senator john edwards

Former Senator John Edwards is a sad figure. Eight years ago, John Edwards had a real shot at becoming the vice president of the United States. He was a fresh new face. He was a senator. He had moments on the campaign trail where he created a real spark. Four years ago, John Edwards ran for the president of the United States. He was in the same position that Mitt Romney is in now. He had been eyeing the presidency for a while. He’d gotten his inner circle of advisers together. They had been strategizing for years. He’d been to Iowa so often that I thought he’d actually moved there and set up permanent residency. A bizarre combination of ego, ambition and stupidity combined to kill his candidacy and put in in hot water with the feds.

Yesterday, when the mainstream media announced that John Edwards was found not guilty on one count and there was a mistrial regarding all other counts, there were bizarre reactions among the public of dismay, disbelief and befuddlement. I could only smile. Most of us have never read anything about election law. If you don’t read the law, how do you know that he’s guilty of something? In my mind, the bottom line is John Edwards is a sleazebag. This is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. He is guilty of being a jerk. He’s guilty of being a first-rate ass to his deceased wife, Elizabeth, and to his kids. Other than that, I’m not sure if he’s guilty of anything else. I wish him well.

I thought that this quote sums everything up pretty well – “As noted by nearly every campaign finance lawyer who considered the matter, this was a lousy case,” Melanie Sloan, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said in a statement. “All the salacious details prosecutors offered up to prove that Edwards is, indeed, despicable, were not enough to persuade the jury to convict him.”