My own reaction is that the HRC people aren't going to feel much fonder about the MSM sitting on the Edwards story until candidate 'change' had the primaries locked-up.

The Democratic Party is also a problem.  They went looking for inexperienced guys to beat the best candidate...first Edwards, then Obama.  It couldn't possibly hurt for people to begin to understand how all this happened, who hoodwinked 'the voters' and how they did it...for next election, if for no other reason.

I wrote a long post on Edwards, Rielle and the new age stuff here. I ended it with:

Obviously, the effect of cancer extends beyond the patient to family members. Their lives become centered on the disease. I'm sure, even during periods of remission, it can cause people to act and think in ways that are not "in character."

Maybe that's what happened to John Edwards. Maybe he lost his way and was searching for something new and different, something affirming that would give him a greater awareness of himself and his connection to the universe. But did he have to run for President while seeking his new enlightenment?

I don't find anything interesting about the sex or the drugs. Didn't care about it with Clinton, Bush, or anyone else. I find Dem interest in Republican sex scandals extremely depressing. But I digress.

I do care about how people spend their time. During the run-up to 2000 the most troubling fact about Bush was the report that he and Al Gonzales spent an average of 30 minutes reviewing death sentences, before sending the condemned to meet the executioner. That seemed telling, to me at least.

I can kind of understand an ambitious politician turning a 'deaf' ear to Wright and company. Ayers has been completely rehabilitated in Chicago circles. Obama wanted to be President bad; and a lot of folks in the Dem establishment wanted Obama to be President bad. norrismorris has this right, IMHO.

My own undergraduate and graduate school grades appear to be significantly better than those of the current and former occupant of the WH. I find that troubling. I'd like to think that the folks in power are both smarter and better informed than I am.

The counter argument is: how dumb can these folks be if they manage to end up winning the WH? Pretty dumb, if you ask me. The current occupant knows is place in history is assured. He just wants to run out the clock and leave a 'legacy'.

Problem is: we all need something better after Bush. And this guy isn't it. Unemployment rates for those 16-24 approach 50% and the public option is dead. Both on the domestic and fp fronts this guy is a dismal failure.

HRC might have motivated the GOP base more; and hence made legislating more difficult. But considering the nothing burgers Dem control of the WH, House, and Senate have produced to date, I can't see her accomplishing less.

I hope she runs in 2012.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and a group of other senators who would back Hillary Clinton's candidacy encouraged Obama to run for the White House as early as 2006. The concern over Clinton was that she would be a weak Democratic standard-bearer while Obama could energize the party. In late summer 2007, Schumer - using an Obama ally, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), as a back channel - pushed the candidate to "take a two-by-four to Hillary," as the authors put it.

SNIP

Of all the freshly revealed anecdotes, though, none may be as eye-opening as the previously-unknown friction between the president and vice-president - which on Saturday a Biden spokesman dismissed as "rumors." The tensions began in September of 2008 word got back to Obama's campaign headquarters that Biden had told reporters on his campaign plane that he was more qualified than his running mate to be president.

"A chill set in between Chicago and the Biden plane," Halperin and Heilemann write in the book, to be released Monday. "Joe and Obama barely spoke by phone, rarely campaigned together."

And when Obama campaign manager David Plouffe was asked about having Biden dial into the nightly campaign conference call, he responded: "Nah." Instead, Biden had his own call with Plouffe and senior campaign adviser David Axelrod.

Sounds like it would be interesting to read, but is all of it (or most of it) true?  Although Reid did call Obama and apologize instead of denying the quote.

now Harry Reid said light skinned. THAT is racist IMO

Now Chuckie Schumer, Reid, Kennedy apparently URGED Obama to run behind HRCs back knowing she was set to run, a BOYS CLUB anyone? yeah it is

BEST part is DIRECT stmt from Schumer saying Obama should 'take a 2X4 to Hillary to make her drop out'

and no one says a word, b/c it is perfectly fine to bash a womans head in in rhetorical speak and have HER get the coffee, no one bats an eye, but a MAN getting coffee, or a woman talkoing about running in June like Bobby well THAT is racist AND THREATENING!

I am done with these misogynistic ubertools I will work to defeat them

It paints a world where everyone is always out of control, out-raged, megalomanical, etc..  You can make anyone's life look extreme if you couch it this way.

Clearly a very trashy book.  I'm sure it will sell well, and give lazy journalists a bunch of stories.

Recall that, pre-Rielle Hunter, Dem insider Bobby Shrum wrote in his memoir about some brazen and self-serving maneuvers by John to get picked by Kerry in 2004.  Shrum noted how Kerry told him that Edwards seemed to be using his late son in dishonest ways to gain sympathy and favor with Kerry.  Then there was the intellectual laziness that Shrum spotted with Edwards during VP debate prep (Shrum called JE "Clinton without the books").  

Obama is far from naive.  He was willing to shove more qualified candidates out of the way to have his (at best, premature) moment in the sun. Remember the "claws come out" comment? He was more than willing to exploit sexism and racism to promote himself and his brand. Remember Blagojevich, Burris, & co.?  That's not naive.

The Obama college brigade may have been naive -- but the grown-ups have to take some responsibility. The warnings were there -- many on this site.

Yes, it's reprehensible that he had an affair while campaigning for President.

But the tabloid-like repulsive depictions of him, his wife, and Rielle are to be believed about as much as comic book villians.