posted
John Edwards is trash. Cheating on his wife -- when she has cancer -- and then lying about it and letting an aide take the blame for this affair -- and then finally admitting the affair, telling ABC News that he "didn't love" his mistress, it was just a physical thing to him -- this slob couldn't be more classless if someone offered him a $400 haircut as an incentive. Screw him.
I'm very sorry for his wife and their kids, though.
Posts: 5940 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lawson: John Edwards is trash.
Pretty much. As bad as his private behavior is though, the public behavior of running for President when you've got an affair in your recent past is almost as disgusting.
Mike
Posts: 1577 | From: Waterloo, Iowa, United States | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm also going to avoid this story like the plague because if I have to read or hear ONE person saying that cheating on your wife while running (or getting ready to run) for President is this horrible sin but that cheating on your wife while while actually being President is a "who gives a crap" non-issue...my head will explode.
Mike
Posts: 1577 | From: Waterloo, Iowa, United States | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Asked whether the affair would damage Edwards' future aspirations in public service, Bonior replied: "You can't lie in politics and expect to have people's confidence."
haha.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MBunge: I'm also going to avoid this story like the plague because if I have to read or hear ONE person saying that cheating on your wife while running (or getting ready to run) for President is this horrible sin but that cheating on your wife while while actually being President is a "who gives a crap" non-issue...my head will explode.
You mean Clinton?
My attitude was, Clinton is trash (like Edwards) -- and having affairs while you're president in this day and age is incredibly stupid -- and having the summer intern go down on you in the Oval Office is disrespectful on so many levels that I can't even count them all -- but I didn't think it was an impeachable offense. The Senate agreed.
Of course, I didn't mind seeing him get beat up and publicly humiliated for a few months.
Posts: 5940 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
But at least it was an affair with an adult, professional woman. Not some 22-year-old intern like Clinton's.
And at least he's staying with his wife. Not like he fooled around with a 25-year-old school marm and then went home and asked for a divorce. Like John McCain did.
Posts: 1037 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
NPR reports that Edwards told his wife about the affair 2 years ago. Thus, not only did he cheat on her, but he made her complicit in the lies that followed, heaping shame upon shame on her. Of course, she went along with it ...
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:And at least he's staying with his wife. Not like he fooled around with a 25-year-old school marm and then went home and asked for a divorce. Like John McCain did.
I hate this kind of bullshit -- unless someone is trying to make McCain out as being more virtuous here, this point is irrelevant. As the story goes, McCain was separated from his wife when he began his new relationship.
The drive towards power is based on the kind of narcissism that would lead one to cheat on others. Private sexual relations should be left out politics (not the knowledge of such relations, just as a factor weighing in on the potential performance of the person seeking power). Presidential candidates are not next-door neighbors. They are people who desire power, because they believe there ideas should be forced on the rest of us. Big surprise when they think they can fuck whomever they want. Hell, the only time I felt close to Bill Clinton was in learning that he had a thing for big asses, too. I still didn't want to have a beer with him, though.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: As the story goes, McCain was separated from his wife when he began his new relationship.
John McCain and Cindy Lou Hensley met in April 1979. McCain and Hensley carried on a relationship for the rest of that year. McCain and his first wife stopped living together in January 1980. Divorced February-April 1980. John and Cindy were married on May 17, 1980.
McCain's first wife was a former model who suffered serious injuries in a car accident in 1969, while he was incarcerated in Vietnam. When he was finally returned to the US in 1973, he found his former-model wife four inches shorter and extremely heavier, due to the resultant 23 surgeries she had undergone after her accident. He had other extramarital affairs as early as 1976.
Ross Perot paid for Carol Shepp's medical care, by the way. Ross Perot would later say, "After [John McCain] came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona and the rest is history."
Posts: 1037 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Can't say to blame him. How would a hobbly, chubby little cripple help to fund a budding political career? I think the modeling career's out the door at that point, and certainly she wouldn't be a very good lay anymore.
He returned home a national celebrity; I'd move on to greener pastures, too. As far as we know, we've only one life to live, here, and in our culture marriage is not a binding agreement. It's basically just a girlfriend/boyfriend-plus-tax-incentives. And the legitimized social standing obligatory to a field like politics.
If a relationship sours, you've got to pitch it like expired milk. New teats with fresh offerings await. McCain's first wife supports him whole-heartedly.
No harm done. Trollops come and go.
And Edwards is a douche.
K
Posts: 3704 | From: michigan | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I know you're not big on references, NT, but I am:
quote:But here was the first piece of luck, for his split from Carol enabled him to romance Cindy Hensley, an Arizonan seventeen years his junior whom he had met while vacationing in Honolulu in 1979 (he was separated) and with whom he was in love, he has written, by the end of their first evening together.
They married in May 1980, and from this union tumbled other fortuities.
posted
No, he wasn't separated from Carol Shepp until January of 1980. His affair with Cindy Lou Hensley started in April of 1979.
What this has to do with Edwards, is that Edwards told his wife about his affair two years ago and begged her forgiveness. McCain told his wife about his affair (the latest of at least a few — I like how your reference calls it simply "carousing") and then told her to take a hike.
Posts: 1037 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:What this has to do with Edwards, is that Edwards told his wife about his affair two years ago and begged her forgiveness. McCain told his wife about his affair (the latest of at least a few — I like how your reference calls it simply "carousing") and then told her to take a hike.
Even if one agrees that McCain's actions were worse, you make no argument for why they're relevant to Edwards'. Edwards is still a blackguard, regardless of McCain's being one.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Mr. McCain has acknowledged running around with women and accepted responsibility for the breakup of the marriage, without going into details. But his supporters and his biographer, Robert Timberg, all suggest that the marriage had already effectively ended and that the couple had separated by the time he met Cindy, his present wife.
That might be the most soothing way of explaining a politician's divorce from a disabled wife and his remarriage to a wealthy heiress, but it does not jibe with accounts of family members and friends.
John and Carol McCain had separated once briefly after they moved to Washington, when he moved his gear into his mother's house on Connecticut Avenue. That was the first hint that Joe McCain, John's younger brother, had of any marital problems, for neither John nor Carol confided much about personal problems.
''I remember asking him one time,'' Joe McCain recalled. ''I said: 'You don't look so happy. You want to talk about it?' And he said, 'No, pal.' ''
That separation lasted about two weeks and was not repeated until the final split, said their son Andy, and even close family friends never knew about it. To outsiders, who often visited the McCain household, the marriage seemed as close as ever.
''They were definitely living together as man and wife when I was there,'' recalled Mr. Smith, the former instructor pilot, who moved to Washington and lived with the McCains in their home from about February through May 1979. ''And there were no signs of strain.
''For somebody to say that they were separated or at each other's throats is just nonsense,'' Mr. Smith said.
Yet at precisely the time that Mr. Smith was a guest in what appeared to be a happy household, in April 1979, Mr. McCain accompanied a group of senators on a trip to China. The Navy threw a big cocktail party for the group during a stopover in Honolulu.
''John and I were talking, and then somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and exchanged a few words,'' said Albert A. Lakeland, then a Senate staff member. ''When I turned around, John was gone. I looked around, and he was making a beeline for this very attractive blond woman.
''He spent the whole party talking to her, and he kept avoiding me when I approached,'' Mr. Lakeland said. After the reception, Mr. McCain and the young woman, Cindy Hensley, went out to dinner, and the romance blossomed.
Mr. McCain continued to pursue Miss Hensley, calling her to keep in touch. When she thanked him for sending flowers that had just arrived (signed ''John'') he said it was nothing. As she discovered years later, they were from another man named John.
Over the next six months, Mr. McCain pursued Miss Hensley aggressively, flying around the country to see her, and he began to push to end his marriage. Friends say that Carol McCain was in shock.
Late that year, the McCains finally separated, and Mrs. McCain accepted a divorce the next February. Mr. McCain promptly married Miss Hensley, his present wife.
This reporter also refers to his "carousing."
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Probably 1 in 50 Americans know that before Cindy McCain was John McCain's wife, she was his mistress. Where is the MSM on this issue?
Posts: 246 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by madget: Can't say to blame him. How would a hobbly, chubby little cripple help to fund a budding political career? I think the modeling career's out the door at that point, and certainly she wouldn't be a very good lay anymore.
So if Edward's wife's cancer made her a poor lay, you'd be more sympathetic towards him?
Posts: 1010 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
I'm not a marriage advocate, but it annoys me when people aren't faithful to marriages. You don't need to get married and take those vows. "In sickness and in health," indeed. But, what can you do.
K
Posts: 3704 | From: michigan | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: Even if one agrees that McCain's actions were worse, you make no argument for why they're relevant to Edwards'.
I wasn't aware I was being graded for formal presentation.
The relevance is the comparison and contrast between the two men and their actions of infidelity. On the one hand you've got everybody (Democrats and Republicans alike) pooh-poohing on Edwards. The very best reaction he's getting is, "Thank GOD he's not the candidate, or this election would be lost!" Well, holy shit, there is a candidate running who arguably did something even worse to his wife and their marriage. And nobody's made a fucking peep about it.
posted
I'd like someone to ask Bill Clinton if he isn't appalled at the poor judgment of a politician willing to throw it all away by cheating on his wife.
Posts: 5940 | From: Lexington, Ky. | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
The analysis of the press seems to me to be that Edwards would be going down in flames right now due to being caught in a public lie, not the issue of infidelity.
McCain admitted that infidelity is one of the main reasons for his divorce, and is arguably only being untruthful about the degree to which he was separated from his wife at the time of his last affair (that's been conclusively proven), which resulted in his second marriage.
The swing voters (the moderates in their ignorance) might be fooled by the camouflage thrown up by the current White House in regards to the lies it told, but those voters understand a direct, bald-faced lie about sex. If for no other reason (and there are plenty), the base political ratio of our socalled moderate voting population is enough for me to be glad that John Edwards isn't the Democratic candidate.
I'm betting all posters in this thread would still vote for Edwards over McCain, and that no one is not voting for McCain based on how he treated his first wife, so bringing it up when we're talking about Edwards' own shittiness is entirely irrelevant to anyone but a knee-jerk ideologue. I can imagine every argument between you and Chris W. eventually reaching Hitler versus Stalin, as every point is only met by tangentially casting the net a little wider.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: I'm betting all posters in this thread would still vote for Edwards over McCain, and that no one is not voting for McCain based on how he treated his first wife, so bringing it up when we're talking about Edwards' own shittiness is entirely irrelevant to anyone but a knee-jerk ideologue.
Good point, Charles. If Edwards were the Democratic nominee right now, the Democrats would be in big trouble with swing voters. But the main core of Democratic voters would probably still vote Democratic, just in numbers too small to win the general election.
Both sides secretly pray that their candidates don't trip up or get embroiled in scandal too close to election day. The country is still so evenly divided between left and right, that all it takes is something small to push the undecided middle one way or the other.
And the losing side is bound to feel robbed when the deciding factor is some soap-opera triviality, rather than the important political issues and themes that the extremes have devoted their lives to.
Posts: 760 | From: Salem, MA, USA | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: I'm betting all posters in this thread would still vote for Edwards over McCain, and that no one is not voting for McCain based on how he treated his first wife, so bringing it up when we're talking about Edwards' own shittiness is entirely irrelevant to anyone but a knee-jerk ideologue.
I never paid that much attention to McCain before. I thought he was wronged in 2000 in the SC primary and that he should have been the Republican candidate instead of BushJr. I probably would have voted for him that year instead of Gore.
But now that he actually is the candidate, and there's all this information instantly available about him on the Internet, I wouldn't vote for him. Third generation Navy lifer who's never had a real job. Picks his women based purely on aesthetics. The dumping of his first wife when she became a stubby cripple. Used his POW status as leverage in building his political career. Funding his political career with alcohol. The Keating scandal. And so on.
quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: no one is not voting for McCain based on how he treated his first wife
That's only because no one is bringing up the point. But the Edwards adultery case brings up the perfect opportunity to do so.
Posts: 1037 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
-------------------- The Man of Mettle Posts: 3882 | From: The MBA (Mysterious Blue Area) of the MMM (Mighty Marvel Moon), Nagga (Pal) | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I understand Charles' sentiment, but not the point he's trying to extend it into. If necro starts a new, unrelated thread about McCain's past marriages, is it then okay to bring up? Or is it not okay to bring up at all, unless it happens with complete, unprecedented spontaneity?
Or is there simply no reason to discuss the details of McCain's life whatsoever?
K
Posts: 3704 | From: michigan | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by steel: A Long Departed Hero: Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-cares?
Apparently... you. You did click on the thread title link.
Just to say, "Whooooooooooooooooooooooo-cares?"
Because you're all gossiping grannies. God is the only one that can judge, so don't try.
-------------------- The Man of Mettle Posts: 3882 | From: The MBA (Mysterious Blue Area) of the MMM (Mighty Marvel Moon), Nagga (Pal) | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by steel: A Long Departed Hero: God is the only one that can judge, so don't try.
The same god who got some guy's wife pregnant, and cooked up a whole messiah story to smooth things over with him?
Posts: 4999 | From: Cleveland Heights, Ohio | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
Necro was bringing up McCain's own questionable morality as a defense of Edwards. That's what I'm arguing against. I have no problem bringing up McCain's behavior (cf. my thread on his calling his current wife a cunt). I didn't see anyone arguing here that Edwards is the most immoral of all the candidates we had before us in the past year.
-------------------- The Gospel, wherein much Truth is written. Posts: 6944 | From: us of fuckin' a | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Charles Reece: NPR reports that Edwards told his wife about the affair 2 years ago. Thus, not only did he cheat on her, but he made her complicit in the lies that followed, heaping shame upon shame on her. Of course, she went along with it ...
Well duh. "You mean I get to live in an enormous mansion and have all my bills paid and a forum where I can complain about anything I want, and all I have to do is look the other way if my husband starts banging some other chick? Is this a trick question?"
The higher up one gets in the social strata, the more these things matter. I'm betting the housewife-next-door would put up a much bigger fuss to her husband's cheating than the pastor's wife, or the Congressman's wife, the Colonel's wife, the President's wife, etc.
quote:And at least he's staying with his wife. Not like he fooled around with a 25-year-old school marm and then went home and asked for a divorce. Like John McCain did.
I hate this kind of bullshit -- unless someone is trying to make McCain out as being more virtuous here, this point is irrelevant. As the story goes, McCain was separated from his wife when he began his new relationship.
The drive towards power is based on the kind of narcissism that would lead one to cheat on others. Private sexual relations should be left out politics (not the knowledge of such relations, just as a factor weighing in on the potential performance of the person seeking power). Presidential candidates are not next-door neighbors. They are people who desire power, because they believe there ideas should be forced on the rest of us. Big surprise when they think they can fuck whomever they want. Hell, the only time I felt close to Bill Clinton was in learning that he had a thing for big asses, too. I still didn't want to have a beer with him, though.
Thank you, Charles, for a lucid point. The New York Times gave front page attention to the unproven notion that McCain may have had an affair with a lobbyist ten years ago, but they wouldn't touch this story, until Edwards came out and admitted it. No doubt if McCain was sticking cigars into a 21 year old intern, they'd have been all over that. Which is fine, if their goal is to sell newspapers, but, well, the obvious double-standard may explain why they're selling fewer newspapers as well.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by necrotechno: John McCain and Cindy Lou Hensley met in April 1979. McCain and Hensley carried on a relationship for the rest of that year. McCain and his first wife stopped living together in January 1980. Divorced February-April 1980. John and Cindy were married on May 17, 1980.
This is just stupid. Obama had a much more recent and much more active relationship with Bill Ayers, whose goal was to kill American soldiers, and Obama's excuse was that it happened so long ago, he was maybe 10. Well, I was three when John and Cindy met, and I think adultery is much less of a big deal than actively trying to kill American soldiers. Let me know when you go after Obama for the long-time history of people he has relationships with. It would at least show you have some sense of balance when it comes to going after candidates and politicians.
quote:Originally posted by Big Dick Perkins 2: Probably 1 in 50 Americans know that before Cindy McCain was John McCain's wife, she was his mistress. Where is the MSM on this issue?
Too busy filling us in on the ethnic separatists in South Ossetia, and the Chinese government's treatment of journalists for the last 60-something years. Also Britney's working on a new album.
quote:Originally posted by necrotechno: I wasn't aware I was being graded for formal presentation.
The relevance is the comparison and contrast between the two men and their actions of infidelity. On the one hand you've got everybody (Democrats and Republicans alike) pooh-poohing on Edwards. The very best reaction he's getting is, "Thank GOD he's not the candidate, or this election would be lost!" Well, holy shit, there is a candidate running who arguably did something even worse to his wife and their marriage. And nobody's made a fucking peep about it.
Well, besides me.
You're being graded on relevance to anything. Someone who admits his first marriage broke up due to his infidelity isn't in any way comparable to someone who spent the longest time claiming that reports of his infidelity were "tabloid trash", paid his mistress out of PAC funds, and was stupid enough to get caught visiting her in a hotel in the middle of the night where a journalist convention was going on, even as he's trying to position himself as the candidate for veep. Oh, and he made such a big deal about loving his wife and supporting her in fighting cancer, that also might change things. Were you as steadfast in defending Newt Gingrich as you are with John Edwards?
quote:Originally posted by Peter Urkowitz: Good point, Charles. If Edwards were the Democratic nominee right now, the Democrats would be in big trouble with swing voters. But the main core of Democratic voters would probably still vote Democratic, just in numbers too small to win the general election.
That's the main problem, and the biggest damage. It's not that his platform was so different from the other main competitors, it's that he was disqualified by being a "white male". As far as charm goes, he certainly should have beaten Hillary, and as far as long-term national visibility, he had it all over Obama, yet with no real difference in their platforms, he was the obvious loser in the contest. There but for the grace of God is the Democratic candidate this November, someone who can't resist heading out to visit his mistress in a hotel packed with reporters in the middle of the night and can't think of anything better to do but hide in a bathroom once he's caught even as he's jockeying for a good job.
quote:Originally posted by necrotechno: Originally posted by Charles Reece: no one is not voting for McCain based on how he treated his first wife
[b]That's only because no one is bringing up the point. But the Edwards adultery case brings up the perfect opportunity to do so.
Then they'd need to start doing their job and also reporting on Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, and Obama's life in the Chicago political machine. You don't want them to do that, do you? At least McCain has achievements in federal politics over the last couple decades, and has personally suffered for his service to this country. Do you really want to open
