Is John Edwards' Fall a Tragedy?

Townhall.com ^ | June 7, 2011 | Mona Charen

[Kaslin]

The Washington Post has issued a post-mortem on the career of John Edwards ("American Dream is Irrevocably Undone") and finds tragedy and pathos. "The man born Johnny Reid Edwards had it. Great gobs of potential." He might have been, the Post laments, "a great husband, could have been an enduring statesman ... president."

But fate intervened. With his indictment on misuse of campaign funds last week, "America witnessed the latest distasteful episode in ... (the) fall from grace of a political comet."

Grace, as any unblinkered observer could detect, is not a word that ever belonged in the same sentence with John Edwards. But from the beginning of his political career, liberal enthusiasts gushed about his talents. He was, People magazine pronounced, America's "sexiest politician." Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker called him "the next Bill Clinton" -- without irony. Katie Couric was impressed by more than his looks: "He was the first to raise issues like poverty, universal health care and climate change," she said. "He bucked the conventional wisdom and took political risks, speaking honestly about why he wanted to raise taxes, for example." Ah, yes, bucking the conventional wisdom by talking about universal health care and climate change.

The Washington Post doubtless speaks for Couric and her crowd when it sees in Edwards' fall "the spiral of the Great Man."

In fact, John Edwards, Mr. For the Little Guy, who, in his own words, "represent(ed) people who were in very difficult places in their lives and tr(ied) to give them a shot," made his fortune as an ambulance chaser. No one who examined his career as a fortune-hunting, slick, and unscrupulous trial lawyer should find any inconsistency in his later incarnation as a manipulative, mendacious, and morally bankrupt politician.

As a trial lawyer, Edwards specialized in suing obstetricians after the birth of babies with cerebral palsy. Employing junk science and theatrical courtroom oratory, he convinced juries that the doctors' failure to perform Caesarean sections soon enough caused the disorder. The Edwards technique included speaking for the unborn child. In his summation at one such trial, an emotional Edwards told the jury: "She speaks to you through me. And I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now, I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you."

The jury came back with a $6.5 million verdict in that case. It was one of 60 such cases Edwards handled during his career -- half of the verdicts were for more than $1 million. Trial lawyers usually pocket between 30 and 40 percent of jury awards. And though Edwards claimed that he was proud of his career, and that he gave "little guys" a shot, The New York Times quoted a fellow trial lawyer: "He took only those cases that were catastrophic, that would really capture a jury's imagination. He paints himself as a person who was serving the interests of the downtrodden, the widows and the little children. Actually, he was after the cases with the highest verdict potential."

It never troubled Edwards' sleep that studies have shown no connection between delivery-room decisions and cerebral palsy. A 1989 report from the Institute of Medicine argued that obstetricians were being falsely blamed. Lawsuits like those Edwards filed led to the widespread use of fetal monitors during hospital deliveries. The result has been a surge in the number of Caesarean deliveries, many of them unnecessary. This, in turn, has contributed to complications like infection, blood clots, longer recovery times, and more maternal deaths, to say nothing of the increased medical costs.

And here's a bitter postscript: Despite the increased use of fetal monitors and the much readier resort to C-sections, the incidence of cerebral palsy in the population has remained unchanged. In fact, a study in Sweden suggests C-sections may increase the incidence of cerebral palsy.

Additionally, thanks to Edwards and his colleagues, medical malpractice insurance rates for obstetricians have skyrocketed, leading many doctors to abandon the field. It is poor women, not the rich who can travel more easily, who suffer most from doctor shortages.

Mr. For The Little Guy adamantly opposed legislation that would have capped damage awards and set up a fund for the 99 percent of brain-damaged children who did not win big verdicts. There were "two Americas" all right -- those whose misfortune Edwards could profitably exploit, and the rest.

Between the 2004 and 2008 campaigns, Mr. FTLG joined Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund. While acknowledging that making money was "a good thing, too," Edwards stressed that he was primarily motivated by a desire to learn more about financial markets and their relationship to poverty. Where, oh where, was the press's gag meter?

Edwards seduced a cooperative press corps with ostentatious displays of affection for his stricken wife -- "the love of my life" -- including annual visits to the Wendy's where the couple supposedly passed their first anniversary.

Fall of a great man? How far can a worm fall?

[sodpoodle]

In the mold of Charlie Manson!!

Coulda, shoulda, woulda.

[sport]

Not as far as I am concerned. Or, to put it another way, not for me.

[Rummyfan]

He might have been, the Post laments, "a great husband, could have been an enduring statesman ... president."

Only the Com-Post would be naive enough not to have recognized Edwards as a snake-oil salesman the day he stepped into the public spotlight. Great husband? Enduring statesman? President? He was a sleazy malpractice lawyer who played on juries sympathies to win large settlements on grounds not based in medical science, and parlayed that money into a US Senate seat. What would anyone expect from someone with such a background, that he would suddenly grow morals and a conscience?

[Rummyfan]

No one who examined his career as a fortune-hunting, slick, and unscrupulous trial lawyer should find any inconsistency in his later incarnation as a manipulative, mendacious, and morally bankrupt politician.

Such investigation is beyond the skill of any Washington Post reporter.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Katie Couric was impressed by more than his looks: "He was the first to raise issues like poverty, universal health care and climate change," she said.

You see, she was once molested by Karl Marx.

[Rummyfan]

Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker called him "the next Bill Clinton" -- without irony.

Damning with faint praise! Or consigning to damnation...

[Kaslin]

I agree

[DeaconRed]

For low life's that want an attorney to sue over a fake fall at Wall-mart it is one hell of a tragedy.
To the rest of us it is funny as hell. I am going to invest in soap-on-a-rope. . . . . .

[Farmer Dean]

Predictable and not unexpected,but certainly not a tragedy.
(Unless you happen to be one of his children.)

[BwanaNdege]

Fall?

Fall?

More like a Swan dive, or maybe a triple back gainer, or maybe a “Hold my beer, Bubba, and watch THIS!”

The idiot DOVE into the “mosh pit” and in the end, learned that the floor was concrete.

[Doogle]

tragedy?...ONLY IF YOUR A LIBTARD.

[miss marmelstein]

Well, Mona, if politicians such as John Edwards turn your stomach, why do you continually throw a pol like Sarah Palin under the bus? ‘Cause in the end she’s not a slow-speaking, slow-thinking, boring, extremely homely Ivy League mandarin like you.

[BobL]

A tragedy is when your 2 year old kid runs out on to the street and is killed by a car. A suicide is when you run out on to the street and get hit by a car.

[mulligan]

No. What should happen to a sleazy person like Edwards.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

He’ll be missed (NOT)

[ViLaLuz]

It’s a tragedy only for his children.

[AppyPappy]

In a literary sense, it is the classic tragedy

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

The press built him up and now they’re in the process of tearing him down. He was never what they said he was when they were singing his praises and therefore the “fall from grace” rings totally hollow. But whatever.

[ETL]

John Edwards awarded 'Father of the Year'
Democrat received honor about 8 months before alleged love child born

Where was John Edwards around the time his alleged "love child" Frances Quinn Hunter was conceived?

The senator was in New York – receiving his Father of the Year Award.

Edwards accepted his June 27, 2007, honor from the Father's Day/Mother's Day Council exactly eight months before the child was born Feb. 27, 2008, according to a birth certificate obtained by the Charlotte Observer.

Before beginning his Father of the Year acceptance speech, Edwards told an adoring crowd, "I hate to admit it, but I am not the best parent in my family. ..."

VIDEO at site!
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71460

Or, from the Edwards camp itself...

From JohnEdwards.com:
John Edwards receives the Father of the Year Award in New York, N.Y. on June 7, 2007.
http://www.johnedwards.com/media/video/father-of-the-year/