Friday, August 08, 2008

"America's Loss of Innocence, Chapter A Billion"

I don't care about John Edwards's affair. He hasn't been running for anything for months, he wasn't even a real contender for VP, and he is a C-list public figure at this point. And unlike the many Republicans who drone on about sexual matters and convenient definitions of morality, Edwards stuck refreshingly to policy questions in his latest public campaigns.

But what I DO care about, and the aspect of the story that the mainstream news reporting so far has failed to emphasize (?!?!), is that John Edwards' campaign (to which Betty and Bimbo donated $300) paid his lover's production company

roughly $114,000 in 2006 and 2007 for "Website/Internet services."

Now that's disgusting.

***UPDATE!*** Also, how could he have in good conscience run for President with this very live skeleton in his closet? I don't think it's anyone's business, of course, but he had to have known that if caught John McCain would be our next president. But of course he didn't think he would get caught, like all Super Men.

***UPDATE, PART II!*** So many "of course"s, and yet still kind of unbelievable. Is this a cliche, or a mega-cliche, or a mega-ultra-super-cliche we've got on our hands?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i don't care about his affair either.....at least he wasn't on a moralistic crusade like eliot spitzer or all those republicans who preach family values and grope pages.....

when do we begin to respect the difference between people's private lives and their political selves?

frankly, it's between him and elizabeth- none of our f....business...he was the only candidate talking about poverty and other issues that we don't hear about

Nancy D., Girl Detective said...

What's wrong with the web/internet services? I think they selected her to do the work before the affair began. And I'm sure that's a typical amount for this sort of thing.

Anonymous said...

Well the affair was before 2006 -- according to all reports he told Elizabeth about it in 2006. I just think that this a really obscene case conflict of interest -- and choosing a person and paying them with PAC money not based on 100% what's best for the campaign but also based on a sticky personal situation. That doesn't sit well with me. There was also another payment to her from someone working for the Edwards campaign that I can't really bring myself to face or investigate in depth.