Johnny Reid Edwards: Perspective

To say that John Edwards is an empty suit is to do a discredit to clothes hangers.
-Dennis Miller (8/12/08)

THE LIES AND HUBRIS OF JOHNNY REID EDWARDS:

HOW LOW DOES IT GO?

ABC INTERVIEW DISSECTED



Johnny Reid Edwards, here's hoping some of your sicophants read this and barf. The truth hurts and nobody like Johnny Reid Edwards seems to have found some narcotic to make him never feel that hurt.

Your Right-Minded writer here, is doing all he can to control his own schadenfreude seeing a person as vile and corrupt as Johnny Reid Edwards to finally be unmasked revealing the filthy slime, hideous excuse for a human being he truly is. Those who see this as a private matter between Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are at best extremely ignorant of what’s going on here, but those who resort to the kind of thinking that suggests things like “All politicians are like that. He’s just the one who got caught.” or point out other examples of dishonorable behavior are engaging in the worst kind of moral relativism. The lack of core values and purely in-the-moment secularism leads to the ethos of “it’s not what you do, but how you explain it,” or “who are we to judge?” As such those willing to accept such thinking are either willing or unknowing contributors to the dreadful moral bankruptcy that has corrupted our society to one of prurient personal pleasure and craven instant gratification.

Johnny Reid Edwards, “John,” is the poster child for the absolute worst of the “Me” generation. His interview granted ABC news last week shows the inner workings of a sick and immoral man to whom others are little more than his personal playthings to be used and abused to maintain his false image and instant pleasure. While our schadenfreude gives us pause for great celebration to see the wicked fall from prominence, let us examine his conduct and use it as a learning experience to identify similar behaviors in others and hopefully raise the bar for what kind of behavior we accept not only from our political leaders, but all individuals who by position, image or wealth can abuse and manipulate others the way Johnny Reid Edwards has.

Right Minded Fellow is not going to be a reliable source for up-to-the-minute information on the Edwards scandal. Too much is happening too fast for its resources to assimilate and report. Again, please check multiple news sources as some are motivated to minimize and spin this story in support of an assortment of political agendas.

Let’s summarize the big picture. Former Democratic Senator from North Carolina and 2004 Democratic Candidate for Vice President who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 2004 and 2008, has been engaged in an adulterous relationship with Rielle Hunter, his paramour who was contracted to be videographer for his campaign while having had no professional experience in that field who has given birth to a daughter who has no father’s name listed on her birth certificate. Evidence from many sources argue strongly that Johnny Reid Edwards is the child’s father; however, former Edwards campaign staffer Andrew Young has publicly acknowledged he is the child’s father. The disgraced and loathed, former senator has only admitted to a “liaison” only briefly during 2006 while evidence exists that Edwards has maintained an ongoing relationship brought to an embarrassing climax when Hunter and her daughter were guests at the Hollywood Hilton on July 22, 2008 when Edwards paid the mother and child a visit. In the wee hours of the morning, Edwards walked right into a reporters’ stakeout and attempted to hide out in a hotel bathroom until hotel security could usher him away. Interestingly, Edwards made no mention of how this episode played a part of something that was supposedly only a quickie back in 2006.

The most characteristic observations on the conduct of Johnny Reid Edwards during his ABC interview were ones of denial, minimization, parsing, and blame-shifting. One of the most tell-tale signs of treachery,

For a full examination of Mr. Edwards remarks, here’s the transcript at the following link: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=5544981&page=1


THE FEEBLE CONFESSION:
JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: In 2006 2 years ago, I made a very serious mistake. A mistake that I am responsible for and no one else. In 2006 I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness. And we have kept this within our family since that time. All of my family knows about this and just to be absolutely clear, none of them are responsible for it. I am responsible for it. I alone am responsible for it. And it led to this most recent incident at the Beverly Hilton. I was at the Beverly Hilton. I was there for a very simple reason, because I was trying to keep this mistake that I had made from becoming public.

THE Q&A:

BOB WOODRUFF: Is this affair completely over?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: Oh yes, it's been over for a long time.

IF SO, HOW DOES HE EXPLAIN, THE RECENT EVENT IN BEVERLY HILLS.

WOODRUFF: Your wife, Elizabeth, is probably the most admired and beloved person in this country, she's had enormous sympathy because she's also gone through cancer, how could you have done this?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: Here's what, can I explain to you what happened? First of all it happened during a period after she was in remission from cancer, that's no excuse in any possible way for what happened. This is what happened. It's what happened with me and I think happens unfortunately more often sometimes with other people.… Ego. Self-focus, self-importance….

WHAT?!?!? IF “REMISSION” IS NOT OFFERED AS AN EXCUSE, WHY MENTION IT? DOES THIS MAKE THINGS ANY LESS HIDEOUS? WRETCHED SELF-MOTIVIATED RECAPITUALTION.

SOON AFTER EDWARDS STATES:
Because I did not want the public to know what I had done. Fair and simple. And there's also a lot of these you know supermarket tabloid allegations are just lies, they're complete lies. But this, this mistake, is the truth.

A SERIAL LIAR IS CALLING SOMEONE ELSE A LIAR. JOHNNY REID EDWARDS, IT IS YOUR BURDEN OF PROOF TO TELL WHAT THEIR LIES ARE. WHAT ARE THEY?
***

NEXT ISSUE: “LOVE CHILD”



WOODRUFF: I need to ask about probably the most controversial allegation. Which is that a report has been published that the baby of Ms. Hunter is your baby. True?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: Not true. Published in a supermarket tabloid. That is absolutely not true.

WOODRUFF: Have you taken a paternity test?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: I have not, I would welcome participating in a paternity test. Be happy to participate in one. I know that it's not possible that this child could be mine because of the timing of events, so I know it's not possible. Happy to take a paternity test, and would love to see it happen.

THE POINT COULD BE MUTE HERE. RIELLE HUNTER WILL NOT PERMIT DNA TESTING OF HER BABY. WHO PAID HER HOW MUCH FOR THAT?!?!? WHAT DO WE MAKE OF THE PHOTOS OF EDWARDS WITH THE BABY? TABLOID LIES?

ON HUSH MONEY AND OTHER SUCH FINANCIAL SUPPORT:
JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: Uh, this is what I can tell you. I've never paid a dime of money to any of the people that are involved. I've never asked anybody to pay a dime of money, never been told that any money's been paid. Nothing has been done at my request. So if the allegation is that somehow I participated in the payment of money -- that is a lie. An absolute lie, which is typical of these types of publications.

ON HIRING RIELLE HUNTER:

WOODRUFF: When you hired Ms. Hunter, that was back in 2006, the committee hired in July 2006, paid her $114,000 to make films for you. She did have a lot of experience. Uh was the affair going on when you hired her?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: No. No. And again, I always said this to you, I don't think I'm going to go through the details of this, I already did it with Elizabeth-- uh, she was hired to come in and produce films and that's the reason she was hired.

WOODRUFF: But this had nothing to do with the fact that you were having an affair with her?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: Same answer. Same answer -- no I did not.

WOODRUFF: So you hired her before it even started?

JOHNNY REID EDWARDS: That is correct.

As the excerpts from the ABC interview reveal, there are many “inconvenient truths” Johnny Reid Edwards is not addressing. Moving forward as we dig deeper into this matter to arrive at the truth and develop the full picture of not only what a thoroughly corrupt and wicked scum Johnny Reid Edwards truly is, equally of importance is how many others have been tainted by this scandal. Who assisted in the cover-up? What did those people hide? Who received money as rewards or incentives to behave in a certain way to avoid embarrassment and disclosure of Edward’s immoral conduct? What was the source of the “walking” and “hush” money? Who directed its disbursement? These are the questions the news media, public, and appropriate law enforcement officials must consider. If campaign money is involved as Edwards staffers and associates are involved in the cover-up trail all along the way, this matter must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as the whole integrity of election funding is tainted when sleazy, self-serving use of this money becomes apparent.

The current story indicates that Fred Baron, a millionaire lawyer, close Edwards associate provided money to Andrew Young to relocate his family, keep the story silent, and assure his silence. Baron has also funded Rielle Hunter’s constant moving around to remain anonymous and under cover while maintaining a lush standard of living. Baron has been reported as acknowledging he is the source of the funding needed to save Johnny Reid Edwards from huge embarrassment.

The story of Johnny Reid Edwards is not a tale of marital infidelity. The failure to be faithful to one’s wedding vows is a persistent human tragedy that sadly often has innocent children’s lives in the balance. Such behavior is not the monopoly of one political party or ideology over another. It’s an equal opportunity human frailty that occurs on every level of society but has escalated tremendously in the pleasure driven, instant gratification Baby Boomers and their offspring whose world seldom escapes the here and now where core values and living for the long term seem so nebulous. Sadly, more than 50% of all marriages fail. That doesn’t mean 50% of all married people will see their marriage dissolve as there are plenty of repeat offenders in the mix. (Hello Liz Taylor!!!)

As with most political scandals, it’s not as much the original misdeed, it’s the lies, the cover up, and the loyal henchmen who get implicated and often take the most severe punishments of all as the perpetrators have the money and means to gain more wiggle room.

Johnny Reid Edwards is a particularly damnable figure as he has a long history of acting morally superior to others talking down others who he perceives for his own advantage he can criticize to enhance his false image. Edwards has made a career of shoddy regard for the truth and shameless self-serving lies. So many of the material he used to support his concept of “two Americas” in his campaign were out rightly false. One of the most inaccurate was one he commonly asserted in debates and stump speeches full of a wicked demagogue’s treachery stating that every night at least 200,000 of our brave fighting men “sleep under bridges and on storm grates” portraying our military veterans as part of the other America suffering at the hands of the other America he created. The bad America consists of corporate executives, “the wealthy,” and those associated with “BIG” … big oil, big business, big banking industry, etc. On the homeless front, HUD recently reported 100,000 people total are part of the nation’s chronically homeless and 10,000 permanently displaced veterans.

On final note, HANDS OFF ELIZABETH EDWARDS. Yes she is a committed Liberal. Her politics are representative of the same kind of sentiments as her husband and not that far off of the furthest left pole in American politics as represented by the detestable nominee of the democratic party, Barrack Obama. She is who she is. However, unlike her husband and Barrack Obama, she is not an unrepentant narcissist. Mrs. Edwards has her worldview and it’s one that “right-minded” people reject. She is a suffering human being who lost her son in a tragic auto accident before completing high school. Mrs. Edwards is fighting a horrible fight with breast cancer having managed the initial round of treatment, appearing to go into remission, and then to have a horrifying reoccurrence where her condition is noted as incurable. This is what we also heard about Tony Snow’s relapse which later took him away from us. Whether she has accepted or responded to her husband’s wicked behavior as some would think rational, nobody is in her shoes. Nobody knows her suffering. She has her remaining family living with the reality she is quite likely not to live a full life, and as many mothers seek to keep the nest together, she cannot be criticized for accommodating her husband. If she is a spiritual person she can pray for her husband’s transformation and redemption. She projects a brave and unselfish persona in a world no mother or wife should ever endure.

While the “Right-Minded-Fellow” is doing everything from the Icky Shuffle to the Funky Chicken to a merry Fandango as his victory dance, revealing all too human, schadenfreude, seeing one of the most detestable, morally corrupt, insanely greedy, craven and evil political figures to arise in at least this generation who jerks our tears about tales of suffering homeless while building his six million dollar plus, 28,200 squart foot palace as a monument to his own vanity, we’re entitled to celebrate but we must soon get it out of our system and watch the justice system play out. We know that the cost ofsome crappy accessory adorning his Taj Mahal to his own ego could house several destitute Carolina families, or what if he could have settled for just a four million or only five million dollar palace of excess and had been the kind of man he pretended to be and donated that money to Jimmy Carter’s “Habitat for Humanity” given the cost of Habitat houses, how many more people could have be housed. While criticizing the naked greed of others, Mr. Edwards has the means to benefit in an extraordinary way the very people he claims that society has neglected. WHO THE HELL IS JOHNNY REID EDWARDS TO LECTURE ANYBODY ABOUT BEING GREEDY AND THAT'S SOMETHING HE WAS SO QUICK TO DO IN HIS SLEAZY CAMPAIGN?


On the subject of charity, Johnny Reid Edwards proclaimed to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “every dime” of the $500,000 he received as an advance for his book, Home, $300,000 went to his daughter and senior political aide, Jonathan Price, another one of those inconvenient truths. One can almost here Johnny Reid Edwards talkin’ in his best Opie from Andy of Mayberry’s best Carolina “aw shucks” voice, trying to argue how “charity begins at home.”

Continue to follow this story and take comfort that justice will hopefully be served one of the most unjust figures of our time, but keep your gloating in the family. RMF is with you every step of the way.

The Democrats are going to play dirty with this, tit-for-tat. Almost certainly, at just the right moment when Johnny Reid Edwards is likely to gain big headlines for some further big disclosure on this horrible affair, they will trot out one of their most persistently used smear tactics of trying to establish some kind of the dissolution of Senator John McCain’s first marriage after being freed from a North Vietnamese prison where he was tortured and permanently disfigured after being held a prisoner of war in the “Hanoi Hilton” from October 26, 1967 to March 14, 1973, five and half years of torture, malnourishment, and disease. His first wife, Carol, had been injured and permanently disabled during his confinement. In 1979, McCain sought a divorce from his first wife in favor of Cindy Lou Hensley. The divorce was finalized in February, 1980. He married Ms. Hensley that April. The McCain’s had three children, then in 1984, Mrs. Cindy McCain brought home to America a severely ill, 3 month old, Bangladeshi orphan, they’d raise to health and happiness now prospering as a young adult. Then they had three more children.

The McCain experience shows how there are no true black and white tails but almost always hurt and tragedy when a relationship dissolves. We will make of John McCain what our values and consideration of the situation leads us to conclude. Indications are that first wife, Carol, was cared for financially and medically in settlement.

Relationships fail. Such events are hurtful and tragic. Some are far worse than others. It’s seldom the sin but the cover up that matters. We charge Johnny Reid Edwards for his blatant hypocrisy, his elaborate cover-up scheme, his mysterious involvement by campaign officials, and failure to come clean acknowledge his misbehavior completely and making massive accusations against those who reported his conduct. Anyone viewing the Edwards fiasco shows his sorrow is for getting caught. His inability to fully articulate his poor behavior reveals a spineless, immoral, self-serving, greedy, hypocrite who would serve the world at large by just disappearing from sight for a long, long, long time.

Johnny Reid Edwards, this writer cannot forgive Johnny Reid Edwards. Edwards is not a man who just made a few unfortunate mistakes. His behavior stems directly from his wicked character. While blessed with many talents, they've all been manipulated into the worst, most abusive and dishonest self-serving pursuits. Johnny Reid Edwards has no redeeming virtues. He is absolutely morally bankrupt, a total cipher when human integrity comes into play. What part of Johnny Reid Edwards is a bad man, a very bad man do some purposely ignorant blind apologists not see?

DAMN YOU, JOHN EDWARDS, DAMN YOU for every person you've hurt, manipulated, cheated, lied to, or stolen the trust from. To stand behind Johnny Reid Edwards is the moral equivalent of standing behind a manure spreader. This writer is too human to forgive you. Perhaps, God will.
The only road to redemption is to follow a process much like a recovering drug addict or alcoholic resolutely follows and rebuild from scratch. At age 55, he’d better get moving.