A Horse Is A Horse, Of Course, Of Course

Or. Blowback's A Bitch

We hit on the Le Affair Edwards the other day, and I honestly didn't except to be returning to it so soon.

There's still, either a few more details to come out, or an Imelda-Marcos-like avalanche of shoes to drop.

Seemingly, in the past day or two, it appears the MSM, now that Edwards did his "I'm Guilty ...But I'm Not" interview, is less interested in the former Senator, and now aiming their notebooks at Lisa Drucker, aka Rielle Hunter, the self-styled femme fatale in this saga.

And, boy, there be some bizarre shit flying out of that closet!

It's not that Rielle is a New Age disciple, or the much publicized former gal pal of author Jay McInerny, according to ABC, "A party girl named Lisa Druck whose exploits in New York's cocaine-fueled nightlife during the 1980s inspired "Bright Lights, Big City" author Jay McInerny to model a character after her in his fiction."

No, No, No ...

This is one family's closet that may, very well, qualify for 'Riply's Believe It or Not'

Mister Sandman, Bring Me A Dream

And if you can't do that, make sure you show up with the wires and jumper cables.

"Good God! John Edwards was having sex with the daughter of the guy who taught Tommy Burns how to kill horses by electrocuting them!"

This comes from a fascinating article, "Edwards' 'other woman' revives memories of a gruesome scandal", by Lester Munson, with William Nack.

It seems that Little Lisa, aka Rielle, once owned a horse, a show horse.

Little Lisa's Daddy, James Druck, who was describe as "a criminally minded lawyer and conniver", at least, at one point, was in need of some serious moola;

When Jim Druck got strapped for cash, he tried to sell the horse; but the top offer was only $125,000 and the horse was insured for $150,000. You do the math; Druck did. So he talked Burns into killing the horse and showed him how to do it, revealing himself to be a man of some experience in this venal backwash of animal husbandry. Druck then bought Burns all the paraphernalia he needed, from the clips to wires.

Da-dah, a legend grew, with Burns going on to garner the nickname, "The Sandman".

As one prominent West Virginia horsewoman told me, "When Tommy arrived at a show, they would say The Sandman was around. They knew a horse would be put to sleep."

Hmmm ... Was Tommy Burns hanging around the Edwards campaign?

Probably not, however, by hooking up with James Druck's daughter, Rielle/Lisa, and then lying about it, Edwards should give a spiff to The Sandman, for the self-electrocution of his reputation and character.

Go read "Edwards' 'other woman' revives memories of a gruesome scandal", by Lester Munson, with William Nack, it is amazing.


Mister Sandman's Magic Beam Bonus Links

Woman in spotlight has lived on its edge; Rielle Hunter has drifted through high-profile scenes on both coasts

A Chronology

Mr SandMan - The Chordettes




Bonus Bonus!

We couldn't resist ... How could we do a story like this and not think about the Famous Mr. Ed.

Mr. Ed The talking horse

Garlic Exclusive! Edwards Affair Solved!

He's an Anglophile!






































He's pinin' for Camilla!

Not twins, but pretty darn close ...

I mean, look at the photos ... Around last call in a dark bar ...

Perhaps he didn't realize that Camilla isn't the royalty, so his road to become King was about as long as his lies.

Maybe, because it's August, the Dog Days of Summer, the lull before the conventions, that Le Affair Edwards isn't going away.

MSNBC's 'Hardball' (David Shuster subbing and slamming) and Dan Abrams have been hitting on it all week

As a sidebar, last week, one grave-dancer that I must point out was MSNBC's Mike Barnicle, who was sitting in for Tweety on 'Hardball'.

Barnicle, with each of his guests, couldn't use the word "hypocracy" too often enough (I double-checked the listing, to make sure I was watching 'Hardball" and not a new MSNBC Doc-Bloc, 'Hypocracy').

Why this is pertinent is that Barnicle was tossing his boulders of "hypocracy" from a glass house.

Barnicle has had his own waist-deep dive into human weakness, being his often, and repeated, skills of plagiarism and fabrication (read "Barnicle resigns from Globe; Fabrications found in 1995 column" and Salon's "Repeat Offender; Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle's active imagination finally brings him down")

And, just yesterday, the king of the Right Wing Freak Show came through, showing just how low in the gutter they could take this.

Now, I am not an advocate of lying and, as a matter of disclosure, here on The Garlic, we were, early on, rooting for the Edwards Team (that meaning, including, perhaps more-so, Elizabeth), so, like the many others, there was great disappointment (and not that a politician had a mistress. No Puritan fibers here ... Europe hasn't done too badly, hasn't fallen off the face-of-the-earth, with their history of their leaders sleeping around).

So now, it remains a waiting game, to flesh out any more lies by Edwards, not to mention the $64,000 question on the paternity.

And all that money being tossed around, to make sure Lisa Drucker, aka Rielle Hunter, isn't out in the food stamp line.

The bigger mystery, perhaps, stands with who took and released that photo, allegedly of Edwards, holding the baby?

It's not exactly like they were having this "catch-up" meeting out in the main lobby.

And that some are saying Rielle Hunter's sister went out of her way to dismiss that Hunter was setting up Edwards as a mark;

Hunter's sister said Rielle was being falsely portrayed as a "promiscuous person" and was not involved in "setting up" Edwards last month at a Beverly Hills hotel, where he was confronted by reporters from the National Enquirer.

Perhaps not, or, as Newsweek's Jonathan Darman described Hunter as a "New Age" person, maybe Hunter is just trying to share John Edwards' "financial energy".

Needless to say, this story will continue to have a trickle, at minimum (hey, The National Enquirer, now that they are getting kudos from the MSM on being right, certainly isn't going to give up the bone).

And it's still a story in need of an ending.

• That John Edwards is the father of the child, making him a triple, scumbag liar (1. The affair and lying about it, 2. Using his wifes' cancer remission as an excuse)
• It surfaces that Hunter was setting him up (perhaps as far as the sperm-in-the-freezer-turkey-baster thing)
• The National Enquirer dumps Edwards, clears him by dropping the bombshell that the baby is an "Elvis Love Child"

Bonus Edwards Affair Links

Steve Benen: A tale of two affairs

Digby: The Rulz

Michael D. on Balloon Juice: National Enquirer = Stopped Clock

Skippy the bush kangaroo: john edwards single handedly destroys the left's talking point about newt gingrich

Walter Shapiro: Johnny, I hardly knew ye. After covering John Edwards -- and liking him -- for years, what I thought I knew about him was wrong. But reporters often misjudge candidates

People Magazine - The Edwards Affair: Elizabeth's 'Excruciating Anguish'

Elizabeth Edwards: "The Cliff Notes of the news"

“Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? … But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score.”

Ouch!

You go there, Elizabeth, you go girl!

Man, something like this today has the thought creeping into your mind that, maybe, the wrong Edwards was running for President.

We speak of Elizabeth Edwards' NYT Op-Ed, "Bowling 1, Health Care 0"

Mrs. Edwards rips into the MSM, for covering the silly, the pap, and not being the beacon bulldogs of a robust democracy.

Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

She laments that lack-of-coverage for all the candidates, people like Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, whose good policy plans went, virtually, unnoticed.

Or, as she questions "who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate."

I’m not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.

Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.

The essay is on-the-money and a good read.

And it has generated (for the most part; There's a few in the RWFS out there dissing it) good kudos.

Kevin Hayden: Strobe-light journalism: the ADD of campaign 2008

Bang The Drum: Elizabeth Edwards, I’d Vote for YOU

Mark Halperin: Elizabeth Edwards Points Finger at News Media

Take some time and read Elizabeth Edwards' "Bowling 1, Health Care 0"

McCain Waves The POW Flag

Since you are the odds-on favorite at this point, to win the nomination, all I have to say is Watch Out, Barack Obama!

You start hitting Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain too hard, or with facts, or just strong opinion and he's going to go to his ace-in-the-hole ...

His POW status.

He'll whip that POW Flag out and start waving it in your face!

Today, on ABC's 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos' (you remember him, don't you? ... From the debate the other evening...), Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain wasn't getting all love pies from Little Georgie.

And it seemed, at times, early on in the interview, that Little Georgie had to hold back, pull his punches, when they were discussing SB John's lunatic Tax Plans... It's seemed like Little Georgie just wanted to shout back at him "You're absolutely a mad man, these plans are impossible!", or worse, smack him around.

So it wasn't smooth sailing when Little Georgie brought the conversation around to healthcare, and brought up Elizabeth Edward's criticism of SB John's plans.

Since we couldn't find the ABC transcripts, we give a nod to Crooks and Liars, for their "This Week: Bringing Up McCain’s Life-Long, Federally-Provided Health Care Is “A Cheap Shot”;

STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s wrong with government — what’s wrong with government-run health care?

McCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it. Governments don’t make the right decisions. Families make the right decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the points Mrs. Edwards made in the Wall Street Journal, she said that your whole life, you had government health care. You were the son of a Naval officer, a Naval officer, now a member of Congress. And her point is, why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of health care that members of Congress get or members of the military get?

McCAIN: It’s a cheap shot, but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good government health care. I had it from another government. (LAUGHTER) So, look, I know what it’s like in America not to have health care. We know that Americans are hurting there as well. We’ve got to make health care affordable and available. The difference, again, between myself and the Democrats, and with all due respect, Mrs. Edwards, I want the families to make the choices. They want the government to make the choices. That’s a fundamental difference, and we will continue to debate that issue.

Did you catch that?

"It’s a cheap shot, but I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good government health care. I had it from another government. (LAUGHTER)"

It was an awkward laugh SB John let out with ... Like he expected everyone in the studio to fall over in hysterics, and when they didn't, he awkwardly continued with his answer.

So, that's how you're going to play there, hey, SB John?

When it gets too tough, when the questions get to hard, or (and you better get used to this), when people throw your plans back at you as idiotic, you're gonna wave the POW flag?

Are you trying to establish, that since you were a POW, you don't have to explain yourself, your policies, should the entire country go into brain freeze and actually elect you?

When Barack Obama, either on the stump, or in a debate, starts calling you out, running down your statements, punching holes in your policies, are you just going to respond in some glib, chippy manner, as you did today, and wave your POW flag?

Yeah, you got a bad deal in Vietnam - as did hundreds-of-thousands of other kids that got forced into going there ... Not to mention the 50,000-plus that didn't come home.

No doubt, you, and the RNC are going to exploit it six-ways-from-Sunday in the general election campaign, deafeningly echoed by the Right Wing Freak Show, in a blizzard of Flag Lapel Pins, but don't you dare start hiding behind it during this campaign, when it comes time to explain your policies and positions.

And we haven't even brought up that you - dismissively - called the questions of a woman suffering from incurable cancer a "cheap shot"?

Way to go there, SB John, that shows a lot of class ...


More Madcap McCain Riffs

Steve Benen: Senator Hothead

Washington Post: McCain: A Question of Temperament

Nicole Bell/C&L: Notice Anything? John McCain doesn’t wear an American flag pin on THIS WEEK

Melissa McEwan/Shakesville: McCain: At Least He Doesn't Throw Punches!

Perrin On McCain, Clinton and Pornographic Ringtones

John Amato/C&L: McCain bashes Obama on Ayers but stands by his association with anti-Catholic pastor Hagee

Thank You, John Edwards!

Well, I guess our call to "Ring A Bell Today For John Edwards" fell silent ... Or, as with voters, just not enough bells were rung.

News jawdropper this morning is that John Edwards will announce this afternoon that he is exiting the campaign for president.

It became an enormous, uphill struggle, battling against the two, pockets-stuffed-with-money, mega-deathstars and you don't win the nomination with only third-place finishes.

And the road ahead promised more of those.

Logan Murphy, from Crooks and Liars;

"John ran a good campaign and vowed to stay in it all the way to the convention, but apparently that’s not going to happen. John’s populist message scared the daylights out of the wealthy elite and the corporate media, which ultimately hurt his coverage. We wish him and his family all the best.

Steve Benen, from The Carpetbagger Report;

"First, Edwards exits with his head held high, knowing that he ran a strong, uphill campaign, which drove the Democratic message more than a lot of people realize. I’m reminded of this recent piece from Chris Hayes.

No matter who wins the Democratic nomination, the fact remains that the Edwards campaign has set the domestic policy agenda for the entire field. He was the first with a bold universal healthcare plan, the first with an ambitious climate change proposal that called for cap-and-trade, and the leader on reforming predatory lending practices and raising the minimum wage to a level where it regains its lost purchasing power….Ultimately, though, the Edwards campaign has been both a campaign and a cause, with the latter outperforming the former. Few remember that the signature economic policy of Bill Clinton’s presidency, balancing the budget, originated as a plank in the platform of his primary rival Paul Tsongas. If the next Democratic President manages to pass universal healthcare or a carbon cap-and-trade, we’ll owe the Edwards campaign a significant debt."

Yes, with his head held high, Mr. Edwards may be dropping out of the campaign, but I doubt he will exit the stage completely, carrying on for the causes he believes in, surely to make a difference in the long run, surely to continue the fight to make the world a better place.

Everybody, Give A Big Hand! ... Let's Welcome NBC's David Gregory To The Freak Show!

Boy, this one nearly knocked me off my seat.

No doubt, the blood sugar may have been a bit low, the morning caffeine hadn’t kicked in yet, and there was the inevitable let down of seeing the Cheneypalooza end last night.

What was this dizzying, shocking, surprising entity that provided this momentary dysfunction?

NBC's David Gregory thinks we just need to "strip away" Ann Coulter's inflammatory rhetoric to listen to her points

Boy, David, as Desi would say to Lucy, you got some 'splainin' to do.

Do we have to get John Fund, Dorothy Rabinowitz or Richard Cohen to meet up with you, offering instructions on pulling your head out of your ass? Or can you manage that on your own?

Are you miffed, that the slobbering, fawning, drooling Chris Matthews didn't included a Rap segment on his show with The Coulterzilla the other day? Something you could have just happened to drop by on, and flash those same suave moves you displayed when dancing with Karl Rove?

And this isn't the first time you've used the Rightside/Freak Show smear points in your reporting.

This talk with Elizabeth Edwards ... You dragged out the now-ever-so-tired slam of the expensive haircut, paid speeches (though, to be "fair and balanced", no mention of Rudy911 and his goldmine speaking tour) and then chided Mrs. Edwards that she should have pushed aside all the bullshit Coulterzilla was firing at her and pay attention to "the point she's trying to make" behind it

To her credit, Mrs. Edwards, after laughing at Gregory, delivered a crisp response that basically said "Hey, if you want to side with Coulter, and you don't like my husband, don't vote for him"

Interesting also, in defending Coulterzilla, Gregory left out of the interview how Coulterzilla, just a few days ago, put forth “if I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”

What was the point behind that one, Gregory?

So David, are you going to go for the gold watch with the Peacock Network, or do we soon see a Press Release fired out on you joining Fox News?

You certainly seem to be going out of your way to impress them.

To steal from a Fox Noise program, "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day"










Links

Mrs. Edwards responds to Coulter; June 28: She talks to NBC's David Gregory about the clash with Ann and how she hopes "people will speak out" against hate speech (Video)

Edwards equates Coulter’s words to racist ones; Presidential candidate’s wife calls commentator’s remarks ‘hate language’

Losers

Bloggers Are Foul-Mouthed Cranks

Bashing Elizabeth Edwards

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Katie Couric Could Have Made The Edwards Interview Better

News Item: Et tu, Katie Couric?

10. Cooking - Get the Edwards to whip up some of their favorite dishes

9. Twisting her face with empathy, show the Edwards her video of getting a colonoscopy

8. More confrontational - For their decision to move forward with the campaign, attack the Edwards as being "glib"

7. Always a ratings-grabber - Complete makeover for Elizabeth Edwards

6. Pose the question that "Some people" feared the 60-Minutes signature ticking TAG Heuer stopwatch would "creep them out"

5. Could have brought out Mr. Gadget, to show off all the cool new medical devices

4. With that piercing faux sincerity, ask the Edwards if they blame their bloggers for the new bout of cancer

3. Ask Elizabeth Edwards if she thinks her cancer is the bad karma for her husband voting for the Iraq War

2. Live segment, with Edwards on the campaign trail, billed as "Where In The World Is John Edwards"

1. Why, what a coincidence ... Rush Limbaugh just happens to be in the studio, to tape another 'Free Speech" segment

Top Ten Cloves: Expected Republican and Freakshow Blowback Against John and Elizabeth Edwards

News Item: Cancer Worsening, Edwards's Wife Says

10. After Matt Drudge weighs in, she'll have even more toxins to deal with

9. James Dobson and Ralph Reed will rally both the Indian Casinos and Christian Right against the Edwards

8. Armitage, Cheney and Rove leak Edward's medical records to Robert Novak, who prints them

7. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) immediately blames Mrs. Edward's cancer on Al Gore

6. New platform for Catholic League President Bill Donohue to rant and blame fired Edwards' bloggers

5. Rush Limbaugh claims she's faking it

4. Dick Cheney brands her a traitor, saying getting treatment for her cancer will validate the al Qaeda strategy

3. Ann Coulter says that Edward's is probably glad his wife has cancer and that he's probably going to divorce her

2. Fox News' John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly begin a war against chemotherapy during Christmas and Easter

1. Newt Gingrich will say that Elizabeth Edwards was too dumb to get out of the way of getting cancer

Go Get'em Girl!