The Debatable Land

National Enquirer (More or Less) Vindicated

John Edwards admits affair with campaign staffer  -  but denies fathering her child - in an interview with ABC News. I remember when this was rumoured last year everyone of my Democratic friends admitted that they believed the story. It just seemed plausible.

Doubtless, much of the mud about to be thrown at Edwards will point to the fact that his wife, Elizabeth, was fighting cancer since early 2007 when the disease, which had been in remission, returned. I imagine this is why - perhaps honestly! -  he continues to deny paternity since the child was born this year... Trouble is: his denials don't cut much mustard. Nor does claiming he was "99% honest". The recklessness of his run for the presidency knowing there was an affair that might one day be uncovered.... well, it's quite breathtaking.

Anyway, does this mean that the National Enquirer, which broke and followed a story the rest of the US press considered too tawdry to touch, will win a Pulitzer Prize? Perhaps in the "Public Service" category?

Ps: Good for Obama too! A couple of days out of the headlines will do him no harm whatsoever.

John Edwards: nativist brute

John Edwards on trade:

After growing up in Carolina mill towns, John Edwards understands the devastating impact trade can have on workers and communities.

That's why he favours protectionist policies that would reduce trade and throw workers out onto the street. Trade kills, you know. 

Also: why does Edwards hate poor people in poor countries so much that he wants to keep them impoverished? In many respects Edwards is just as much a nativist as anyone on the American right (Duncan Hunter for instance). It would be nice if people remembered this let alone, heaven forbid, mentioned it more frequently.

Trouble At Mill

My friend Toby Harnden finds John Edwards doing his best Monty Python in Iowa:

Remember the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch, which ended with Eric Idle describing how during his childhood he had to "drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah"? Edwards can top that.

Well, almost. "I grew up in a family where my grandmother walked to work at the mill every day wearing her apron,” he said. “My grandfather, who was partially paralysed, hauled rolls of cloth using one arm. My dad worked in those mills for 36 years, my mom worked too – all of them for one reason – to give us a chance to rise up and have a better life."

Wearing an apron! Oh the humanity!

"The Politics of Parsing"

Here's an internet ad from John Edwards campaign. It's not pretty for Hillary. (And you gotta love that sly reference to it all depending upon what the meaning of "is" is) I still think that she actually performed better than Obama at the Drexel debate this week, but the media has decided that she came off worst.Well, whatever. Edwards is doing his best to do Obama's work for him. This ad has the considerable advantage of being, well, true: Hillary will trim her sails to get the best from the prevailing wind, while being prepared at all times to tack if the breeze shifts.

And yet, let's say this for Hillary: she doesn't waste much time on vanity, especially not of the moral sort. Though tediously preachy she isn't quite as holier-than-thou as Edwards or Obama. Which is worse: Edwards' shamelessness or the distinct possibility that Obama actually means it when he boasts of his humility as a means to show off?

Media Disappointed by Hillary's Clear Victory...

OK, so Hillary was all over the place on whether illegal immigrants should be allowed driving licenses and, sure enough, that's what Chris Matthews and co focus on immediately. But that's because Hillary won the debate by a mile and a half and it's very important for the media to highlight anything that can be used to keep alive the impression that the race is nerve-janglingly close... hence the discussion on Clinton's admittedly poor response on drivers' licenses. Still, I'd give her some props for not demagoguing the question as tendentiously as the rest of them.

This is also why no-one is talking about Obama's embarrassingly lame response to the very first question of the debate.

UPDATE: Sweet merciful Jesus, why is Chris Matthews obsessed with UFOs? He's asked Kucinich, Richardson* and now Biden about them... "What the heck are we talking about here" asks Biden, not without due cause.

*Richardson says he doesn't believe in UFOs but does think the Federal government has covered-up the incident at Roswell. He wants to promote UFO-tourism so his state can fleece gullible voters Americans.

UPDATE 2: Matthews is also obsessed with the driving license issue. He'd like to deny illegal immigrants driving licenses and then arrest them when they're stopped by the cops and found to be driving without a license. Some Pennsylvania Democrat makes the not unreasonable point that since they're here anyway and they're going to be driving it's not a bad idea that they should, like, know how to drive. "Ha!" says Matthews, "are you going to let them use driving licenses as ID to get on planes?" Because, yes, the flying burrito brothers are a grave threat to national security... For a democrat, Matthews sure is carrying a lot of water for Republicans tonight. What a clown.

Obama gets angry! Or, rather, no he doesn't...

So the first question in tonight's Democratic debate at Drexel University goes to Barack Obama who is asked - as he must have known he would be - to outline the differences between himself and Clinton. And his response? Meh. He flubs it, delivering a nervous-sounding, meandering, indecisive, confused answer that goes precisely nowhere and gives no indication that he's really wanting to take a shot at Clinton. Quite a let-down and, surely, dispiriting to his supporters.

Talking about taking a more aggressive approach and then declining to do so when given the opportunity is not the way to win an election. Does he actually want to win? Because his answer to this thumpingly predictable question did not give the impression that he does.

By contrast Edwards offers a pretty clear argument in response to pretty much the same question.

However Hillary rebuts them both strongly. Her argument might not stand up to detailed parsing but it sounded authorative and decisive. She seemed to know what she was talking about in a way in which Obama did not. She seems angry, he seems passive; she sounds as though she has a grip on issues (even if she doesn't), he most definitely does not.

Did this debate just end in the first two minutes? Quite possibly.

As always, Dave Weigel is live-blogging the debate in his usual fine style. He makes the point that both Dodd and Biden sound much, much better than Obama. So far Obama is the wee boy invited to sit at the grown-ups table for the first time.

UPDATE: Russert asks Hillary an excellent question: will you ask that the records of your advice to your husband be released now, not in 2012 as your huband has asked. Hillary, naturally, dodges the question. Obama gives his best answer of the debate so far (not a high bar!) when he says this is an example of "not turning the page". Hillary touts her experience "at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue" but won't let us see how she operated when she was First Lady. Why the secrecy, he asks? Edwards then piles on and hammers Hillary as the candidate that the GOP want. How, he asks, can Hillary really be the "candidate of change"? Edwards' tone suggests he thinks the very idea is preposterous and he may not be wrong about that

Trust me, I'm a pompous journalist...

On the "True Meaning of the Edwards Haircut": Glenn Greenwald is much more right than he is wrong.