Lee Wochner: Writer. Director. Writing instructor. Thinker about things.


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The right word for the right man

edwards.jpg

Earlier this year, my world-traveling friend Doug Hackney took a long-distance view at the major candidates for president in his home country and did an assessment of each. Like most soothsayers, Doug got a lot wrong — but what he got right rings with insight, particularly with regard to the Democrats. A few samples:

  • Hillary Clinton: “The candidate of the Borg… and the message so far echoes the Borg: ‘Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.'”
  • Dennis Kucinich: “Says what he believes and believes what he says. Especially the part about the UFO. Has a very limited grip on reality.”
  • Barack Obama: “America really needs re-branding. … Barack Obama would be the best re-branding imaginable at this point in history.”

 

And finally, and most tellingly, Doug called John Edwards “a charlatan.”

That simple word has stayed with me all seven months since Doug wrote it. Because I was jealous. Doug had nailed the word I’d been searching for. As surely everyone else can see now, John Edwards is a charlatan.

Here’s why Doug thinks he’s a charlatan:

“In the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time around people with little to nothing. Their collective net worth probably wouldn’t pass 1/1000th of one percent of John Edwards’ multi-million-dollar net worth. John Edwards is running as the candidate of the poor, the downtrodden, the people with little to nothing. From what I’ve seen from being around these people, the only thing John Edwards has in common with them is that he’ll tell them anything they want to hear to get their vote. He’s a classic political charlatan. Luckily for us, he’s not the anointed one this year.”

 

What is a charlatan, exactly? It’s “a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money or advantage via some form of pretense or deception.”

Like using your wife’s cancer as the backdrop for your first campaign video while you’re booking “consulting time” with another woman.

 

(And just to be clear — the relationship with the other woman is between Edwards and his wife. Repeatedly lying about it while asking us to believe that you weren’t doing it while she had cancer and while asking us to believe you didn’t father a child with her — that’s asking us to double down on your ponzi scheme.)

I could go on in further fashion detailing Edwards’ behavior and tactics in this scandal, but Mickey Kaus has already done that for me. I will say, though, that I’m thrilled to see Edwards go down in flames this way. I’ve never been so alarmed at any event as I was at the 2007 California State Democratic Party Convention, where Edwards threw out one crowd-pleasing and self-serving slab of meat after another and the people in the pit gobbled it up, no matter how wildly impractical, dangerous, and wrong it seemed. I felt like the only Jew at the Nuremberg Rally.

2 Responses to “The right word for the right man”

  1. Doug Hackney Says:

    Lee,

    Thanks for the plug.

    One advantage of being in a different society and unplugged from western media is I didn’t know about this scandal.

    This infidelity is another human theme that endlessly repeats through history, across all societies and demographic segments.

    Other than the notoriety and media coverage, do you see any fundamental difference between Edwards and a dog catcher doing the same thing? Or does power, the ultimate aphrodisiac, and fame make this more likely and predictable?

    Doug

  2. Joe Says:

    Much like the ‘bum sweat’ in the previous entry, Mr. Edwards has fully explained himself just by showing up at the ‘checkout counter’ of National Politics by referring to his interpersonal misdemeanors as his ‘narcissism’ (which is oddly narcissistic of him to self diagnose) – all of which goes to show about Western Media, believe the hype when it comes to expensive hair-do’s and move along to the next framed photo as it gets slapped up onto the wall. It’ll look like Edwards for a while, but with time, it’ll grow to be different.

    Naturally, I cannot resist a ‘poke’ at aphrodisiacs without noting Re. Mr. Edwards’ pick for a mistress: “A stiff prick has no conscience.”

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