Is it an accident that Genuine John Edwards has chosen this moment to emerge? (Newsweek)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17081033/site/newsweek/

I'm Real. Really.
Is it an accident that Genuine John Edwards has chosen this moment to emerge?

By Jonathan Darman
Newsweek

Feb. 19, 2007 issue - In the fall of 2005, John Edwards sat down with a pad and pen and scrawled out three simple words: "I was wrong." It was nearly three years after he'd joined a Senate majority in voting to authorize war in Iraq. After an unsuccessful run as John Kerry's vice presidential candidate in the 2004 election, Edwards had returned home to North Carolina and watched as the war descended into chaos. Increasingly filled with regret, he concluded that the three-word confession would be the right way to start a Washington Post op-ed admitting his vote was a mistake.

But when a draft came back from his aides in Washington, Edwards's admission was gone. Determined, the senator reinserted the sentence. Again a draft came back from Washington; again the sentence had been taken out. "We went back and forth, back and forth," Edwards tells NEWSWEEK. "They didn't want me to say it. They were saying I should stress that I'd been misled." The opening sentence remained. "That was the single most important thing for me to say," Edwards recalls. "I had to show how I really feel."


Edwards: 'Consultants can make it hard to tell the truth. They want you to be so cautious it makes it hard to say anything'

The "real" John Edwards is not someone America knows well. When he first crossed the national stage, he called himself the "son of a mill worker," but he seemed more like a creature spawned in a focus group—attractive, well spoken and safe. Since then, he has weathered enormous hardship—his wife, Elizabeth, has battled breast cancer—but hardly a wrinkle has crossed his perpetually tanned face. He has spent the better part of five years in one of the most contrived careers known to man: candidate for president of the United States.

In recent weeks, however, Edwards has been trying to draw attention to his less- scripted side. First there was his "silence is betrayal" attack on his main rivals for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, for not speaking out against the escalation of the Iraq war. On Feb. 4, in an appearance on "Meet the Press," he broke the cardinal rule of presidential politics and admitted that his proposal for universal health care would require raising taxes. Then, last week, he refused to fire two campaign employees who'd criticized Roman Catholics and religious conservatives on their personal blogs, despite pressure from conservative leaders.

FULL story at link.

[lostnotforgotten]

1. The Real Edwards - Can Never Be Forgiven For That New House!

eom

[Bluzmann57]

2. "...he refused to fire two campaign employees ...

despite pressure from conservative leaders."
Good enough for me. If righties were pressuring him and he didn't knuckle under, then that moves him up a notch in my book.

[justgamma]

3. I'm with you, Bluzmann.

I am sick and tired of the Dems caving in at the first Right wing wacko whine.

[Chris77]

4. Hmmmmm;

Makes you go "hmmmmmm . . ."