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I knew they'd find a way to punish Ford: The new UAW contract with Ford apparently does not give America's surviving non-bankrupt automaker parity with GM and Chrysler, reports Bloomberg: "The plan doesn’t include cuts to retiree benefits, such as vision coverage, that were granted to GM and Chrysler." Rather, the pain seems even more concentrated on future hires (if there are any) than with the GM/Chrysler deals. ... TTAC wonders whether the UAW had an extra incentive to resist giving concessions that might make Ford more successful now that the union owns a large chunk of its main domestic competitors. ... P.S.: The argument that "the day the union owns the firm is the day workers will need another union" has always seemed a bogus argument against worker ownership. But in this case, where the union actually owns only competing firms, maybe it's not so bogus. Ford, GM and Chrysler workers used to have more or less equal status within the UAW. Now the union has a reason to give GM and Chrysler an edge wherever possible. ... 5:39 P.M.
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One Too Many Cherubim: Blog commenter "Cherubim," who may or may not be Elizabeth Edwards, has resurfaced . She's still a big Michael Jackson fan. ... P.S.: I would say this cuts against the Daily News report that Cherubim = Elizabeth. But others disagree. ... P.P.S.: And yes, there is a Multiple Cherubim Theory. ... 4:52 P.M.
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Unions Bend the Curve! 'Card check' may be stalled in Congress, but Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo report that public employee unions are still successfully bankrupting states and cities. Highlights:
-- Unionization has bent the cost curve of government health benefits--in the wrong direction:
Under the brilliant leadership of Dennis Rivera, 1199 built a top-notch political operation, and with the hospitals, which were barred from political activity, formed a partnership to maximize the flow of government revenue. The union-hospital alliance has been so successful in aligning itself with politicians, Democrat and Republican alike, that not only has 1199 been largely untouched by the downturn, but New York spends as much on Medicaid as California and Texas combined. [E.A.]
That last sentence is stunning. Coming soon to a "public option" near you? ...
-- ACORN, not a straw man! According to Siegel and DiSalvo, it's becoming a real power in New York City thanks to its affiliation with the Working Families Party (WFP):
[T]he WFP is thriving while New York's Democrats atrophy. In last week's New York City primaries, WFP candidates for city council won easily, as did the party's candidates for the city's second and third highest offices: comptroller and public advocate. Those are the best platforms from which to make a run for mayor of New York City when Bloomberg finally gives up his throne.
-- Even Barry Bluestone--the leftish economist who was one of the first to spot the rise in income inequality--worries about the vast gap in the benefits public employees win and the vastly less lucrative benefits ordinary private sector workers get. Thanks in large part to public employee unions, Siegel & DiSalvo note, the price of state and local services is growing rapidly--41% from 2000-2008, vs. 27 percent for private services. Ordinary workers have to pay for them.
The justification for public sector unionism is way weaker than that for private sector unionism. "[Government] workers are not extracting a share of the profits but rather a share of taxes," as former N.Y. Liberal Party leader Alex Rose puts it. And the right to strike, in the hands of key public unions, approaches a blackmail power. But the political strength of the unions is such that even most Republicans, at the state and local level, are scared to question them. They gelded Arnold Schwarzenegger. You want to be next? ... 4:39 P.M.
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Q.: Who would have been a more disastrous nominee for the Democrats: John Edwards or Bill Richardson? A: Edwards, but Richardson is giving him a run for his money. ... 5:12 P.M.
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kf Unburies the Lede in Ben Smith's piece on John Edwards' ex-aide and Fall Guy Andrew Young (who was talked into claiming paternity for Edwards' mistress' love child). It's not the sex tape! Kf and N.Y. Daily News readers have known about the sex tape for a while. I'd say the lede is Smith's report about the spring of 2008, after Young had publicly claimed paternity, after Edwards had dropped out of the primary and after he had endorsed Obama--but when he still had hopes of being named Attorney General or VP:
Young was under the impression that Edwards would, after dropping out, step forward and claim paternity - which he showed no inclination of doing.
Elizabeth Edwards, meanwhile, had been leaving messages on Young's and Young's wife's voice mail, two sources say Young told them, demanding that he reassert his paternity to clear the cloud over her husband.
Is this really just more hurt-wife denial or are we heading into the active careerist cover-up zone? Elizabeth Edwards had to know at least that there was a good chance Young was not the father--and that her husband was. She certainly had known for a long time that her husband had had an affair with the mother, Rielle Hunter. Perhaps she wasn't proceeding with sure knowledge that she was asking Young to lie for her again, but it's hard to see how she wasn't proceeding with at least what libel lawyers call "reckless disregard for the truth." ... Did she ask Young if he was really the father before "demanding"?. ...
#2 Lede: Smith reports that in late 2006 "worries about a possible affair coursed through Edwards’s organization." Just as suspected! Did Edwards aides (for example, Jonathan Prince and Mudcat Saunders) really not hear about these coursing worries? Or did they hear them but nevertheless set up the Democrats for a possible epic PR debacle (if Edwards had won)? "Reckless disregard," anyone? ... P.S.: You make the call about Edwards aide Joe Trippi's excuse, available here. ... 2:20 P.M.
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UPDATE: This blogger claims the Daily News story is false, though I don't quite follow his argument ... MORE: But I'm beginning to have grave doubts about the Daily News report myself. 1) Would Elizabeth Edwards rail against "New World Order corporations"? 2) Would she go on about Larry Summers' speaking fees? 3) It's not that there are too few "Cherubim" postings. There are almost too many. They defend Eliot Spitzer. They attack Diane Sawyer. They praise Michael Jackson and ... the Isley Brothers. They all seem to cohere as the opinions of a passionately opinionated, quirky, not wildly sophisticated die-hard Edwards loyalist blog commenter who is nevertheless distanced from the Edwardses herself. It's a big country. There's bound to be someone like that out there. It would be a huge, and seemingly inexplicable, effort for Elizabeth Edwards to have created this persona and stayed in character. ...
But I've been wrong before! If it turns out Elizabeth Edwards is also a diehard Michael Jackson defender who thinks he was "murdered by powerful people in the record industry," I'll certainly reconsider. ...
ORIGINAL ITEM: If--big if--St. Elizabeth Edwards is the blog commenter "cherubim"--as the N.Y. Daily News' Rush & Molloy argue--it raises as many questions as it answers! In particular, this one: Is "cherubim" a) deluded (actually believing Edwards clearly "was not the father" of Rielle Hunter's child,etc.), or b) deceiving (trying to sell the Web on a story she might well not be true, a story she was in fact working out in her comments)? Or--the inevitable consensus choice (c)--some wacky combo of both? ... As usual, I urge readers not to overlook possibility (b) ... This Daily Beast web page (worth a screen cap just in case) is one of those with juicy "cherubim" comments that now seem much juicier. ... P.S.: Note that on this page "cherubim" is accused of being Elizabeth Edwards back on June 22 by another commenter, "Ohseriously." ... 2:20 P.M.
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Good Neil Lewis NYT story on John Edwards today--not much news that a Carolina TV station, the National Enquirer and even kausfiles didn't have more than a month ago, except this fabulous nugget (from Ex-Fall Guy Andrew Young's book proposal):
Mr. Young says that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.
The book proposal also has Edwards conspiring with trial lawyer Fred Baron to conceal the Hunter story, even asking Baron "if he could find a doctor who would falsify a DNA report." ... Lewis missed the sex tape, though! ... P.S.: While John Edwards' ongoing agony about whether or not to tell the truth is riveting, he is rapidly becoming the Prinz von Anhalt of the Democrats**--a spectacle, but he won't be making policy in the near future. The more relevant angle is the complicity or lack thereof of Edwards' aides--and his wife--in constructing the Twin Edifices of BS with which the campaign attempted to snow the press. Jennifer Palmieri, Mudcat Saunders, Jonathan Prince and Elizabeth Edwards are still potential players in the party, after all. What did they know and when did they know it?*** Of course, they're also still potential future sources for the New York Times, which may make aggressively questioning their accounts a less urgent prirority for the paper. But maybe Andrew Young can fill us in. ...
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**-- ...whom we nominated for Vice President in 2004. Whoops.
***-- My impression is that the truth about Edwards and Hunter was well-known around Edwards HQ. During the campaign I was contacted by two non-campaign people who questioned whether I should push the story, but who checked with their friends in the Edwards camp and came back and told me they were surprised to learn that the allegations were true. ... 12:06 A.M.
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Roger Simon says John Edwards could rehabilitate himself by becomng the "poster boy for tort reform," He forgot about the sex tape. ... 6:47 P.M.
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Jimmy Carter cites racism as anti-Obama factor. Instant reaction: Kiss of Death. Gift to the GOPs. Remember the Carter era of smug moralizing? Anyone want to go back to that? ... P.S.: A good example of how, if the MSM wants to tilt against the Republicans, it's often too wedded to its own conventions--e.g., the desire to 'make news' with an ex-Pres.--to be effective. ... No sophisticated campaign propagandist would say, "OK, let's throw Jimmy Carter at them. They'll be reeling!" ....6:42 P.M.
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Obama Overexposure Tour continues. ... Next: Bloggingheads? Mediaite Office Hours? 6:40 P.M.
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Jeffrey Lord gives a good description of the MSM Gatekeeper's Greatst Hits. Then he goes on and on. Makes Rabbi Saperstein look like Marcel Marceau. ...P.S.: Lord lays it on as if only conservative bloggers, etc, have been rebelling against Big Media. As if he wants a piece of the Mark Levin business. Depressing. ... [via Lucianne] 6:40 P.M.
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Why did the GOP lead in "generic" ballot evaporate on Rassmussen, even as Obama health bounce also vanished? Is the Joe Wilson heckle hurting? ... Could this be an example of a successful kamikaze-style attack? Wilson's "You lie" badly damaged its target (Obama has apparently now caved on the central issue of verifying legal status) but it also damaged Wilson. ... Except that it's not clear it damaged Wilson himself, reelection wise. It's his party that's maybe been hurt. "Kamikaze" isn't the right analogy. ... What's the word for a kamikaze attack in which the pilot survives but the carrier he took off from gets sunk? ... 6:23 P.M.
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Twitter is not @marcambinder's friend! It broadcasts his initial take--which is often 180 degrees wrong. Example #1: Twittering as if Obama would be mad at the networks that his off the record "jackass" comment leaked. #2: Twittering as if town hall rebelliousness would help the Dems. ... 6:09 P.M.
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That False Consciousness Keeps On Coming: Workers at Boeing factory vote to un-unionize. By secret ballot. ... Because when it comes to decertifying unions, union lobbyists insist on the sanctity of the secret ballot. ... 6:08 P.M.
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Jack Palance Plays Elmer Gantry: Andrew Breitbart + Good Haircut = Slightly Scary Rabble-Rousing Potential. ... 6:05 P.M.
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From OMB director Donald Rumsfeld Peter Orszag's recent blog post explaining the deficit estimate increase:
... the Administration is insistent that health care reform not only be deficit neutral over the next ten years, but also incorporate changes that will help reduce the deficit thereafter.
a) Isn't it pretty clear that these "changes that will help reduce the deficit" after ten years are the very changes that have scared seniors and others out of supporting Obama's health reform? I thought the plan was not to talk about them any more. ... b) Please tell me you're not going to veto a health care reform that is "deficit neutral over the next ten years" just because it doesn't also include those longer term defcit-cutting "game changers." You're not going to veto it--everyone knows this--but mightn't this be a good time to reassure us that you are not insane? ... 12:03 P.M.
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From Resilience to Delusion: Is Christopher Hitchens really offering up the most ancient, cliched rationalization of infidelity in defense of his friends, Elizabeth and John Edwards?
In the unequal battle between life and death (as she understood in her father's case), Eros has its part in warding off Thanatos, and if this really was--as I believe--her husband's first lapse, it might have been partly because of the death-haunted context in which, for all his money and charm, he found himself.
'Thanatos made me do it.' This was also Warren Beatty's rationalization in Shampoo, if I remember right. ... P.S.: I think there is actually a significant possibility that Hitchens really believes Rielle Hunter was John Edwards' "first lapse"--that he's not just trying to be kind to his friends. He should stop being a fool. ... Update: Alert reader E emails--
John Edwards had never strayed before. I guess he'd been waiting 30 years for someone to say the magic words, "You're so hot!" ....
12:26 P.M.
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Test Your Tomato IQ: Lots of delicious U.S.-grown tomatoes in L.A. supermarkets last week. Weren't they supposed to be rotting in the fields due to lack of low-wage illegal immigrant labor? ... 10:22 P.M.
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Do we really need angry outsider Pat Caddell to tell us that Edward Kennedy's absence left a "vacuum of leadership" in the Senate? (He "knew how to get things done" and "worked across aisles"!) How is David Broder supposed to earn a living? ... P.S.: Caddell also says that health care "probably would have been a done deal if [Kennedy] was around," which seems like pretty much 100% BS, unless Kennedy would have cajoled Obama into pursuing a different strategy. ... 10:51 P.M.
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If You've Lost Robert Pear ... : From Maguire:
Old New York Times reporting: "Death panel" rumors "false," the product of a familiar network of anti-reform "pundits and conservative media outlets":
There is nothing in any of the legislative proposals that would call for the creation of death panels or any other governmental body that would cut off care for the critically ill as a cost-cutting measure.
New New York Times reporting: "[F]ears ... about possible rationing" are "not entirely irrational":
The zeal for cutting health costs, combined with proposals to compare the effectiveness of various treatments and to counsel seniors on end-of-life care, may explain why some people think the legislation is about rationing, which could affect access to the most expensive services in the final months of life.
Next thing you know, the NYTers will be grabbing the mike at town halls. ...
P.S.: At least when voters are having notentirelyirrationalfears that Obama would have the state play god by exercising yes/no power over life-ending medical decsions, he didn't go and say something creepily extravagant and provocative like "we are God's partners in matters of life and death." ... Whew! ... Oh.. ... [also via Maguire] ... Update: I'm now having mild, but gnawing, doubts as to the epistemological status of that Obama quote. Politico reports it (twice). It seems to come from the real time twitter feed of a rabbi who was in on the phone call. (The rabbi has since deleted the tweet, giving an odd explanation.) Press Secretary Gibbs was asked about the quote Friday, didn't deny it, but said he'd have to check the transcript.... 5:10 P.M.
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Groopman vs. Gawande? I missed New Yorker contributor Dr. Jerome Groopman reaming President Obama on the magazine's July 23 podcast. Groopman accuses the President of "happy talk" that pretends the problem of long-term cost control will be painless. He also claims the "current" reform propoals will "build a huge bureaucratic superstructure around things that are not gonna save money and probably aren't going to improve quality."
Groopman's critique isn't mine--he thinks "rationing is going to be inevitable" and fees for doctors hospitals and drug companies have to be radically reduced. But his arguments certainly sit uneasily with the implication of the famously influential article by his fellow New Yorker doc, Atul Gawande--which is that, hey, if we only crack down on the wasteful McAllen, Texases of the world we can dramatically cut costs relatively painlessly. ...
P.S.: I obviously agree with Rick Hertzberg, who argues you have to give everyone the "goodies" (of universal coverage) first, and then whatever hard choices are necessary become easier. And I don't quite understand why the choice has to be Euro-style rationing (Groopman's view) if we're willing to make the alternative hard choice of raising taxes (or cutting other spending) to pay for avoiding it. ... 1:20 A.M.
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Gawker says that the National Enquirer has "has been 100 percent right about everything on this story"--a now-common MSM overreaction. I'd say the Enquirer has been more like 95% right--still better than anyone else. Their main blind spot is a refusal to say anything bad about Elizabeth Edwards, presumably for fear of offending their readership who prefer the story line of St. Elizabeth the Resilient Victim. (Enquirer editor David Perel: "She's been hurt. She lashed out. ... [T]here's some places I don't want to go.") Fortunately, HuffPo's Lee Stranahan is still around to chronicle Elizabeth's dissembling. ...
P.S.: Bonus Google gold! ... 1:19 A.M.
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Systemic Change at Dreidl HQ: Marc Ambinder now sticks in a 'to be sure' graf before selling us the optimistic WH spin. Today's good news for Obama? He's "about to go on vacation"! .... 1:03 A.M.
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Getting to Know the Public Option As It Disappears: Steven Pearlstein argues that the "public option" isn't necessarily a good way to keep down health costs. He notes that, unlike Medicare, "public" insurers would have to bear the costs of collecting premiums, managing care and marketing. Administrative expenses would inevitably be significantly higher than Medicare's 2-3 percent. Plus, the "public" plans wouldn't necessarily have much market leverage in areas where a single dominant hospital, for example, just has to be in your network.
But Pearlstein is assuming that the purpose of the "public option" is to control costs! What if, as Jacob Hacker and Rhul Rajkumar note, it is also designed to serve as a "crucial backup for those ill served by private plans"? Security, not cost. (Pearlstein asserts that a public option wouldn't be "the long-awaited safety net for the uninsured," but never backs it up with an explanation.)
And why do I get the disquieting sense that if the Obama administration had needed a strong defense of the "public option," Pearlstein could have written it the other way?
P.S.: Hacker and Rajkumar produced a generous and highly useful set of answers to my questions about the "public option" that they've championed. My initial reactions:
1) H & R note that when it comes to "community rating"--requiring insurers to charge the same rate to sick and ill people--there will likely be a "cat and mouse game" as insurers try to avoid the rules. But when it comes to preventing private insurers from gaming the system by attracting only healthy patients (even if they charge everyone the same rate) H& R rely on the effectiveness of regulation. (I don't see how competition from "public" plans will help out regulators in the latter case . Will a public option discipline private insurers that engage in "cherrypicking"? The availability of a public option seems what is likely to allow private firms to get away with cherrypicking--the victims denied insurance can always get it from the public plan. That also seems likely to decrease the incentive for regulators to prosecute.)
2) Won't sick people flock to the secure public option? H &R say such "adverse selection" will be "modest,"--and that "extreme adverse selection that really jacks up the cost of the public plan" is "unlikely." But nobody knows, right? And H & R's fallback solution to this problem--"risk adjustment," requiring those who enroll healthy customers to pay money to those with less healthy customers--seems like a solution that proves too much, as lawyers likely say. If "risk adjustment" reallly works, won't it solve all problems of private insurer cherrypicking--indeed, virtually all the problems of health insurance? Yet obviously H & R think there will be continuing cherrypicking, if only on a "cat and mouse" level.
3) Why will the public plan "create a strong competitor that pushes plans to focus on controlling costs and improving value"? As Pearlstein notes, the public plan will have to do most of the things private plans now do--in fact, they will probably farm the administration out to private contractors. To the extent the public option cuts costs by aggressively managing care, doesn't that defeat the purpose of having it as a Medicare-like backup that doesn't aggressively manage care? Won't the public plan be more vulnerable than private plans to anti-managed-care lobbying by voters? So the pro-public argument on costs basically amounts to an antitrust argument: competition in some markets is weak, and this will add another competitor. .
4) The public option is a strange hybrid of Medicare and faux-competitor, apparently. It could emphasize security or cost-cutting depending on who is running it. It seems worth a shot. But I'd feel better about the whole private/public combo if some of my conservative friends would explain to me just what it is that private insurers do that makes them worth preserving. The central problem, sketched by David Cutler in his book Your Money or Your Life, is that the free market does not reward insurers who provide excellent care. The market punishes insurers who provide excellent care, because the people who will be most attracted by excellent care are sick people, the very people who will drive insurers into bankruptcy. If private firms want to make a profit, at least in the indivudal market, the surest way to do it is to think up innovative ways to screw buyers--deny care to those likely to need it, write complicated clauses into policies that allow the insurer to weasel out of paying, etc.. Everyone agrees private insurers do these things. What do they do that's so great that makes up for it? [Keep out unions?--ed Good point! But Medicare eliminates the private insurance middlemen and doesn't seem, yet, to have forced unionization upon hospitals, etc. Of course Dennis Rivera and the Democrats aren't done with their work yet.]
On H & R's final point, I'm still not convinced that if there is no public plan, and the health insurance market becomes a hell of "unraveling choices, runaway costs, and rampant health insecurity" that there will be no political will to intervene later (because we've missed our "once in a generation chance"). Why isn't health care politics more like the environmental politics--you make some changes one year, and then if you win an election you make some more changes next year? (For a contrary argument, see my colleague Timothy Noah, who thinks the insurance lobby will be more powerful than ever after a reform mandating that everyone buy their product.)
P.P.S.: Reader D.C. submitted his own thorough set of answers to my public plan questions. Here is his explanation of why he thinks a public plan would attract enough healthy people to avoid a vicious circle in which it attracted the sickest people and had to raise premiums, further deterring the healthy:
[T]here are many ways for the public option to attract healthy workers, including:
-- peace of mind that you won't lose your job, your insurance, or your sanity when you get sick
-- a much larger pool of doctors to choose from (you get to choose your doctor, as opposed to most HMO's) [True?-MK]
-- portability if you move to a different state
-- ease of customer service (yes, it's the government, but compare the status quo)
-- fewer shenanigans trying to deny coverage based on technicalities
-- better preventative coverage [why?--MK]
-- coordination with state and local health providers
Seems logical enough, though I can't vouch for D.C.'s credentials. Offering security might not unequivocally raise costs, because security attracts the healthy as well as the sick. Still, if that were the predominant effect, wouldn't private insurers be offering a lot more security than they do know?
At bottom, there clearly still seems to be an uneasy, ongoing tension between a public plan's cost-cutting purpose and it's security-for-those-who-get-sick purpose. Hard to see how it can do 100% of both at the same time. And I still don't think H & R know which of those two forces will win out.
Not that this is a fatal objection--one reason to try would be to find out. Unlike Pearlstein, I wouldn't be troubled if "security" won decisively at the expense of "cost-cutting." ... 8:42 P.M.
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Bob Wright on Colbert Report, discussing Evolution of God. "I don't believe in any of these three religions." Colbert (as Colbert) is not receptive. ... 10:35 P.M.
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Jeff Toobin, wrong again? 11:03 P.M.
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Thinking Through The Pubic Option: John Edwards is "tired of all the lies"! ... [via Gawker] 11:39 P.M.
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Dropping the public option:
a) A little early, no? Quite apart from whether it reeks a bit of panic--Politico notes that the public option was a useful threat to hold over the insurance industry when negotiating the rules insurers will have to abide by;
b) Moving toward compromise on this issue already seems to be helping the administration with the inside game--i.e., getting enough moderates on board to, in theory, pass a bill. But the inside game is not the administration's biggest problem. The problem is the outside game--public support for the bill out in the country--where it has been losing fairly decisively. If the public ends up 60-40 against a bill, it's probably not going to happen even if Sen. Conrad is on board.
Will dropping the public option help with the outside game too? Maybe a bit: it reduces fear of a government takeover. But it does little to reduce legitimate fears of rationing in the existing, huge govenrment program--Medicare. To calm those fears, the provision to drop is Peter Orszag's precious IMAC commission, which Obama himself has seemingly promoted as nudging the system in the direction of denying care toward the end of life. ...
P.S.: Pulling Back from the Public Option? This is a Job for The Dreidl! Atlantic's Marc Ambinder declares "the President never insisted that a health care bill contain a public plan." Huh? Is Ambinder being spun so fast he can't read? The Obama address he links to says this:
That's why any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans - including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest - and choose what's best for your family. [E.A.]
That annoying word, "must." Sure reads to me like the President insisting that a health care bill contain a public plan. ...10:47 P.M.
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Mike Murphy is not a fan of Sarah Palin. ... 11:07 P.M.
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From Public Option to Pubic Option! Pigeon O'Brien thinks she knows why the delay in the rumored Edwards paternity admission. ...11:07 P.M.
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Hmm. WRAL reported that Edwards would publicly admit paternity at some point, but he hasn't actually done it yet, you know? Is he a) getting cold feet about the admission after seeing the nontrivial and hostile coverage the story has been getting; b) waiting until the grand jury clears him, as part of the bury-bad-news-under-good strategy previously suggested in this space; or c) planning to admit paternity privately but not put out any public admission, leaving the press with rumors and future leaks? The Third Way! ... I have no dog in this hunt--I've already gloated, and I don't think he's going to be Attorney General any time soon--but my guess is still (b). WRAL only said the admission "could come before the end of the criminal investigation." ... You would think at this point that option (c) potentially prolongs the drama during a slow news period. But since most people already think he's the father--it's "old news" in the classic Clinton formulation--then maybe the best PR result for Edwards is if the truth about any admission sort of dribbles out over the next few weeks. ... If past Edwards performance is a guide, the one option that won't be considered is telling the truth unembalmed in a thick layer of narcissistic dissembling. ... 2:27 P.M.
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Edwards' Second Edifice of Lies Collapses: Just when you are no longer all that interested in the John Edwards love child story--because the truth is kind of obvious--he goes and reportedly decides to admit paternity, allegedly after a DNA assesment. The grim dynamics of the Web now require some sort of hit-catching gloatfest. OK. Here goes.
1) Historic Gallery of Kossack Krap: Here's Jerome Armstrong proclaiming the original accusation "just a total bullshit story" in 2007--love the tags!--and Markos Moulitsas months later still sneering
... I can't believe this is even subject to debate, but for the crazies, no source is too disreputable if it validates their warped world view. Although in a perverse sense, the more energy they spend on b.s. like this (and Obama's supposedly forged birth certificate), the less energy they're spending on smearing Obama.
Is Moulitsas so dumb he didn't know the truth in July of 2008? I don't think Moulitsas is dumb, as a general proposition.
2) The National Enquirer has been vindicated (though I think they are still congenitally soft on Saint Elizabeth). HuffPo's Sam Stein kicked the story off. And always trust content from kausfiles. ... But this latest development vindicates no more than half of Monday's kf rumor item. I also speculated that the paternity admission would be part of a PR strategy designed to roll out after the grand jury failed to charge Edwards. I still expect that to happen--certainly you wouldn't think that Rielle Hunter went out of her way to damage him before the grand jury if he was going to admit paternity, do you? But to the extent Edwards simply had to talk to prosecutors-Fifth Amendment notwithstanding--then it might not have been so much a PR strategy as making the best of a bad situation;
3) Please do not forget that in his August, 2008 Nightline 'confession,'--"I take full responsibility"--Edwards didn't just deny paternity but said paternity was "not possible" because the affair with Hunter was over when the baby must have been conceived. To do otherwise would have interfered with his carefully crafted modified limited story about the affair--that it involved "a short period in 2006" and ended before Elizabeth's cancer recurred and before he went galavanting around the country advertising his fidelity and good character. If Edwards is in fact the father this entire fallback edifice of BS crumbles. ... It's worth reading the transcript of the ABC interview--practically every sentence out of Edwards' mouth is a lie. He doesn't know who the baby was in the Enquirer's photos, suggests the photos were doctored, doesn't know whether Andrew Young, the aide who took the fall, is the father, says Rielle Hunter's hiring as a videographer had nothing to do with the affair, etc.. And he does it all sanctimoniously.
4) Why construct this fallback line of lies? There are several possibilities, discussed here. My guess: The idea was not to fool his wife but to preserve his political viability as much as possible. Just a short mistaken affair! He slipped! Happens all the time! I also suspect St. Elizabeth was in on this second set of lies just as she went out and helped him try to preserve the first set of lies (i.e., that there was no affair at all and it was all just tabloid trash).
5) Why admit paternity now? Possible (speculative, not-proven) theories: a) He needed Hunter's testimony to be as friendly as possible; b) Disaffected Fall Guy Andrew Young's tell all book forced the issue; c) Edwards was going to be asked by the prosecutors; d) Somehow this helps keep the sex tape bottled up; e) It had to happen at some point. Rielle wants to be Mrs. Edwards, or at least to have the paternity of her child acknowledged. He couldn't keep her happy forever. f) He wants the story to get buried in all the excitement about Netroots Nation! ...
6) Remaining questions: Who was Enquirer's big source? Can it not have been Hunter? Why wouldn't Edwards agree to pay child support but negotiate a clause requiring everyone to keep it secret? Why her? What if he'd been elected? What about the enablers? Mudcat? Prince? Palmieri? Which ones were willing to put the party at risk? ... 12:06 A.M.
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In the 2008 primary, I was always a bit leery of the "love child" aspect of the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter cheating story--it seemed like the perfect setup, which would have gone like this:
Edwards would openly deny paternity, giving implicit permission for the press to report on the scandal. The press would do its part, excitedly reporting charges from Edwards' enemies that of course he's the father, the baby really looks like him, he was seen with the mother, on such and such a date, etc.. Paternity tests are ordered. ... The gossip world waits on tenterhooks. ... The tests come back and the verdict is ... he's not the father! Edwards takes a victory lap, vindicated. In acknowledging his innocence of the sensational paternity charge, the press and public would overlook the less sensational, but still damning truth--which is that he'd been cheating on his cancer stricken wife after basing his campaign in large part on his faithfulness.
That didn't happen, of course. I think we can guess one reason why! But now there is a credible rumor of a similar PR sleight of hand in the works that would, in theory, allow Edwards to slink away from his (hypothetical) guilt on the issue the paternity tests would have resolved. It would go like this (I'm paraphrasing):
When the grand jury investigating Edwards on campaign finance charges (e.g., did he illegally use campaign money to pay Hunter?) comes back with "not sufficient to press charges," Edwards will in short order admit it's his kid. The idea is that the grand jury's "insufficient evidence" finding will start refurbishing his image, and that this news will overwhelm his admission of paternity (even though he specifically denied paternity was even possible** in his BS-riddled 2008 Nightline "confession").
It's just a rumor, remember!
The key to the rumored PR scenario would be that the respectable MSM is allowed to care about criminal charges while it still pretends not to care about mere sex. So the grand jury findings will get unjustified play, relative to the paternity admission.
It's a brilliant plan! And if this brilliant plan really is the plan ... well, if Edwards thinks it will work he's deluded.
**--Exact quote: "I would welcome participating in a paternity test. Be happy to participate in one. I know that it's not possible that this child could be mine because of the timing of events, so I know it's not possible. Happy to take a paternity test, and would love to see it happen." [Emphasis added] Transcript here. 4:50 P.M.
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So if one of these promising new cancer treatments winds up working 25% of the time, but costs $150,000, will Peter Orszag give to you? ... 12:14 A.M.
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Mark Krikorian on why Chuck Schumer's new get-tough rhetoric on immigration is a fraud:
Schumer also called for a biometric worker verification system, though this is also little more than a marketing gimmick. I'm actually not averse to it, but it's a pie-in-the-sky right now. Instead, to prove seriousness about enforcement, the government needs to implement the actually existing tools right now and upgrade them as time goes on. E-Verify, for instance, would be better with biometric identifiers. But it's darn good now, especially when combined with the Social Security Number Verification Service (SSNVS) and no-match letters, and they're working to integrate more photos (which are, after all, a form of biometric identifier) into the system too, by incorporating passport photos and getting states to provide their digitized driver's license photos. What we need is for Congress to phase in E-Verify for all employers now, something that will take several years to roll out, assuming judges even allow it to go forward. But this administration won't even implement the rule requiring federal contractors to use E-Verify, and the House has rejected a number of Republican amendments to do just that (and also rejected an E-Verify mandate for recipients of TARP funds). So Schumer's got a long way to go before he can overcome the public suspicion that "their government is not serious about combating illegal immigration." [E.A]
The obvious Schumer scenario: Congress decrees an amnesty plus fancy future employment-verification technologies. The amnesty happens, the technologies fail or are blocked. ... Even if you actually think both elements are necessary for immigration reform, wouldn't it make sense to first legislate the worker-verification system, then see if it gets past the Chamber of Commerce's and the ACLU's lawsuits, then see if it works, then (we're into Cory Booker's second term here) talk about the amnesty? ... 12:09 A.M.
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Quote of last week: "What color do we turn our icons now?" Ana Marie Cox, 6/25 ... Hard to believe the new, Twitter-addled Time and Newsweek both missed that one. [via Pareene] 12:08 A.M.
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Edwards sex tape. So disappointing. Just him and a mirror again. ... P.S.: But Rush & Molloy bury the lede--Obama's alleged promise to make Edwards Attorney General. ... Given what had already come out about Edwards and Rielle Hunter even before the Iowa caucuses, this may be one of those promises Obama knew he wouldn't have to keep. ... 12:07 A.M.
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Like CNN, Twitter seems like a pretty joyless place--but like CNN used to be, it's good in a crisis. ("CNN's Shocking Suck-Up to Iran's Fascists"? Marcus Brauchli: Get Howie Kurtz on the story stat! Oh wait). ... Even good writers turn into bad writers on Twitter. But after following the #iranelection feed (and Sullivan and Pitney) until bleary, I find it hard to have a thought much longer than seven score characters.
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Hillary Was So Well-Behaved Until Now: Sid Blumenthal to State? He may know things [raised eybrow] about Ahmadinejad that you don't .... But if I were Obama I might think twice. ... 10:37 P.M.
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Reza Aslan praises as "absolutely brilliant" a Chris Dickey Khamenei profile that seems to conclude "Ahmadinejad would have won anyway" (notwithstanding "indications of fraud"). Yet Aslan has claimed the election "was stolen by Ahmadinejad’s supporters," specifically the Revolutionary Guard, in what amounted to a "military coup." Which is it? ...10:38 P.M.
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NYT buries story that Sonia Sotomayor pushed for more very-low-income units in Harlem and Bronx housing developments--deeply misguided when the goal is to recreate a class mix and end concentration of poverty. She's also exercised by affirmative action contracting numbers. "'Extreme partisan' on questions of class and ethnicity." Yikes. ... Are conservatives banking too much on her being such a b----- that she won't convince other justices? ... 11:09 P.M.
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"Don't believe what you've heard about a GOP in disarray." The Republicans have
history on their side. There are only a handful of times in our nation's past when the party that won the White House hasn't lost big the following midterm election. That would spell disaster for President Obama's agenda. [E.A.]
Who said that? The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in a fundraising email I just got. It will come as news to the GOPs. ... 11:10 P.M.
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If John Edwards were alive today ... : The "New GM" tries to slough off product liability claims. ... 11:14 P.M.
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Super-filtered kaus feed! Meanwhile, my own actual twitter feed is such a fire-hose-like stream of apercus that they can only be highlighted here. The highlights: ... OK, there are no highlights. ... Except maybe the Mr. Bubble item which has not been lawyered (and which was stolen from a friend). ... 11:22 P.M.
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At Least He** Had a Lede to Bury: John Edwards thinks he can come back. And somehow in theoretically humble disgrace comes off as smugger and phonier than ever! (Sample: "The two things I'm on the planet for now are to take care of the people I love and to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves.") ...
He thinks "every day" about what form his future role in activism or public life could take, but "right now, a lot of that is unanswerable." ... [snip]
"If I can help the most by working quietly, that's what I'll do. If as time goes by I can be more helpful with a public role, that's what I will do."
WaPo reporter Alec MacGillis pathetically agreed in advance not to talk about the things Edwards didn't want to talk about (like the second tranche of now-festering lies he told in the course of his Nightline "confession"). MacGillis also asserts, as fact, that Edwards promoted health-care reform "more aggressively than anyone on the presidential campaign trail." True? ...
But MacGillis also buries a solid lede: The last web page of his piece features an impressive, reported survey of broken Edwards promises to various actual impoverished Americans--scholarship programs cancelled, Katrina foreclosure cases unaided--complete with victim quotes. ("I just thought he was trying to cover his tracks while he was a candidate. ... It was probably all for show in the end." ).
Who was the editor who decided to call this piece "Hope from a Humbler Perch" instead of, say, "In Defeat, Edwards Left String of Broken Promises"?
Note to Gawker: No, he can't have a Slate Rehab column. Sorry. We're saving the slot for Rattner. ...
**Correction: Reporter MacGillis is a he, not a she. [Thanks to reader B.].. 10:24 P.M.
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sofas? ... 12:23 P.M.
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Overlooked? From The Charlie Rose Show Tuesday (at 8:00 mark)--
CHARLIE ROSE: How would you have lived your life differently based on what you know now?
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: Boy, I mean, there`s so many -- I certainly would have gotten mammograms more often. That was an easy one.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, of course, right.
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: You know, I would not have voluntarily put myself in a position where I thought I would lose a child...
CHARLIE ROSE: Of course not.
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: ... and that I would feel so betrayed. I wouldn`t have done that voluntarily. I would...
CHARLIE ROSE: What does that mean? I don`t know what that means.
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: That means I would have made different choices. You know, I might have married somebody else and done something else ... [E.A.]
Is this (a) a huge dis or (b) something most wives tell themselves every other day? ... Evidence for (a) is that Mrs. Edwards immediately veers into talking about her husband's "gift to stir" and leave people "moved and inspired." Make up call! ... 1:53 P.M.
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Monday, May 18, 2009
Clark** Hoyt's Sunday pooh-poohing of the "game changer" affair (the accusation that the NYT killed a story on illegal ties between Obama and ACORN because it might have affected the election) fails to satisfy in several respects: 1) The explanation for why the Times killed its reporters "pursuit of the Obama angle" is a bit squishy. According to Hoyt, the publication of an October, 2008 Times article on "impermissible political activity by Acorn," filled the paper's need. But that story, as Powerline points out, didn't tackle the highly-charged Obama connection; 2) Hoyt tells us what the times reporter, Stephanie Strom, says she didn't tell her source--"she does not believe she ever used the term 'game-changer.'" But he never gives Strom's account of what she did say.
Let's assume what's obvious: The story wasn't close to a game changer. Let's also agree that even if Strom did tell her source what the source says she said--namely that the paper didn't want to print "a game-changer for either side that close to the election"--it might not mean all that much. Reporters tell sources things all the time to gracefully explain why they're being dropped. The real reason might be something else--like that the reporter doesn't believe the source is sufficiently credible, in which case it's easier to give a fake reason.
But here's the thing: Are you really confident that the NYT wouldn't spike an anti-Obama story in the waning days of the election out of fear--conscious or semi-subconscious--that it might badly hurt him? I had a revealing argument with a politically sophisticated friend--call him "Max"-- when the "game changer" charge first surfaced. Max's argument: Suppose it were a scandal sufficiently big to sink Obama. Any red-blooded Times reporter would be proud to publish it and tack Obama's scalp to the wall. To have taken down a presidential nominee--that would be a professional achievement, maybe a Pulitzer. They'd be high-fiving in the newsroom.
I think my friend is right about the culture of the newsroom--about 45 years ago. As for today, I think he's living in a dreamworld. Even if the Times had published such a story, Times reporters would certainly not have high-fived the colleague who'd cost Obama the election. Not after two terms of Bush. And I have no faith the paper would even have published it (before allowing the reporter to slink out of the building). In part, that's because I have no faith that I'd publish it. The old adversarial ethic--I play my role and let the system take care of the moral consequences--rightly went mostly out the window with the ascension of the Sixties cohort.
In part it's because, if there's one major change Pinch Sulzberger has presided over at the Times, it's the end of the pretense that his reporters have to be ashamed of their strong political beliefs. And we know, in the case of the Times, what those beliefs mostly are. ...
Update: Strom's source seems to be twittering. ...
**--Name error fixed [Thx to reader K.R.] 5:34 P.M.
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Will Obama rescue John Edwards by replacing the U.S. Attorney who is investigating him? ... If he does, will Josh Marshall kick up a fuss about it? ... [Thanks to alert reader R.H. ... See also Insta] ... 5:33 P.M.
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Thursday, May 14, 2009
Old Chinese Proverb: Man who gets overexcited in support of a candidate is likely to get excitably disappointed when candidate fails to live up to overexcited expectations. Andrew Sullivan moves on to the inevitable next stage in the cycle of his hyperbolic judgment. Instapundit rubs it in. ... P.S.: It's actually a powerful post, if characteristically overexcited. Why is Sullivan so annoyed? Haven't gay rights been making huge, startlingly rapid gains recently? Maybe Obama's just sitting back and letting it happen, worried that if he forces the issue the result will be a backlash. And it turns out Sullivan also has an acute personal motive for wanting to hurry things up:
Here we are, with marriage rights spreading through the country and world and a president who cannot bring himself even to acknowledge these breakthroughs in civil rights, and having no plan in any distant future to do anything about it at a federal level. Here I am, facing a looming deadline to be forced to leave my American husband for good, and relocate abroad because the HIV travel and immigration ban remains in force and I have slowly run out of options ... [E.A.]
Aha. ... Still, you'd think Obama could at least get away with protecting gay servicemembers with skills--like facility in Arabic--the country badly needs. ... 12:12 A.M.
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Doomsday Reconsidered: Some entries from that Edwards timeline:
September 2007 – Anonymous tip comes into National Enquirer hot line saying Edwards was having an affair with Hunter. ...
Late November 2007 – National Enquirer discovers Rielle is living in Chapel Hill and having dinner with Andrew Young and his wife. Sources were saying Rielle was six months pregnant. ...
December 20, 2007 – National Enquirer editor-in-chief David Perel says source for Hunter-Edwards love child story was not a rival political campaign. Calls sources “extraordinarily good” and “beyond reproach.”
Hmm. Who were the Enquirer's sources? Was Perel's source perhaps "not a rival political campaign" because it was ... the Edwards campaign? Maybe the much-disputed "Doomsday" plan not only existed, but was actually put into effect. ... 12:11 A.M.
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All they had to do was say it was a Star Trek joke. Instead they panicked. ... 12:10 A.M.
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When Hype Congeals: Los Angeles brands Mayor Villaraigosa a "failure." ... 12:09 A.M.
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XX Factor breaks out of the Slate blog ghetto! ... 12:08 A.M.
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
This impressive timeline of the Edwards/Rielle Hunter scandal** alludes to an obvious John Edwards lie I'd forgotten about (it's hard to remember them all). In his alleged "confession" on Nightline, Edwards was asked by Bob Woodruff about a photo that seemed to show him holding a baby in the Beverly Hilton, when he was visiting Hunter [emphasis added]:
WOODRUFF: And that picture is absolutely you and you are holding that baby.
EDWARDS: The picture in the tabloid. I have no idea what that picture is.
WOODRUFF: But you've seen it right?
EDWARDS: I did see it and I cannot make any sense out of that. When I went to this meeting you've already asked me about, uh, I was not wearing a t-shirt, I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I don't know who that picture -- I don't know if that picture is me, it could well be, it looks like me. I don't know who that baby is, I have no idea what that picture is.
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WOODRUFF: But are you saying you don't remember holding that child of Miss Hunter?
EDWARDS: I'm saying you asked me about this photograph, I don't know anything about that photograph, I don't know who that baby is. I don't know if the picture has been altered, manufactured, if it's a picture of me taken some other time, holding another baby -- I have no idea. I was not at this meeting holding a child for my photograph to be taken I can tell you that.
WOODRUFF: You did say you did meet her at a hotel in California.
EDWARDS: She was there, Mr. McGovern was present, and that's where the meeting took place.
WOODRUFF: But you don't remember a baby being there?
EDWARDS: No.
Does anyone believe this? Even if the baby is (as he claimed***) not his, how could he not remember the baby being there? If the pictures were from another visit, then he still knows perfectly well "what that picture is." ... Even his wife seems to have given up on this line of defense, resorting to the contradictory, but equally implausible 'politicians-hold-babies-all-the-time' response.
P.S.: Is it true that the Center for American Progress' Jennifer Palmieri, last seen emasculating poor Matthew Yglesias, really "helped [Edwards] prepare" for the dissembling Nightline interview, as reported by Walter Shapiro? There's a line she can put on her resume! ...
P.P.S.: Even the liberal New Republic is getting into the business of spotting St. Elizabeth's dissembling. Like Lee Stranahan yesterday, TNR's Jason Zengerle notes that on "Larry King" Mrs. Edwards said she "dismissed" tabloid reports of the Hunter affair on 'they-write-about-airplanes-on-the-moon' grounds, even though by her own account her husband had confessed to at least a one-night stand a year earlier. ...
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**--My main problem with this timeline is that, by focusing on Rielle Hunter and Edwards, it creates the appearance that Hunter was Edwards' only extramarital affair, something that's very much unclear at this point. If that's not true--if Edwards had been screwing around for years, for example--it would cast the subsequent agonizing and dissembling in a very different light, no?
***--In his televised "confession," remember, John Edwards claimed not only that the baby wasn't his but that it couldn't possibly be his, a certainty Elizabeth now seems to have abandoned (she says she doesn know--"I don't have any information" -but that it might be "discovered" that the child is his.) ... 5:09 P.M.
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