Or maybe Martin Luther King. Take your pick. Rielle says John was her “project”, and she could make him great:
I struck up a conversation with the woman at the next event, as we waited outside. She told me her name and asked me what my astrological sign was, which I thought was a little unusual. I told her. She smiled, and began telling me her life story: how she was working as a documentary-film maker, living with a friend in South Orange, N.J., but how she’d previously had “many lives.” She’d worked, she said, as an actress and as a spiritual adviser. She was fiercely devoted to astrology and New Age spirituality. She’d been a New York party girl, she’d been married and divorced, she’d been a seeker and a teacher and was a firm believer in the power of truth.
…
I would soon learn that there was no such thing as small talk with Rielle Hunter. She told me that she’d felt a connection to me when we’d first met, that she could tell I was a very old soul. This meant a lot to Rielle. Her speech was peppered with New Age jargon—human beings were dragged down by “blockages” to their actual potential; history was the story of souls entering and escaping our field of consciousness. A seminal book for her had been Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now.” Her purpose on this Earth, she said, was to help raise awareness about all this, to help the unenlightened become better reflections of their true, repressed selves.
Her latest project was John Edwards. Edwards, she said, was an old soul who had barely tapped into any of his potential. The real John Edwards, she believed, was a brilliant, generous, giving man who was driven by competing impulses—to feed his ego and serve the world. If he could only tap into his heart more, and use his head less, he had the power to be a “transformational leader” on par with Gandhi and Martin Luther King. “He has the power to change the world,” she said.
…
By this point, we were each well into our second glass of wine. “So tell me,” I asked, “what do you think of Elizabeth Edwards?” “I’ve only met her once,” Rielle said. “She does not give off good energy. She didn’t make eye contact with me.”
…
When I next saw Rielle weeks later, she told me that she’d been fired by the Edwards campaign. She seemed perfectly cheerful about it, but she proceeded to tell me a tale of woe—how the campaign hadn’t understood her, how they’d ruined the Webisodes, how they’d impeded her vision and how Edwards himself had failed to defend her. The chief villain in this saga was Elizabeth Edwards. “Someday,” Rielle said, “the truth about her is going to come out.”
Shocker of all shockers, the mistress sees the wife as the villain. That’s a new one.
But about the Gandhi/MLK thing. Is it just me, or does Rielle Hunter remind you of Penny Lane from the movie Almost Famous? I mean, check out this quote:
Groupies?! We are not groupies. This is Penny Lane, man, show some respect. Groupies sleep with rock stars ’cause they wanna be near someone famous. We’re here because of the music. We are Band Aids. She used to run a school for Band Aids. We don’t have intercourse with them. We inspire the music. We’re here because of the music. She was the one who changed everything. She was the one who said, “No more sex. No more exploiting our bodies and our hearts.” - Right. Just blowjobs, that’s it. -
Sounds scarily similar to me. And it’s probably because they’re cut from the same mold: insecure women who are desperate to feel special and loved by someone important, so they sleep with them and then invent a way to make themselves feel less cheap.
What was also interesting was another project Rielle said she was going to do, where she “helped” men get out of bad marriages by sleeping with them. She called it a “genius” idea. Was John Edwards her first test subject?
Now, Rielle’s probably right that John Edwards could be great if he just got out of his head. Someone get the guy a brain transplant, quick, so that he’ll have the capability of being a decent human being. I mean, let’s run down the list. He exploited families with sick children for financial gain. He manipulated tension between financial classes while living a more lavish lifestyle than most rockstars do. He used donations from supporters to pay for $400 haircuts and pricey trips to spas. He used his cancer-stricken wife as a shield from political attacks because he wasn’t enough of a man to face his challengers himself. He then cheated on his wife, in all likelihood even when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I mean, could the guy be a worse human being? I think the only way he could sink lower is if he raped kittens and murdered Grandma.
So hey, maybe Rielle was right. If he could just get out of his head — a.k.a, become a different person — he could be great. Someone find a list of possible brain donors!
And just for old times sake, here’s some LOL fun from last summer:
Hat Tip: Hot Air
She released a statement vowing to stand behind her man:
Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some most recently caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.
John made a terrible mistake in 2006. The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well. Because of a recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private. The pain of the long journey since 2006 was about to be renewed.
John has spoken in a long on-camera interview. Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do. I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame. The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown. But now the truth is out, and the repair work that began in 2006 will continue. I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.
It takes a lot to be able to stick with someone who’s cheated on you. And it takes a special kind of person to not only stick with the jerk, but also to stand up and defend him. I highly doubt that the Edwards’ are being completely honest and truthful, but you know what? Elizabeth is right in that it is their business. While I get the feeling that she’s sticking by him purely for political reasons, it’s her decision and I won’t lambast her for it.
I will say, though, that I don’t quite understand why so many politicians’ wives do this. Once, just once, I’d like to see a woman who has been completely betrayed by an egocentric, narcissistic asshole stand up and say so. I’m all for standing by your man, but some things are unforgivable. Cheating on your wife when she’s battling terminal cancer would be considered unforgivable in my book. But hey, it’s her decision. Either she really loves him, or she really loves the money/power (a la Hillary).
Meanwhile, Rielle Hunter is challenging Edwards to take the paternity test. He says he’s happy to take it, because, you know, he’s so sure the kid isn’t his. My money is on the test coming back positive though. I feel a little bad for Rielle. She’s been shoved under the bus so quickly, she never had a chance to know what hit her. Boy, John Edwards is just an all-around great guy, huh?
The family of John Edwards’ former mistress, Rielle Hunter, is challenging the former senator to take a DNA paternity test after his claim that he did not father Hunter’s 6-months-old child.
In the first reaction from Hunter’s family, her younger sister Melissa told ABC News that Edwards should immediately follow through on his pledge to take a paternity test.
“I would challenge him to do so,” the sister said.
“Somebody must stand up and defend my sister,” she said. “I wish that those involved would refrain from bad-mouthing my sister.”
Of course, someone’s gotta be held accountable besides John Edwards. And that means Rielle Hunter has to take the fall. Like I said, he’s a real class act.
Me, not quite so much. So John Edwards admitted he had an affair. Who cares? Are there any Democrats who haven’t? I always thought it was like, a prerequisite to join the Democrat Party. “Oh, you aren’t an adulterer? Sorry, not interested. Try the prudish side of the aisle.” Honestly, I’d be more interested to get the number of Democrats who haven’t cheated. When the news of this broke, I didn’t blog about it for a couple of reasons. One of them is the reason I mentioned above. Another is because I quite frankly don’t give a damn about John Edwards. He’s tried twice to get into the White House, once as a veep and then as President, and failed twice. He’s a softie pansy boy with nothing going for him except for his ambulance chasing. He’s a lightweight in the political world. So why should I care that he had an affair? Does it make him a scumbag? Yep. Does it make me respect him less? If I had any respect for him to begin with, the answer’d be yes, but there wasn’t, so oh well.
To me, the entire thing is a non-story. But if you’re so interested, here’s the scoop.
In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.
Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter’s baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.
Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby’s birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father…
Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and others in his family became aware of the affair in 2006.
Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter…
Edwards today admitted the National Enquirer was correct when it reported he had visited Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month.
The former Senator said his wife had not known about the meeting.
Poor, poor Silky Pony. He seems to suffer from the same affliction as Barack Obama: blurting out anything that jumps into his little old mind.
See, Silky not only wants to socialize all medicine, but he would make check-ups mandatory:
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”
He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat “the first trace of problem.” Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced earlier this year that her breast cancer had returned and spread.
Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.
“The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death,” he said.
What I want to know is, who on Earth wants the government taking care of them from the cradle to the grave? I mean, even in the best possible scenarios, the government will never do everything right. My perfect government is the one that leaves me the hell alone.
And there are so many things about this plan that are just… scary. I mean, you’re required to have mental health check-ups as well? And if your mental health check-up comes back with negative results, then what? Are you forced into psychiatric hospitals? It reminds me a lot of V for Vendetta, with people who are unwanted and don’t think the right way being forced into “re-education camps” or killed.
And what if you don’t go to the doctor? Are you arrested? Do government officials come bang on your door and force you to go? And if you don’t go to the doctor, and it turns out you have cancer, are you refused treatment? And what will they be enforcing next “for our own good”?
As Van Helsing from Moonbattery notes,
From mandatory doctor visits, it will be a short hop to mandatory morning calisthenics, with a two-way telescreen to make sure you’re taking part, just like in the liberal how-to manual 1984.
Behaviors deemed “risky” can become outlawed — for your own good, of course. No smoking, no drinking, no fatty foods… and anything else they declare “bad for you”.
And over at Hot Air, a reader left a chilling comment:
Ironically (or maybe not), if this gets put through, the forced abortions are coming if you have a disabled unborn child, cause it’ll be too expensive for the “free medicine” system to care for.
Not to mention those folks who have cancer or another life-threatening disease that will cause tremendous expenses for the system. We’ll start seeing euthanasia, infanticide, and abortion forced by the government.
This isn’t about healthcare; it’s about the government asserting total control over our lives. And they call us Nazis?
So much for “land of the free”, huh?
A lot of people will read this and say, “Well gee Cassy, aren’t you overreacting? The government will never go so far as to engage in infanticide and euthanasia, or to force us to work out every morning, or any of those other awful things you said! He’ll never take it that far!”
Perhaps, but once upon a time it would have been considered outrageous to be forced to see a doctor, a dentist, and a mental health professional by our government. How far down this slope will we slide if this system is put into place? When will Silky say “Stop!”? And why should we be at the mercy of the government to begin with?
Again, images of V for Vendetta are just rolling through my mind, with government enforced curfews; certain foods and drinks banned until it’s hard to even get food (although never in short supply for the “right” people); only government-approved music, books, and TV shows allowed; and “undesirables” sent to re-education camps only to be murdered, and all of it in the name of our own well-being.
In the same article, Edwards piles on the hypocrisy, liberals’ favorite smear for us damn dirty Republicans:
Edwards, who has been criticized by some for calling on Americans to be willing to give up their SUVs while driving one, acknowledged Sunday that he owns a Ford Escape hybrid SUV, purchased within the year, and a Chrysler Pacificia, which he said he has had for years.“I think all of us have to move, have to make progress,” he said. “I’m not holyier-than-thou about this. … I’m like a lot of Americans, I see how serious this issue is and I want to address it myself and I want to help lead the nation in the right direction.”
He wants to lead the nation in the right direction, see? And us little people are too gosh-darn stupid to know what’s good for us. Therefore, people like John Edwards and the Goracle must tell us exactly what is good for us, and what to do, and how to do it, and when to do it, and nevermind how we feel about it.
Rob from Say Anything leaves us with a good quote, from the beloved author C.S. Lewis, that I’ll end with as well:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Cross-posted at Wizbang
The Breck Girl decided to come out from underneath his wife’s petticoats and actually defend himself for once.
And of course, ABC News gleefully went along with the game plan (emphasis mine):
Edwards, D-N.C., was railing against the right-wing media — including Fox News and Rush Limbaugh — when he reminded a crowd in Burlington, Iowa, that his wife stood up to Coulter in a public spat earlier this summer.“We know these people. We know their game plan. They’re going to attack us personally,” Edwards said. “They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter. … I should not have name-called. But the truth is — forget the names — people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language.”
In June, Coulter went on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and said she had learned her lesson after being blasted for suggesting in a joke before the Conservative Political Action Conference that Edwards was a “faggot.” “If I’m gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot,” Coulter said.That prompted Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, to call in to MSNBC’s “Hardball” and challenge Coulter directly. “I want to use the opportunity … to ask her politely to stop the personal attacks,” Mrs. Edwards said.
The call left Coulter uncharacteristically flustered — and was quickly turned into a fund-raising appeal by the Edwards campaign.
First of all, John, buddy, you need to learn the first rule of name-calling.
You don’t call someone a name and then apologize for it ten seconds later!! If you’re going to try and insult someone, especially a tough cookie like Ann Coulter, you need to be brash. Unapologetic. Go for it! She won’t cry for days afterwards like you do whenever someone insults your hair, so don’t worry!
And seriously — She-Devil?! That’s the best insult you got?? I’m sure Ann is reading that somewhere and laughing. No wonder your wife fights all your fights for you.
And of course, ABC News takes Ann’s remark out of context, unsurprisingly. She was referring to Bill Maher’s comment that he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack, something he got a free pass for. She makes a sarcastic comment about it, and suddenly she’s a SHE-DEVIL!! And flustered? Ann was not flustered, Elizabeth wouldn’t shut her damn mouth and let her get a word in edgewise. I think frustrated is the right word there.
But anyways, now we all know why it is that the Breck Girl lets his wife do all the fighting for him. Clearly, he just doesn’t quite know how to do it. Seriously… you don’t throw out a lame-ass insult and then apologize for immediately afterwards. No wonder you’re afraid of Ann.
Previous:
The Breck Girl goes paranoid
The John Edwards Poverty Tour!
Elizabeth Edwards: Doing the work that John won’t do
MRC President John Bozell takes on Elizabeth Edwards
The Pot: Meet Kettle Segment Continues: Meet Elizabeth Edwards
Edwards just doesn’t know when to quit
Apparently, a bunch of unnamed people want to silence him, and that these mysterious people will control the media. They want to keep him quiet, he says, so that his message about poverty (at $55k a message) and universal healthcare cannot be heard. He says people who make $100 million a year (who are these people??) don’t want this stuff to be heard. But he’s a WARRIOR, and he will NEVER be silenced!! NEVER!
Just out of curiosity, can anyone remind me who supports silencing voices in media due to “fairness” and who doesn’t?
Um… isn’t it… the Democrats?
Come on — how much more biased to the left does the media need to be before the Breck Girl considers it “fair”?
And really, how much more hypocritical can the multi-millionaire Breck Girl be? He bashes the rich, when he was an ambulance-chasing trial lawyer who picked cases with the highest possible rewards, while charging astronomically huge fees to his clients. Now, he has an income of over $400k a year, probably a large portion of which comes from his poverty speeches, which he charges $55k for. He’s worth approximately $70 million. He has a 28,000 square foot mansion which has an estimated worth of about $6 million. It is a 102-acre estate with a private gym, pool, a basketball court and racquetball court.
HuffPo, of course, claims that the Breck Girl is not a hypocrite at all:
It is not hypocritical for rich people to help the poor. It is kind and generous.
John Edwards is constantly attacked by the right-wing for fighting poverty while at the same time … wait for it … being rich! How dare he?!
So, what is he supposed to do? Hide his money and keep it from everyone else like a good greedy, conservative? It wouldn’t be hypocritical to be greedy with your money if you’re rich, but it would be hypocritical if you tried to help others? How dumb do you have to be to think that Republican talking point makes any sense
Uh, no. It’s not hypocritical for the Breck Girl to be rich and to donate to charity or “fight for poverty”. It is hypocritical, however, for him to bash rich people and capitalism, claim he looks out for the “little people” while charging ridiculously high fees in his trials (supposedly anywhere between 30-40%) and freakishly high fees to speak about poverty. It’s hypocritical to be railing on about “Two Americas” while spending $400 on haircuts, or $225 in “services” from a salon called the Pink Sapphire.
Then there’s also the private jets. There’s the Wal-Mart bashing, even though he made sure to be one of the first to get a PS3 there, and apparently, even owned stock there at one time. His son makes fun of kids whose parents aren’t rich and therefore have to buy shoes from Wal-Mart, a story Edwards himself told to participants of a United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union-sponsored call. Yet he lectures us about the great divide in classes, leading to his famous “Two Americas”. He rails against hedge funds, but simultaneously invests in them.
That, my friend, is hypocrisy.
So, with all of this against him, no wonder the Breck Girl is terrified about being silenced. Although, you know… it might only be beneficial to him, when you think about it…
Hat Tip: Iowa Voice
Well, gee whiz. John Edwards really puts his wife to good use. She takes on rabid Republican neighbors for him, attacks Ann Coulter for him, and now even speaks out in campaign ads for him!
What is she talking about in his newest ad? Why, how strong he is, of course (emphasis mine):
Elizabeth Edwards tells voters her husband, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, is a tough guy “who can stare the worst in the face and not blink” in an ad set to start airing Wednesday in New Hampshire.
Elizabeth Edwards, who makes frequent campaign stops in early voting states for her husband, appears in the ad that the campaign hopes will highlight the couple’s marriage.
“I have been blessed for the last 30 years to be married to the most optimistic person that I have ever met,” she says as photographs from the campaign fade in and out. “But at the same time he has an unbelievable toughness, particularly about other people, and that is his ability to fight for them.”
“You’re not going to outsmart him. He works harder than any human being that I know, always has,” Elizabeth Edwards says. “It’s unbelievably important that, in our president, we have someone who can stare the worst in the face and not blink.”
Hmm.
Optimistic? OK. I can give Edwards that. But painting a picture of John Edwards as some macho-wacho tough guy who can stare down Osama bin Laden is a laugh. He couldn’t even take on skinny Ann Coulter on his own! His wife had to do it for him.
Although, well, Ann Coulter is brilliant, intelligent, tough, and certainly has guts. That’s a lot for the Breck Girl to take on.
If Osama bin Laden tried to stare down John Edwards, he’d probably piss himself, start whimpering and crying, and tell Osama that he could have anything he wanted — just don’t mess up his hair!!
If the Edwards campaign wanted to give us a laugh, they certainly succeeded.
Hat Tip: Iowa Voice
I’m posting this video again. No reason. It’s just always fun to watch this wonderful video!
I came across it browsing on Iowa Voice and thought, what the heck. It never gets old.
I feel pretty!
Well gee whiz, ain’t that just the shocker of the century!!
Bill O’Reilly discussed it on The O’Reilly Factor with Dick Morris, mentioning he invited Elizabeth Edwards on his show to discuss personal attacks from the left:
“Okay, now after that interview, and nobody knows this, we called Elizabeth Edwards. And we said, ‘you know we’re real interested in this personal attack stuff because we have a problem with that on the left. Would you come on, either sit, you know, on a set, or on the phone?’ ‘No.’ Now, I’m saying to myself, wait a minute, you call into a program that no one watches, alright. And you have a point, no one watches. She’s- nobody sees this. I’m giving you a forum where ten million people on radio and TV are going to see it and you say no.”
“Alright, now, we called Edwards as I mentioned, Elizabeth Edwards. And said, ‘look we want to talk about this too, these personal attacks.’ And she says ‘no.’”
And gee, she said no. I’m just shocked. Shocked and appalled. Who would’ve thought?
Hat tip: Newsbusters
