John Edwards to withdraw; No one cares

From AP:

Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters' sympathies but never diverted his campaign, The Associated Press has learned.

emphasis added

Those are a lot adjectives to learn at once.

The second question this brings to mind is - (the first question being "who cares?") Is he really dropping out? When stories surfaced three weeks ago that Hillary would drop out, I discounted those stories in part because they relied on Edwards as a source - and everything Edwards says is a lie.

You would be far more likely to reach the truth if you took the quoted paragraph above and believed the opposite of each phrase and clause.


The only person who cares?



















- Scrappleface jokes that Edwards will endorse McCain.

- Michelle Malkin has more.

Hillary to withdraw? Do we believe John Edwards?

Today might end up being a historic day. We first saw the flashing siren on Drudge's page this morning, as he hinted that Hillary might exit the campaign. Shortly afterward, a story appeared, which I post in its entirety in case the link disappears:

TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGNS
Mon Jan 07 2008 09:46:28 ET

Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!

"She can't take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada," laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. "If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn't want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats."

Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary "could soon be out."

"Her money is going to dry up," Edwards confided, a top source said Monday morning.

MORE

Key players in Clinton's inner circle are said to be split. James Carville is urging her to fight it out through at least February and Super Tuesday, where she has a shot at thwarting Barack Obama in a big state.

"She did not work this hard to get out after one state! All this talk is nonsense," said one top adviser.

But others close to the former first lady now see no possible road to victory, sources claim.

Developing...

[The dramatic reversal of fortunes has left the media establishment stunned and racing to keep up with fast-moving changes.

In its final poll before Iowa, CNN showed Clinton with a two-point lead over Obama. Editorial decisions were being made based on an understanding the Democratic primary race would be close, explained a network executive.]

I will not dwell on this story for the moment because we will not get any better indication of what is going to happen until at least tomorrow night (or probably later). But I am uncomfortable with this story for two reasons:

- Part of the story comes from John Edwards, and everything Edwards' says is a lie.

- John McCain might yet save Hillary in tommorrow's New Hampshire primary.

John Edwards - Can we believe anything he says?

I have devoted most of the "quotes of the day" over the past couple of weeks to John Edwards and the various panderings and misrepresentations that he has committed:




(1) Edwards has managed to creep out even John Kerry, with the conspicuously private story of his own antics at his son's funeral. He has found other ways to exploit his son's death.

(2) He has channeled dead babies and misled juries in an effort to increase the number of Caesarian births, with no corresponding decline in birth complications.

(3) Edwards claimed that voting for John Kerry would allow Christopher Reeves to get out of that wheelchair and walk again.

(4) He has invented a creepy story about his own father being unable to afford the prices at a milltown restuarant.

(5) Edwards and his wife attempted to "out" Dick Cheney's daughter and vilify Mrs. Cheney's parenting during and after the election debates in 2004.

(6) He has used his wife to attack political opponents, while decrying the tone of American election campaigns.

(7) He has used his "poverty center" in North Carolina for political purposes and to benefit his campaign.

(8) Edwards hired a blogmaster who was notorious for anti-Christian and anti-Catholic rants to run his campaign website, shortly before his wife began decrying "hateful" comments by his political opponents.

(9) Six months prior to the first actual primary voting, he has attempted to block various Democrat Senators and Congressmen from the debates (and then lied about it).

In addition to Edwards' appeals to class warfare and the usual leftist demagoguery, Edwards has exploited the death of his own son, the financial status of his own father, the story of his wife's illness, Christopher Reeves, the death of infants, the sexual orientation of his opponent's family, etc. Most, if not all, of these stories involved outright falsehoods or falsehoods at some level [in addition to the shamelessness of Edwards' exploitation].

In short, can we believe anything that he says? Is there no depth to which he will not lower himself? Is there any lie he will not invent, any suffering he will not exploit, any raw nerve upon which he will not saw? Is there anything that is more sacred to John Edwards than a few more votes?

Can we believe even the simple, seemingly uncontroversial things that he tells us about himself, his children or his wife?

Does it really matter? Should we simply resolve to remind ourselves that nothing he says can be trusted, no matter how small or unimportant? If John Edwards tells us that the sun is shining, should we immediately reach for the umbrella? Should we treat him as the perfect reverse barometer?

There will undoubtedly be more fodder from the Edwards campaign over the next few months. They will seek to play on our sympathies and our emotions. In each case, we should remember his record. The MSM/DNC won't remind us, yet the record set forth here is crucial to our ability to steel ourselves from each fresh onslaught of manipulation.

Quote of the day - Dennis Kucinich [John Edwards]

"Whispering, trying to rig an election, then denying what's going on and making excuses. It all reflects a consistent lack of integrity."

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D. OH) - 7-13-07 - speaking of Edwards' (and Hillary's) attempts to exclude candidates from the televised debates.

Quote of the day - Arkansas News Bureau [John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, Ann Coulter]

"If Mr. Edwards was half the woman Hillary Clinton is, he might be leading in the polls."

David Sanders -
Arkansas News Bureau July 1, 2007 - [commenting on Edwards' use of his wife to attack Ann Coulter.]

H/T Classical Values

Quote of the day - David Sanders - Arkansas News Bureau

"Are we to conclude that if John [Edwards] is sitting in the Oval Office when Hezbollah's leader calls him the great Satan, he'd trot Elizabeth out on the evening news to let the world know she disapproves?"

David Sanders - Arkansas News Bureau
[commenting on John Edwards' use of his wife to attack Ann Coulter (not to mention starting arguments with bloggers).]

Quote of the day - Amanda Marcotte [John Edwards former blogmaster]

"What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”

Amanda Marcotte - [After Marcotte wrote this and other similar items, the Edwards campaign hired Marcotte as its blogmaster. She resigned shortly after conservative bloggers brought this and other controversial items into greater public focus. Following Marcotte's resignation, Elizabeth Edwards began devoting her time to attacking four-year-old "hateful" columns from Ann Coulter and leaving comments at this blog.]

Marcotte

Quote of the day - Byron York [John Edwards]

In the last several weeks, a number of Democrats have been cooling on John Edwards, troubled by what has become known as "the house, the hedge fund, and the haircut." Now they've got another reason. The New York Times reports that Edwards' much-ballyhooed tax-exempt poverty center in North Carolina, the Center for Progress and Opportunity, mainly benefited one person: John Edwards.

Byron York - 6-22-07

Quote of the day - Arkansas News Bureau [John and Elizabeth Edwards]

"It's bad enough to claim to be offended, hurt and outraged by comments while simultaneously and feverishly promoting those words out of context to raise money and capture media attention. But that Mr. Edwards hides behind his wife is beyond the pale."

David Sanders - Arkansas News Bureau - commenting on John Edwards' use of misquotes of Ann Coulter to raise money for the Presidential campaign.

David Sanders

Quote of the day - Elizabeth Edwards [Mary Cheney, Lynne Cheney]

"I think that it indicates a certain shame with respect to their daughter's sexual preferences. . . It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response."

Elizabeth Edwards, attacking Lynne Cheney for defending Cheney's daughter following Kerry/Edwards' lesbian outing of Mary Cheney in 2004.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn [John Edwards]

According to Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton-stain-mopper-turned-Guardian-columnist, "He bears the memory of his father taking the family to a local restaurant after church only to leave when he realised he could not afford anything on the menu."

Really? Robbins was a town of just over 1,000 people, so presumably it was, if not the only restaurant, one of only two or three. In small towns, folks generally know what the local eateries charge. And, while the Edwards family was poor by comparison with John Kerry, dad was in fact the mill's production manager (though the son tends to leave that bit out). So, in a mill town, at a restaurant presumably priced to cater for mill workers, the management of the mill couldn't afford to eat?

Mark Steyn - July 11, 2004

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter [John Edwards]

Edwards has talked about his son's death in a 1996 car accident on "Good Morning America," in dozens of profiles and in his new book. ("It was and is the most important fact of my life.") His 1998 Senate campaign ads featured film footage of Edwards at a learning lab he founded in honor of his son, titled "The Wade Edwards Learning Lab." He wears his son's Outward Bound pin on his suit lapel. He was going to wear it on his sleeve, until someone suggested that might be a little too "on the nose."

Ann Coulter - 11-20-03 - (from the column that caused Elizabeth Edwards to call Chris Matthews and complain nearly four years later.)

Quote of the day - John Edwards [Christopher Reeve, Charles Krauthammer]

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

John Edwards - October 2004

In response:

"In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery."

Charles Krauthammer

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell [John Edwards]

Edwards' specialty was suing when babies were born with brain defects, which he — like other lawyers cashing in on junk science and gullible juries — blamed on the failure of doctors to have had those babies delivered by Caesarian section.

Since then, Caesarian operations have increased greatly, but without reducing those birth defects that Edwards and others had blamed on a lack of Caesarian deliveries. Studies validated by leading medical authorities, here and overseas, have found no such link between birth defects and a lack of Caesarian births.

Meanwhile, lawyers like John Edwards could laugh all the way to the bank.

Like so many liberals who talk about "bringing down the cost of health care," John Edwards has in fact been driving up the cost of medical treatment. "Defensive medicine," such as unnecessary Caesarian operations, is not cheap. Defensive medicine protects doctors from slick lawyers far more than it protects patients.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Bob Shrum - John Edwards exploits his son's death

"[John] 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 . . "

Bob Shrum - Kerry/Edwards campaign manager - recounting 2004 meetings between Kerry and Edwards prior to Kerry naming Edwards as his running mate.