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<Lawson, Nighbert acquitted
Obama Fails to Mention UK Jinx>

JAN
29
2010
John Edwards' Ego
Fri @ 7:58 am
News Channel: politics
views: 1099  kudos: 0     bit.ly    post to facebook    post to twitter
       7  

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln

As a trial attorney, John Edwards could convince a jury of exactly what he wanted them to believe. So good, he recovered settlements for clients from the Red Cross in three separate cases. He won cases other attorneys refused to take on, and became regarded as the best of his ilk in his native North Carolina.

Edwards spent an hour and a half giving his closing argument in one case. So effective was he selling to the jury, the defendant bypassed on an appeal of the award, paying the full $25 million and avoiding additional punitive damages.

Because of Edwards' abilities to persuade another jury, for the first time ever in North Carolina, a doctor and hospital were held responsible for not advising an expectant mother to have a Caesarean section. Due to fetal distress, the woman's son was born with cerebral palsy.

Moving on to fooling all of the people some of the time, Edwards won a U.S. Senate seat in 1998. As Senator, Edward voted to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq and as he put it, "confront Saddam Hussein." He later admitted being wrong, in spite of being so sure of himself regarding Iraq previously. Foretelling, perhaps, of a man so convinced and convincing in the moment, only to prove wrong later.

Passed over by presidential candidate Al Gore as running mate in 2000, the junior Senator from North Carolina threw in his own name for the highest office in the land in 2004. While finishing second to John Kerry in the Democratic primary, he was a distant runner-up, and the inability to fool all of the people all of the time was beginning to rear itself.

Added to the Democratic ticket in the general election by Kerry, together the "John's" lost narrowly to incumbents Bush and Cheney. Unlike Kerry, Edwards chose not to return to the U.S. Senate. Instead he took up activism that would lay the groundwork for another run for president.

In the Spring of 2007, Edwards' wife of 30 years, Elizabeth, announced her cancer was out of remission. Rather than let this setback derail presidential ambitions, John Edwards used it to embolden his image as caring husband. Ironically, it was only a matter of months before he was fathering a child with a campaign staffer.

Perhaps able to convince a small group, like say a jury, he was madly in love with his wife of over three decades, Edwards ultimately was unable to fool the National Enquirer. The tabloid published a supposed photograph of the former Senator holding a baby. Edwards initially denied the picture, as well as paternity of the child. Only in the last week did the former Senator release a statement accepting paternity of the baby.

Since then, much has surfaced, including a book by a former campaign assistant, Andrew Young. Included in it are details of an effort by Edwards to pay off Young, if he would claim paternity of Edwards' baby. Whether true, one can still gather quite an impression of Edwards and his attempts to manipulate even those close to him.

Such hubris from the son of a mill worker, the first in his family to go to college - as he often proclaimed on the campaign stump. A high school football star who even went on to law school, when did "Johnny" Edwards, the small-town commoner made good, become John Edwards the all-powerful egomaniac?

A close friend of mine, who had at least a couple of interactions with Edwards during the 2008 presidential campaign, told me of how confident Edwards was in himself. To hear my political operative friend tell it, Edwards blamed the loss of the 2004 election on John Kerry. He told my friend they would have won if he, Edwards, had been on the top of the ticket. He also assured my friend he would win it all in 2008.

Was it the money? Was it the appeal he most certainly had with women after he went away to college? When did the hick adopt the hubris?

Or did he become an adulterer in denial because he could not fathom losing to cancer a wife four years his senior, who likely mothered him and stroked his ego as none other?

Whenever it was and whatever it was that caused the over-inflated self-image, the revelations would seem only just beginning to emerge. If Tiger Woods managed over a dozen adulterous relationships in just a few years, John Edwards may have accumulated even more in a marriage exceeding three decades. This particular infidelity being the straw that broke the camel's back, Elizabeth Edwards has filed for marriage separation in recent days.

Time will tell, but fortunate for the Democratic Party, the citizens of the United States, and most of all, Elizabeth Edwards, Abraham Lincoln was right. Over the span of a career as lawyer and politician, John Edwards fooled some always, everyone sometimes, but ultimately could not fool all of us all of the time.



ADD A COMMENT

     hum....   fri jan 29 2010 at 11:56 am         · 
Men with money, men with power, have affairs. Men who want money and power have affairs....Women who want to get pregnant in the 21st century get pregnant...HELLO??? Same thing just happened to my nephew, his father before that, bother alike....What the F*** is wrong with the women who think they have to trap these men???? COME ON!!!!
     Mixed Mojo   fri jan 29 2010 at 12:04 pm         · 
"Or did he become an adulterer in denial because he could not fathom losing to cancer a wife four years his senior, who likely mothered him and stroked his ego as none other?"

That is dime story psychiatry at it's best, Dr. Freud.
     hum....   fri jan 29 2010 at 12:15 pm         · 
Wha, Wha!!!! Dont think so...LMAO....NO!!!!! Not saying he did not do a good job of hiding the story...of course he did...not saying he is not a good father...I BELIEVE he is...a husband??? I dont know??? I think he loves Elizabeth, I think he cares about her comfort and the remaining of her years...He loves his children, even the ill legidinemt, Come on life is life people are people....what a bitch to try to trap him.....
     Mixed Mojo   fri jan 29 2010 at 12:21 pm         · 
Yeah, poor guy. (sarcasm)
     El Speedy Loco   fri jan 29 2010 at 12:51 pm         · 
Doesnt look to me he hid the affair very well,the Enquirer broke this and the lame stream media ignored it...not surprising though
     skittles29   fri jan 29 2010 at 8:47 pm         · 
bLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!!!
     BosoxFan   sat jan 30 2010 at 8:36 am         · 
I agree with hum. Everyone is bashing Edwards and are shocked. Why? What about the woman/women he had affairs with? They knew he was married. I don't feel one ounce of compassion for Rielle Hunter.

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