limo ride in to church. When they did show up
all three were arguing and bickering amongst each other.  Not unusual for
families pressed out of measure. But when they got in the limo, Hillary
proceeded to order the agent/driver to proceed by an unapproved route –
presumably faster.  When he declined in favor of the prescribed route she
began to argue with him.  When this did not work she began cursing.  When
he raised the privacy screen she proceeded to slam her bible against it
until she spend her fury.
When news of this got out along with a number of other anecdotal stories
concerning similar Clinton antics, most of those agents voted for Bush.
I’m not saying this as an indictment against Democrats because there are
plenty of quiche-eating Republicans who are just as unworthy.  My gripe is
that these coarse phonies never seem to get publicly exposed.
I’m sure my friend still voted for Bill.  She hated Clarence Thomas
too…….. I think it was the pubic hair………

Regards,
John Lindsay

From: Louie Sardenga [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 11:27 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Seeing Edwards as a phony
Dear Brad
I enjoyed reading your piece about John Edwards and I fully agree with you.  Do you remember Tokyo Rose during world war II.  She played great music for our soldiers but also played the same message every day just packged in a different way.  She and the enemy (Japan at the time) hoped that it would have a negative impact on our GI’s morale.  What was the demoralizing message?
1. Your President is lying to you.
2. This war is illegal
3. You cannot win the war!!!
Sounds familiar, eh.  It sounds very much like what liberals like John Edwards, Barach Obama, Hilary Clinton, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kuchinich are preaching to people in the U.S. through the written and video liberal media.  To me, they are all phonies
Again, thanks for the piece.

From: Salena Zito [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 11:35 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards Editorial

Good stuff on Edwards.

You nailed him perfectly.

Salena Zito

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/zito/

Political Reporter

Editorial Columnist

From: Les Vogt [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:07 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards

I just read the article ³Why I see John Edwards as a big phony². Edwards is
not my favorite candidate but those are the most lame and petty excuses for
that headline I can imagine. It’s your right, of course but, it is, for me,
completely irrelevant and unpersuasive.

Les Vogt
Chicago

From: Peter S. Cohl
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:23 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Fred Thompson, John Edwards… unearthing the political brands

Dear Mr. Warthen:
A friend forwarded you latest on John Edwards. From the looks of his poll numbers in SC, the voters seem to agree.  I’ve personally had some conversations on trade with him, however.  At the time, he seemed quite sincere.
With regard to Thompson, you might want to peruse my blog, "The Political Brandwagon" <http://www.politicalbrandwagon.com>, where we view "The song of politics in the key of brand." 
Our most recent post

TV Dinner: Chris Matthews Casts Fred Thompson as the New Ben Cartwright

…takes a look Sen. Thompson as an iconic brand — and comfort food for an America that’s been on edge since September 2001.

‘Southern-Fried Reagan’: Fred is Well-Framed By The Christian Right

…speaks for itself.

All the best,
Peter

From: C.D. Chebon Marshall [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:44 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards Editorial

Mr. Warthen –
I must say that I enjoyed your editorial concerning the "phony" factor
of former Senator Edwards.
I live in Oklahoma, where in 2004 we were an early primary state.  Mr.
Edwards made numerous trips here in his attempt to win the state.  On
one such occasion he allowed C-SPAN to travel with him.  On his tour
bus, after leaving a small rural town in southeast Oklahoma, he sat on
the bus and made fun of the people he had just met and the humble
nature of their surroundings.  The amazing part – he did it on camera!
I’m glad to see that you are taking a strong stand on this lack of
character that so many politicians suffer from.  I was taught by a
former Congressman I used to work for that the least voters can ask of
the people they elect is that the politician love the land and people
they represent.  I can’t say that I feel Mr. Edwards does.

Sincerely,
Chebon Marshall

From: George Lyster [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:53 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards the phoney
Shouldn’t have taken you that long! Two minutes into any speech Edwards makes you just know he’s an empty shirt and as phoney as a three dollar bill.

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:57 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards

I read your piece on Edwards. Though a liberal ( you know, the thing Thomas Jefferson,Ben Franklin and the other Founding Fathers were?) Im always interested in having politicians exposed for what they are regardless of their end of the political spectrum ( though if truth be told – you know, that thing that Conservatives call "liberal bias"?) the number of phony conservative Republicans both in office and as journalists would dwarf anything the Democrats can produce.But what stunned me was your personal observation of Edwards, which I found almost silly and the conclusions you drew from them and what you think are their significance,  closing with"not enough for you"?
 
It would be enough for Fox News, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter but, sorry, its not enough for anyone who doesn’t pay for the beach house by bashing Democrats.What did you expect Edwards to do? Go up on stage looking like maybe he didn’t really feel like being there which is a distinct possibility? Should he have had his wife say" sorry you all came but john is no phony and he really doesn’t feel like talking now so we’re going home"?
 
If you want to criticize preparation and phoniness how about Justice Department officials whose salaries are paid for by the tax payers, spending hours and hours of tax payer time over a period of weeks coaching, preparing, and mock grilling Alberto Gonzalez in preparation for his sworn testimony before Congress to make sure he doesn’t perjure himself.
 
Sincerely
Marc Rubin

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 12:59 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: copy editor and Howard Dean

Mr. Warthen,
I enjoyed your column on John Edwards. I am sure you are getting plenty
of reaction.
I had a question about a small piece of the column. Is the copy editor
who is a fan of Howard Dean working on the news side or editorial? I
was surprised to see a copy editor described as a fan of a political
candidate, especially if the person works on the news side, but perhaps
not as much if the person is on the editorial side.
I blogged about this here and would be happy to update the post with
this clarification as needed:

www.editdesk.blogspot.com
Thanks.

Andy Bechtel
Assistant professor
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
UNC-Chapel Hill

From: Martin Duggan [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 1:05 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Phony Edwards

Mr. Warthen:
Let me compliment you on your characterization of John Edwards. I
haven’t met the man. Your sketch reinforces my feeling that I really
don’t want to.
Martin Duggan
retired editorial page editor, St. Louis Globe-Democrat
[email protected]

From: David Barham [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 1:02 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: your column on Edwards

I got the same feeling about a pol I covered in Louisiana — Mary
Landrieu (now a U.S. Senator, but I think she was running for governor
when I got the phony impression at a behind-the-scenes meeting).

Excellent work.
DAVID BARHAM
Editorial writer
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

From: Carleton Casteel [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 1:09 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards The Phony
I usually vote for Democrats.  Thanks for this insight into the 
"trial lawyer" nature of John Edwards, for that is what he is, and 
God bless them, successful trial lawyers, be he/she for the defense 
or the plaintiff, have to charm the jury.  That said, there is no 
bigger huckster and phony than George W. Bush, all the way from his 
put-on Texas twang to his brush cutting photo ops.  (I know cuz I am 
a Texan) But your op-ed sealed the deal for me on John, particularly 
the last two incidents, the final one being unforgivable.  Thanks.

Carl Casteel

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 1:16 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards is a phony?

The bow-tie says it all..

That generally denotes a giant F-you I’m smarter than you are and don’t care what you think.

Given the limited field and the current state of the retarded monkeys that we call the president, vice president and his cabinet I would believe that a publicly educated man (NC STATE and CAROLINA [ the real one] would suit the white house better than another Yale or Harvard ass.

Registered independant

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 1:23 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Hello

Hello Mr Warthen,
Read your ,  John Edwards story with amusement.  I recently went to visit my folks in Rochester, NY and John Edwards was on the radio in town.  But to my surprise, he was talking like a New Yorker.  Very refined, very deliberate and nothing like the "ya’ll doing ok" JE one hears down South.  I live in Greenville, SC so I know the big difference I was hearing in him. 
Warm regards
Dennis Diehl

From: Geoff Pope [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 2:09 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Unbelievable

While campaigning for Senator Edwards in South Carolina in ’04, I came to appreciate The State.  I am stunned that you have cast judgment on someone based on some incredibly minor details.  This article would be more appropriate for the Bill O’Reilly blog than a serious newspaper.  For what it’s worth, I have heard countless people who have observed Edwards in similar situations describe him as completely genuine.  Too bad they don’t have your platform.

Geoff Pope

From: Blair Priest [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 2:23 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards
Dear Brad,
Your editorial reminded me of a Time Magazine article I read excerpting Robert Shrumm’s new book.  The following paragraph in particular sickened me and illustrates what a used car salesman Edwards is:
 
"Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn’t pick Edwards unless he met with him again."
 
Thanks,
Blair Priest
From: Marty Parrish [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 2:35 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Edwards, the Phony

Yep, I can believe Edwards is phony…which is just too bad.

Attached is "Why I Vote Joe." I’ve found Joe Biden to be real. http://martyparrish.spaces.live.com

Marty

From: Renegar, David [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 2:42 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: RE: Why I see John Edwards as a big phony

Dear Brad:

I thought this was an excellent article and wonderfully written. Thank you for writing this for all to read; it made the Drudge Report as you probably are aware of.

I have always thought the good Senator was a phony with the two-America campaign. Then again, the people of NC had him pegged as well and would have likely voted him out of office had he run for the Senate for a second term.

He indeed fooled a jury on the "child within speaking to them," theatrics in his closing arguments that gave him fortune but I don’t believe for a second that phony approach will give him the momentum he desperately needs at this point. I think he’ll eventually stay on the compound for good.

David Leigh Renegar
Mortgage Loan Counselor
Greenville, SC 29601

From: Sterling W. B. Homan, Ph.D., J.D. [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 2:52 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Article on Edwards as a phony…
Hi:  Not only did I heartily agree with your opinion in the article, I thought that you might want to know that I downloaded it for an example of good writing for my grandchildren.  My sons always want me to explain good expository writing and I try to do so satisfactorily.  It is much easier, however, with a good example of something current to show them.  They are in both high-school and college so they need to learn the rudiments on constructing a good essay.  You gave me a great example to show them.  I have had post-graduate students who couldn’t do it so when I find a good example like this article, I am always tickled pink. 
 
Thanks for a good article and a big help.
 
Sterling W. B. Homan, Ph.D., J.D.
Birmingham, Alabama

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3:24 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards IS a phony

Four years ago, we had a chance encounter with a former neighbor of John Edwards who told us–guess what–"John Edwards is a phony". Glad you found out. Allen Holcomb, Sun Valley ID

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3:26 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: column about John Edwards

Thanks for explaining what was wrong with him.  I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t enthuse even though he is a SC boy.  My daughter-in-law says he acts like the fraternity boys she knew in college.  I want you to know I voted for John Dean even thought I doubted he had a chance.  nancy padgett

From: Rich Hall [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3:38 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards – phony
Brad, If you haven’t seen it you must check out the YouTube John
Edwards hair combing / preening marathon set to "I Feel Pretty"….he
is a complete phony.

Rich Hall
Connecticut

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3:41 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Interview Request
Brad-
My name is Shawn Stinson and I’m the executive producer with the Danny Fontana Show in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m writing to schedule an interview with you to discuss your blog talking about why you see John Edwards as a big phony.
We broadcast from 3 – 6 p.m., Monday through Friday and the interview will last around 6 to 8 minutes.
You can reach me directly in my office at 980-235-7917 or on my cell phone at 704-517-9718.
 
Thank you in advance,

Shawn Stinson
Executive Producer
Danny Fontana Show
WDYT 1220 AM

From: On Behalf Of Samson Habte
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 4:50 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: JE is also not a good tipper
as a former colleague at a DC-area restaraunt where I worked a few years back found out. Not a bad tipper — something like 17 percent — but not a good one, either (I’m a pathetically broke student and almost never give less than 20 percent).
 
I guess waiters are part of that ‘other America,’ huh?
 
– SH

From: Jeffrey Sewell [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 5:24 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: you just made FOX

Congrats!

Regards,

Jeffrey Sewell, MCP
Principal Consultant
Sewell Consultancy, LLC
100 Sunset Boulevard
Suite 203
West Columbia, SC 29169

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 5:37 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Permission to reprint your article on Edwards

 
We request permission to reprint your opinion piece on ‘Edwards the phony’ for our website: www.repayne.com
Thank you for consideration.
R E Gus Payne
www.repayne.com

From: de France, Linda [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:06 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Question on use of words
Mr. Warthen,
 
Forgive my ignorance, but in your column of today, entitled "Why I see John Edwards as a big phony" you use some phraseology of which I am unfamiliar.
 
Under the Strike Two example, you write Mr. Edwards "was all ersatz-cracker bonhomie." 
 
I have no idea what this means.
 
Is this a racial slur? I know what ersatz means, and I understand the word cracker is sometimes used to describe white people, and I know that bonhomie means a friendly and approachable disposition, but put all together– I am not sure what you were driving at.
 
Please tell me it isn’t a fake white approachable guy, because then the meaning is clearly lost in translation. What would it matter what race Mr. Edwards is? I just can’t understand what you meant by that.
 
Linda de France

From: Nancy L. Wolf [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:21 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Exercise every day
I,for one ,think it is great that Senator Edwards makes time to exercise every day. It shows his commitment to staying healthy – far better than your commitment to using anecdotal "evidence" from 3 and 4 years ago to support a fact-free argument.
 
Nancy Wolf
Washington, D.C.

From: Jeffrey Sewell [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:38 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: RE: you just made FOX

You were national, at least a half dozen TV and Print, time for a raise?

~Jeffrey Sewell

From: John De Fede [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:43 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Good Job Brad!

Brad,

 

I like reading your thoughtful pieces in the State. This was another one.  Generally, I feel your too ‘nice’—too damn liberal—which for a troglodyte like me—somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun (he was too soft on the Romans….) is pretty easy to do.  But you told it like you thought…not based on the positions, not based on the press releases, but from your own experience with der mensch—the man.  And…that of others.  Important people that I think deserve the real attention at any org….the NCO’s and privates, the receptionists and secretaries…..(I drove a cab before I joined the Army).  Bravo.  What a shame you’ll get some personal attacks on this….but what can they say?  This was your own real experience, and you certainly don’t need validation from me or anyone else.  Your article was picked up on the Drudge report….be prepared for the deluge…..jad

 

John A. De Fede, Esq.

Major, US Army (Ret.)

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:44 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email; Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards is a phony?
Mr Warthen,
I read you bit on John Edwards, describing him as a phony?  Mr. Warthen?  You got nothin’.

From: Sterling W. B. Homan, Ph.D., J.D. [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:46 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: Re: Article on Edwards as a phony…
Loved your answer.  However, I am a lady, not a "Sir."  Almost was drafted because of this name, at one time. And my Mother died calling me "Son," although she did go on to have two of the real thing.  Used to hate it when the boys yelled  "Hi, Ho, Silver" at me but came to like it after I grew up and figured out that it was sort of classy.
 
I took the liberty of copying your article, underlining the thesis statement and then italicizing your supporting documentation so the kids could see it clearly.  Also, I noted that you used really pithy comments to lay him out.  And that is important because the tendency in beginners is to pussy-foot around and not to make clear statements.  I used to tell classes of Flannery O’Connor’s comment:  "For the almost deaf, you shout, and for the almost blind you draw with bold and glaring strokes."
 
And thanks, also, for the reference to Clinton.  Did you notice him laughing as he approached Ron Brown’s funeral–But then, walking through a flower trellis to the funeral and coming out the other side with tears coursing down his face?  LOVED that.
 
Thank you for the good writing and for the response.  Best Wishes.
 
Sterling Homan

From: bill mack [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 6:57 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: John Edwards phony
Wow, you must be either really, really,  preceptive or paranoid scheptic. 
With your keen observation of one facial expression and two second hand stories from un-named people who you say felt slighted because they either didnt get to shake John Edwards hand, or had to suffer standing around what was probley an "open" bar, chugging free drinks, waiting for him to appear, …you deduced him to be a complete phony.  With such overwhelming evidence, you even managed to put down a Clinton and complement Howard Dean.  (one easy task, the other not so easy).
Now thats what I call sticking to what your blog proclaims it self to be about…. "talk about pragmatic ways to do stuff that truly needs doing in South Carolina, the nation and the world." 
And I wont, and your blog invites, "challenge the rest of us with sincere ideas" as I see none on your blog from you.  Maybe its like clicking on your blogs heading "About Brad Warthen’s Blog"
Coming Soon?
ndpendant

From: Jeffrey Sewell [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 7:38 PM
To: Warthen, Brad – External Email
Subject: RE: you just made FOX

It was awesome, they credited you by name and it was extensive, good job!  We don’t agree like most people on all things but you are good, best face on SC in the last month.  So sick of the Susan Smith moments.

~Jeffrey Sewell

Audio of Edwards getting folksy with the editorial board

17 Replies

Going back to the point that Aaron raised about the context in which John Edwards got all folksy with us by showing off his boots back in 2004: I can now add some perspective to both his memory and mine — that is, if hearing is believing.

First, let me share with you a passage that I wrote in the very first draft of the piece, a version I KNEW was too long. (The "Director’s Cut" version was one I thought would fit, until Cindi Scoppe told me it was 32 inches, of which I cut six for the print version.) It went like this:

… And we’re talking impressions and memories here. None of these events or observations struck me as anything worth noting in detail at the time, so my notes are sparse. But over time, without my intending it, an impression is formed. Human nature, I guess. But even without all the notes and details, I know exactly how he caused me to think of him as I do…

I had tried to reconstruct as much as I could from notes and the data trail of stories and editorials from the time. I was on vacation, and it was Sunday, but I dragged by daughter and granddaughter to the office with me after Mass to get my notes from the 2004 presidential primaries. I even listened to the beginning of a recording of the endorsement interview with Edwards, but decided after a minute of listening that I must have turned on the recorder after the crack about the boots.

So I searched my notes. No direct quote. I asked Cindi Scoppe, and she said without looking that she didn’t have it. She takes better notes than I do, but she’s a serious journalist — she doesn’t bother with the frivolous remarks that I often think are revelatory of character.

So I went with my best memory of what he said: “How do y’all like my boots?” And Aaron offered his perspective. Today, I decided to listen further in the hope of finding something to add to the record — seeing as how there was so much interest in this column.

And guess what I found at one minute and seven seconds, right at the point at which I was trying to get everybody to settle down from the opening pleasantries and get serious (apparently, tomfoolery had gone on longer than I had recalled)? Yep, it was the actual audio of the "boots" remark, which went like this:

ME: "Well, welcome."

EDWARDS: "Thank you. Have you noticed my shoes?" (general laughter as he props one on the table) "These are my boots that I wear in New Hampshire ’cause you can clomp aroun’ in ‘at snow an’ mess (inaudible), but it don’t exactly fit in Sou’ Calahna."

So right away I noticed two things: One, my memory wasn’t exactly right on the precise words he spoke. That’s embarrassing. But I feel much reinforced in terms of my characterization of the way he said it, and the exaggerated folksiness of it — which, of course, was my point. It sounds even more like an impersonation of early Andy Griffith than I had remembered. And mind you, this was right after he had breezed by the regular folks down in the lobby without giving them the time of day.

There is no sign on my recording of Aaron prompting the remark, but Aaron could well have said something just before that my recorder did not pick up. I trust Aaron’s memory on that.

As for the rest, click on this and give it a listen. I’ll be interested to see how it struck you.

Why I see John Edwards as a big phony: Director’s Cut

216 Replies

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
SEVERAL MONTHS ago, I observed on my blog that I think John
Edwards is a phony — a make-believe Man of The People.
    It’s not so much that he’s lying
when he says he wants to help One America -– the Deserving Poor, whom he wants
to vote for him -– get what it has coming to it from the Other America (that of
the Really Rich, to which he disarmingly admits he belongs).
    He’s a pro at this, and at some point, pros can’t be liars. On
some level, they have to believe in themselves, whether it’s stepping to the
plate to beat the home run record or striding to the podium to drip pure,
sincere concern upon the people. Mr. Edwards has a sufficiently plausible
background story to convince himself that he is, deep-down, that dirt-poor,
mill-town child he invokes in his personal anecdotes. So he is persuaded, even if I am not.
    Why am I not? Well, I
hadn’t ever planned to get into that; I’ve just devoted more attention to other
candidates of both parties. I kept hoping that maybe Mr. Edwards would just
drop out. But he’s still in it, or trying to be. As The State’s Aaron Sheinin wrote in a piece headlined “Edwards
staying positive,” the former senator is “betting he can come from behind again
in 2008, as he did in 2004.”
    Sigh. So I guess I’d
better “put up” and explain why I called him, on Feb. 8 on my blog, “one of the
phoniest faux populists ever to get his name in the papers.” The
impression is mainly the result of three encounters:

Strike One: Sept. 16, 2003.
The candidate was supposed to appear on a makeshift stage on Greene Street in
front of the Russell House. The stage was on the south side, with seating
before it in the street, and bleachers to both left and right. I stood on
higher ground on the north side with, as it would turn out, an unflattering
angle of view.
    He was supposed to arrive at 4 p.m. but it was at least 5 before
he showed; I can no longer cite the exact time. When his appearance was
imminent, his wife appeared on the stage and built expectation in a manner I
found appealing and sincere. As either she or another introducer was speaking,
I saw Mr. Edwards step to an offstage position just behind the bleachers to my
left (toward the east). None of the folks in the “good” seats could see him.
    His face was impassive, slack, bored: Another crowd, another
show. Nothing wrong with that, thought I -– just a professional at work.
    But then, I saw the thing that stuck with me: In the last seconds
as his introduction reached its climax, he straightened, and turned on a
thousand-watt smile as easily and artificially as flipping a switch. He assumed
the look of a man who had just, quite unexpectedly, run into a long-lost best
friend. Then he stepped into view of the crowd at large, and worked his way, Bill Clinton-like, from the back of the
crowd toward the stage -– a man of the
people, coming out from among the
people -– shaking hands with the humble,
grateful enthusiasm of a poor soul who had just won the Irish Sweepstakes.
    It was so well done, but so obviously a thing of art, that I was
taken aback despite three decades of seeing politicians at work, both on-stage
and off. Not enough for you? OK.

Strike Two: Jan. 23, 2004.
Seeking our support in the primary contest he would win 11 days later, he came to an interview with The
State’s editorial board.
    He was all ersatz-cracker bonhomie, beginning the session by swinging
his salt-encrusted left snowboot onto the polished boardroom table, booming,
“How do y’all like my boots?” He had
not, it seemed, had time to change footwear since leaving New Hampshire.
    The interview proceeded according to script, a lot of
aw-shucking, much smiling, consistent shows of genuine concern, and warm
expressions of determination to close the gap between the Two Americas. Then he
left, and I didn’t think much more about it, until a week later.
    On the 30th, Howard Dean came in to see us for the second time.
Once again, I was struck by how personable he was, so unlike the screamer of
Web fame. I happened to ride down on the elevator with him afterward, along
with my administrative assistant and another staffer who was a real Dean fan
(but, worse luck for Gov. Dean, not a member of our board). After he took his
leave, I paused to watch him take his time to greet everyone in our foyer -–
treating each person who wanted to shake his hand as every bit as important as
any editorial board member, if not more so. I remarked upon it.
    “Isn’t he a nice man?” said our copy editor (the fan). I agreed.
Then came the revelation: “Unlike John Edwards,” observed the administrative
assistant. What’s that, I asked? It seems that when she alone had met then-Sen.
Edwards at the reception desk, she had been struck by the way he utterly
ignored the folks in our customer service department and others who had hoped
for a handshake or a word from the Great Man. He had saved all his amiability,
all his professionally entertaining energy and talent, for the folks upstairs
who would have a say in the paper’s endorsement. He had no time for anyone
else.
    At that moment, my impression acquired stony bulwarks of Gothic
dimensions.

Strike Three: Sept. 22,
2004. I decided to drop by a reception held for then-vice-presidential
nominee Edwards at the Capital City Club that afternoon. I had stuffed my press
credentials into my pocket after arrival so as to mix freely with the
high-rollers and hear what they had to say. (They knew who I was, but the
stuffy types who want writers to stand like cattle behind barriers did not.)
Good thing, too, because there was plenty of time to kill, and there’s no more
informative way to kill it than with the sort of folks whom candidates want to
meet at such receptions.
    It was well past the candidate’s alleged time of arrival, but no
one seemed to mind. Then a prominent Democrat who lives in a fashionable
downtown neighborhood confided we’d be waiting even longer. We all knew the
candidate had a more public appearance at Martin Luther King Park before this
one, and no one begrudged him such face time with real voters. But this
particular insider knew something else: He had bided his own time because he
had seen Sen. Edwards go jogging in front of his house, along with his security
detail, after the time that the MLK
event was to have started.
    As reported in The State the next day, “Edwards was running late, and the throng waiting to rally with
him at Martin Luther King Jr. Park took notice. They sat for two hours in the
sweltering heat inside the community center, a block off Five Points.”
    We were cool at the Cap City Club, drinking, schmoozing,
snacking, hardly taking notice. So he’s late? What are these folks going to do –- write checks for the Republicans?
    But my impression had been reinforced with steel girders: John
Edwards, Man of The People, is a phony. And until I see an awful lot of
stunning evidence to the contrary, that impression is not likely to change.

Now we know how debates can be stupider

41 Replies

Dems1

    "I think this is a ridiculous exercise."
            — Joe Biden

Amen.

If the frontiersmen who trashed the White House after Andrew Jackson’s inaugural had had YouTube, it would have looked like what we saw out of Charleston Monday night.

No, I take that back. The yahoos who had to be lured back out of the mansion with ice cream in 1829 were not this insipid. They were real; they were who they were, and I shouldn’t malign them by comparing them to the "Ain’t I cute" questioners on the "YouTube debate."

Gail Collins has it exactly right on today’s op-ed page, as I’ve said before (sorry; can’t show it to you — you know how the NYT is. You can’t have a serious debate with five or six or — come on, eight? — candidates on the stage. But there are worse things than the debates we had seen up to now — people who would occupy the most important job in the world being subjected to "Reality TV," and having to be deeply respectful of this abuse. (Certainly I think it’s a very important question," said Chris Dodd to the first one. It wasn’t.)

Joe Biden was only answering one of the questions that came out of this process in the quote above, but it easily applied to the evening — or most of it. Some of the questions were questions that should have been asked. But they would have been better asked by people who did not see themselves and the message. And they say politicians are narcissistic.

I like YouTube. I love YouTube. It can be fun. It can be useful. But unless it is applied much better than it was in this case, it cannot bring intelligence or coherence to a format that is far too fragmented and distracting already — the free-for-all debate among anyone and everyone who says he or she wants the nomination.

If you wish to learn what was said — and I certainly don’t blame you if you didn’t watch it — without the distractions of the posturing, mugging, simpering and snideness of the the questioners hitting you full in the face — here’s a transcript. But it doesn’t help much.

Did I get anything out of this debate? Yes. I saw once again that behind all the "I want to get out of Iraq faster than Cindy Sheehan does" posturing by this crowd seeking the affections of the angry base, serious people know that it’s not that simple. Obama: "At this point, I think we can be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in." Of course, he went on to promise a quick retreat, but I think he knows better (at this point, I’ll grasp at any straw for hope that someone who might be president might have a clue). Biden: "You know we can’t just pull out now." Of course, he then quickly proposes a pullout, but at least he has a coherent plan. I think it’s an extraordinarily dangerous plan (creating an independent Kurdistan on Turkey’s border?), but it’s a plan.

I could go into other "issues," such as Chris Dodd’s white hair, or Anderson What’s-His-Name’s white hair, or whether John Edwards is better for women than Hillary Clinton (his wife says so, but let’s not go there), or how black Barack Obama is. But I think it’s safe to say that we’ll hear more about such things as the months grind slowly on.

Bottom line: We didn’t learn anything more from this than the middle-school slam-book stuff we had known before: Hillary projects presidential; Obama is smart and charismatic; Biden and Richardson are experienced, Gravel is certifiable, Kucinich is irritating, Edwards is a demagogue, and Dodd is uninteresting.

But hey; I can pander to the masses as much as the next guy: What did you think?

Democrats2

Democratic Debate Column

52 Replies

Debate

Orangeburg debate just
a start, but a good one

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
AS BOB COBLE walked out of a breakfast meeting Friday, the bearlike New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson placed him in a loose, amiable headlock and asked what he would have to do to get him to support his bid for the presidency.
    “You’ll have to squeeze harder than that,” I thought. As the governor knew, the Columbia mayor is a John Edwards man.
    But for those who had not made up their minds, the “debate” in Orangeburg Thursday night was a better-than-expected opportunity to begin the winnowing process.
    Eight candidates in 90 minutes is patently ridiculous. But those who planned and executed it, from South Carolina State University to MSNBC, can take pride in making the most of the situation.
National media, as expected, focus on which of the “two candidates,” Hillary or Obama (like Madonna, they no longer need titles or full names), came out on top. Some stretch themselves and mention ex-Sen. Edwards.
    OK, let’s dispense with that: Sen. Clinton presented no surprises, rock star Obama came across as pretty stiff playing in this orchestra — nothing of his usual, charismatic rolling thunder. Ex-Sen. Edwards did his usual shtick.
    But some of us tuned in to learn something new. I did. And I didn’t care which of the overexposed, anointed titans of fund-raising would be a more ideologically pure party standard-bearer. Those of us who spurn both parties — in other words, those of us who actually decide national elections — were looking for someone we might vote for (if such a person survives the partisan gantlet far enough to give us the chance). We’ll be looking for the same when the Republicans meet at the Koger Center May 15.
    I don’t think any of us got any conclusive answers. But the questions posed were good enough to provide some impressions, however scattered, that at least made the event worth the time invested:

Best new impression: I had heard good things about Gov. Richardson, but not met him before. The debate, plus his call-in to a radio show I was on Friday morning, made me want to find out more. I liked the fact that he was real, honest and unscripted, perhaps the result of being a governor and actually dealing with real problems instead of living in Washington’s 24-hour partisan echo chamber.

Best old impression: Could Sen. Joe Biden contain his gift of gab well enough to play well with others on such a crowded stage without his head exploding? “Yes.” Since I’ve heard him speak in our own board room for two hours almost without pause, this was a pleasant surprise. I’ve always liked the guy, but this is one Irishman who didn’t just kiss the Blarney Stone; he took it home with him.

Commander in chief? I expected the candidates to compete to see who was most against our involvement in Iraq and for the longest time. But if it’s fairly judged, Dennis Kucinich wins that pointless contest hands-down. It’s also a barrier to me, since I consider giving up in Iraq to be anathema. So I looked to see who was leaving themselves any room to present a more credible position in the general election, when it’s no longer necessary to court moveon.org. The winners of that contest: Sen. Biden, followed by Sen. Obama.

Second funniest moment: The look in John Edwards’ eyes when he acknowledged being filthy rich, just before going into his nostalgic boilerplate about having been poor once upon a time. This is a much-rehearsed look for him, intended to look like wide-eyed candor. But it struck me like, You bet I’m rich, and lovin’ it, too. Probably an anomaly in the camera angle.

Making Kucinich sound reasonable: A writer on Slate.com summed it up better than I can, as follows: “When the candidates were asked who owned a gun, (Ex-Sen. Mike) Gravel was one of those who raised his hand. ‘I was worried that he meant he had one with him at the moment,’ said a senior adviser to a top candidate.” I hadn’t gotten around to including a link to this particular candidate on my blog. After Thursday night, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Common sense: You could tell who really wanted to be president. They raised their hands to say they believed there’s such a thing as a global War on Terror, and didn’t raise their hands to support Dennis the Menace’s move to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Outside of partisan blogs there’s something we call the real world; everyone except Rep. Kucinich showed that they live in it at least part-time.

The most enduring litmus test: Even after all the times I’ve seen and heard this, the grip of the abortion lobby on the Democratic Party still strikes me as astounding. Is there any greater demonstration of the power of party uber alles than hearing a Roman Catholic such as Sen. Biden emphatically saying, “I strongly support Roe v. Wade,” and asserting complete faith in the existence of a right to privacy in the Constitution?

South Carolina’s shame: Only one thing was mentioned all night that let you know this took place in South Carolina — the Confederate flag at our State House. So much for our wish to build a new image based on hydrogen research and the like.

    The event helped me begin to focus on this process, which has been easy to ignore with everything going on in South Carolina. There will be many debates, interviews and other opportunities before the winnowing is done. Whether this newspaper will support, or whether I personally will vote for, any of these candidates is a question that it is far too soon to answer.
    But this was a start.

Mein Kulturkampf

23 Replies

Sheesh.

I post a juxtaposition of AP photos that struck me as amusing (given my belief that John Edwards is one of the phoniest faux populists ever to get his name in the papers), conveniently brushing over the ramped-up-by-24-hour-TV culture clash of the hour, and the very first commenter pounces all over it. Thus spake the ever-dependable "Ready to Hurl":

    Who should fire angry "Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League" for the following statements?
    “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity, in
general, and Catholicism, in particular. It’s not a secret, okay? I’m
not afraid to say it."…

Gee, I don’t know. Who pays him? Why do you ask me? For that matter, why do I care when a couple of li’l blogger gals spout the stuff they learned as college sophomores about the mean ol’ Catholic Church? (Talk about your simple faith. Miss Marcotte actually seems to believe Catholics tithe.)

Birds gotta fly; fish gotta swim. That’s what they do.

For awhile, I saved press releases from a group that paid a staffer to be righteously offended at every slight or perceived slight aimed at us Catholics. I was going to do a column about it. I was going to say that I had never previously knowingly belonged to a perpetually aggrieved group, and didn’t want anyone to presume to be indignant on my demographic’s behalf; that I saw identity politics generally as harmful; that I wished such folks would get over it. And so forth.

But I didn’t get around to it, and eventually the releases quit coming — from both the "Catholic League" and something called "Your Catholic Voice." So I forgot about it.

Maybe, if we just ignore Mr. Donohue and Misses Marcotte and McEwen, they’ll all just go away, too. But they probably won’t — and certainly not as long as anyone is willing to pay them to be the way they are.

John Kerry’s second adolescence

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Kerrygaffe

Not being overly fond of all the partisan tit-for-tat that seems to stir so many earnest hearts in the Blogosphere, I’ll first admit that I have not sought out much information about John Kerry’s gaffe.

Of course, you absorb a certain amount without trying. I know what he said, I know what he said he meant to say (which was every bit as revealing of character as what he said), I heard that he said he wouldn’t apologize, and then he did apologize — sort of.

Nothing new in any of that. It just reminded me, in case I had forgotten, why we couldn’t bring ourselves to endorse the senator for president in 2004, even though we disagreed with about 90 percent of what President Bush was doing. (Of all the Democratic candidates who had come in to speak with our editorial board, Sen. Kerry was the least engaging and the most off-putting. Take your pick — Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, and any others I can’t think of at the moment — all were more favorably impressive than he.)

But in what little I have absorbed on the subject, one thing has been missing. If someone else has said it, please point me to it.

The thing that struck me immediately at the very first report — before I knew how the GOP was hyping it or anything else; I’m talking about the moment I first heard the words he spoke to those students — I thought he was having a Vietnam flashback. Not to his days in combat, but to the much longer period when he was denigrating his own service and that of others.

Young John Kerry’s peers — to the extent that he would have acknowledged having any — thought of soldiers drafted to go to Vietnam pretty much the way Mr. Kerry spoke of today’s soldiers last week.

Yes, he took a commission in the Navy and went over as an officer and a gentleman and did his part, and God bless him for that. But based upon his actions afterward, I don’t think the preppie mindset toward the average grunt ever went away.

Anyway, that’s what flashed through my mind.

Kerryyoung

A state of one

51 Replies

At first, I thought Tommy Moore was expressing a difference of opinion between himself and John Edwards. But then, I find that Mr. Edwards apparently doesn’t go around talking about "Two Americas" any more, but approaches the same theme from a different, more positive, more forward-looking angle. Well, good for him. Good for both of them, I suppose. I never liked Mr. Edwards’ former shtick.

Yes, we write frequently about the "Two South Carolinas," but we define that term very differently. We talk about the profound economic differences that exist between urban and rural, black and white, I-85 vs. I-95, and so forth. Most folks do fine in our state, but we are held back as a people by the large swathes of poverty. Our goal in using such rhetoric — and we’ll be doing so again Sunday — is to get the affluent interested in policies that will help the less fortunate.

When John Edwards talked about "Two Americas" in the 2004 campaign, he meant a few super-rich folks (such as himself) on one side, and the vast majority of Americans on the other. It was about stirring up the resentment of the middle class, and getting it to vote for him. Very different idea, leading to a very different intended result.