[Vision2020] Mr. Edwards and the Shrimp

[Art Deco]

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June 1, 2012
Mr. Edwards and the Shrimp By GAIL
COLLINS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html>

John Edwards: Sort of not guilty. The Justice Department must now decide
whether to retry him in another lengthy case during which we could relive
his degrading affair, his awful marriage, his wife’s fatal illness and
watch his daughter and elderly parents loyally and miserably accompany him
to court.

Finally, the American public has found something it would rather do less
than have another Congressional debt-ceiling debate.

Edwards thanked the jurors for acquitting him of one count of campaign
finance violations and failing to come to a decision on the other five. “I
don’t think God’s through with me,” he added. That seemed to suggest a new
career, although Edwards was appropriately vague about what he thought God
had in mind. He did say he hoped to do something to help children “in the
poorest parts of this country.”

I believe I speak for many Americans when I say that this cannot be allowed
to mean discussing childhood poverty on a cable TV talk show. Think of it
as the Eliot Spitzer rule.

It would be nice if he started a low-profile legal foundation to represent
young people in, say, an extremely remote area of rural Appalachia. We
would really think well of Edwards if he did that, although, of course, we
would never actually *know*, since part of the deal would be that he would
never once appear in the media to discuss the good work he is doing.

We’ve been through a lot with John Edwards since he ran as the Democratic
vice presidential nominee in 2004. Remember when everybody was so worried
that John Kerry would pick Richard Gephardt instead? When Rupert Murdoch’s
New York Post jumped the gun and had the big “Kerry’s Choice” headline with
the picture of ...

No?

O.K., just trust me. Edwards was once the Democratic nominee for vice
president. And then he ran for president in 2008. You have to recall that.
In one of the debates, he made fun of Hillary Clinton’s outfit.

There was a time when many of the great minds in the Democratic Party
thought John Edwards would be the perfect presidential nominee. He was cute
and from the South, and the son of a millworker, and he talked about poor
people and had lots of position papers.

Unfortunately, he was about as deep as a melted ice cube.

I was in a car with him once, driving to the airport from a campaign event
in which he had expressed his support for South Carolina shrimpers who
wanted to ban the import of Vietnamese shrimp. I asked him whether voters
of the Red Lobster persuasion would be willing to pay the far higher price
of home-caught shrimp. And when he waved the point away, I asked him about
the trade implications, and what it would mean to the Vietnamese shrimp
farmers. Edwards stared out the window and finally drawled: “You really
care a whole lot about *shrimp*, don’t you?”

For somebody with “big, bold positions,” Edwards really had very little to
say that wasn’t slick and evasive. You have to look out for candidates who
keep using the word “bold.” Mitt Romney does it all the time, and he is so
not.

I’ve listened to in-depth policy discussions with a lot of presidential
hopefuls. I once rode in a car with Bill Clinton, during which he gave a
nonstop disquisition on highway funding that I found a little disjointed
until I looked over and noticed that he had actually nodded off and was
talking in his sleep. There was one with John Kerry in which the candidate
was fully engaged, but the room of listeners seemed to be dozing. There was
one with George W. Bush in which Bush tossed off a remark about something
obscure — possibly disaggregation in student test scores — and smiled
happily and said: “Didn’t think I knew that, did you?”

Anyhow, some major presidential candidates are more enthralling when they
talk about what they believe than others, but they can generally at least
show you how they came to be at the table. John Edwards, not so much. Yet
it was hard to put your finger on what was lacking, aside from his
dismissiveness of the shrimp situation. He had an excellent stump speech
and was really good at not saying anything that sounded stupid in a
quotable way.

But, somehow, the public realized that this guy who looked so good and
sounded so glib was really a fraud. Even without knowing about the secret
love child or the sleazy right-hand man, or the impressive ability to stare
right into a TV camera and lie like a rug, they got his number and picked
other people to run for president. Voters’ gut instincts are generally
pretty good. They certainly were with John Edwards. Which is, in a way, a
happy ending to an awful story.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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