Could the public please, please, please turn on Elizabeth Edwards? We in the media haven't had a juicy, gossip-filled PR dust-up in a least a couple of weeks, and we're getting the shakes without it.
... but Elizabeth Edwards is obligated to air John's dirty linen in public. The witless level of double standards in political "journalism" is staggering.
Side note: David Vitter watch, day 411. Quick, can some AP hack please ask his wife what she knew and when she knew it!
Update (8/27): So. This little item is very popular. So is this one. What they have in common is candidates' wives and thoroughly vapid coverage from the media. But the reason that the media delivers so much drivel is partly that we keep clicking on it.
Items about substance, even if snarkily phrased, get much less attention and comment. War? Who cares? We want to know about the sex lives of politicians! Sad but true.
Most people who run for office don't want to be issue candidates. They want to win, not move the conversation. John Edwards wanted to win but he exited as an issue candidate.
Paul Krugman bids Edwards a fond farewell by explaining how Edwards actually did move the conversation. All that effort and sacrifice had good effects on the Democratic Party. Now maybe, it will have good effects on America, indirect though they may be.
Krugman does miss with this:
It’s true that Mr. Obama has tried to work some populist themes into his campaign, but he apparently isn’t all that convincing: the working-class voters Mr. Edwards attracted have tended to favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Obama.This should have been true. Edwards was the candidate who gave the working class a seat at the table, and he did get some union support because of it. But the truth is that Edwards was more popular with liberal, educated, relatively affluent white guys like me, and there just aren't enough of us to win any vote.
Two Republican candidates have cancer. The spouse of one Democratic candidate has cancer. Which has gotten the most pundit and press attention?
Elizabeth Edwards's recurrence of cancer was conventionally supposed to spell the end of her husband's candidacy, but the Edwardses decided to live the rest of her life to the fullest and hopefully for years, rather than settling down to wait for her to die.
Fred Thompson has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but the press has basically said ho-hum. I happened to channel-surf past "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" last night, and the contrast between his appearance there - playing himself only with better lines - and his skeletal appearance now was a hell of a lot more than better make-up.
Rudy spent the night in the hospital with those ubiquitous "flu-like symptoms". His spokeswoman said afterward (my emphasis):
After precautionary tests the doctors found nothing of concern at this time...Will the press herd question this? My bet: nope.
