John Edwards on The Huffington Post

Michael Sigman: Thank You for (Not) Running for President

2009-11-02T15:26:26Z

The U.S. is the best country in the history of the world, Americans like to say, because here any child can grow up to become president.

But now that our 24/7 cable/Internet news culture has opened a window on how thankless a job the Presidency can be if you win -- and how humiliating it is to lose -- it's more fun to explain why you're not running for President, though God knows you'd be a great one and plenty of people want to back you.

Pitiful pay is one excuse for turning down high office. Shortly after Jimmy Carter was inaugurated in 1977, I stood beside Sid Parnes, the owner of Record World, the music magazine I worked on, when he took a call from Hamilton Jordan, Carter's chief of staff, offering him a job in the new administration.

Sid was a wonderful man who drank way too much. One time, when a staffer came back from lunch falling-down drunk and reported he'd downed eight Bloody Marys, Sid's only response was to ask, "How in the world did you drink all that tomato juice?"

Sid slurred a bit when he asked Ham to tell the president that, while he was flattered, he'd have to decline because, as he put it, "I make too much money."

In 2006, Time Magazine's Joe Klein demonstrated the power of the double negative when he titled a column, "Barack Obama Isn't Not Running for President." Barring catastrophe, President Obama will not not run again in 2012, so most of the not-running has been on the Republican side. (Though delusional Democrat Rod Blagojevich recently told The New Yorker -- who didn't ask! -- "When I say comeback, I'm not necessarily saying I'm going to run for President. You understand that, right?").

Two months ago, right wing talk-show host and full-time bully Sean Hannity declared he would consider a Presidential run, but only if God directs him: "I've never made a decision in my life without - whatever destiny God has you've got to fulfill it," he mused, ungrammatically. "I'm not sure that's my destiny." Any bets on how and when Sean will thank his well-wishers but announce he can do more liberal-bashing by taking his name out of the running?

And last week, MSNBC host/erstwhile Republican congressman Joe Scarborough and Fox News titan Roger Ailes -- neither of whom has much more of a chance than Blago to get nominated, much less elected -- addressed the burning question of their possible candidacies. Ailes, after encouraging a draft-Ailes rumor, took a page from Sid's book, quipping "I can't take the pay cut."

Scarborough, amidst the cable networks' trumped-up descriptions of "rumors swirling" that he would run, told his own network, "No, I am being drafted by the Huffington Post, which is going to help me a hell of a lot in those early, conservative Republican states." (Speaking of trumping, The Donald himself declaimed that he wouldn't run for President in 2000, after being seen by some as the "stop (Pat) Buchanan" candidate. Buchanan, himself a cable pundit, withdrew when it became clear he had no chance of winning.)

At least those guys had a sense of humor about it. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told C-Span's Washington Journal that he will run in 2012 only if he and his (third) wife, Callista, feel "a requirement as citizens that we run." Translation: "I'm much more important than any office, but might consider the Presidency if duty calls. Deep down, of course, I know I could never win." And don't you love the "we" from a guy who beat even John Edwards in the Sleaze Sweepstakes by cheating on his first wife while she was hospitalized with cancer?

When Sid turned Ham Jordan down, he was being his honest, modest self. A decade later -- after Sid had drunk himself to death -- I had a different boss whose considerable talent took a back seat to his grandiosity. He told me more than once that he could get elected President of the United States but didn't want the job.

If you're over 35 and a natural born citizen of the United States, you need to get off the fence about whether to run for President in 2012. If the answer is no, start polishing that non-acceptance speech -- C-SPAN and the commercial cable networks have lots of hours to kill.

Catie Lazarus: TV Review: The Good Wife

2009-10-29T16:48:21Z

ON WIFEDOM

"He'll know how much it costs to rape someone and
get away with it," Christie Barbosa (Paloma Guzman) says to her lawyers, namely
Alicia Florrick, to justify how, even as a struggling stripper, she'll turn
down an almost half-million dollars in an out-of-court settlement. Fewer than two
percent of women lie about sexual assault, but as the one-hour drama is art
imitating life, the rape victim's motives are questioned in more detail than
those of her rapist, a sleazy, entitled politician named Lloyd McKean. Alicia
discovers more tidbits (also known as conflict of interest) about McKean when
visiting her husband Peter in jail before work, one morning, the way one might
sneak in a jog.

McKean and the District Attorney's office make it difficult
for our "young" associate to secure evidence, instead explicitly
deriding Alicia about her husband's infidelity. Several times, sexual violence,
infidelity and rape, are mentioned as interchangeable, at least Alicia briefs her cohorts, however flatly, that how power issues and "isms" fall on a continuum.

She does feel insecure enough to ask a personal question
when gather evidence at an escort service, why men pay to be sexually serviced,
and why some services, like not wearing a condom, are more expensive?" The
assistant at the escort service explains that boys will be boys and they ask
for, "What ever they can't get at home." Men could try springing these
special requests on their wives before giving them (or the escorts) HPV.

Weaved into the main story about a rape case, are the
questions for the wife and children of a politician's sex scandal, including
being forced to see and hear graphic images one would rather not view under
kosher circumstances. Peter remains clueless to the impact of his behavior and
during a visit asks her, "When are you going to stop thinking I have sex
with everyone? When are you going to forgive me?" Alicia can't answer what
must be a rhetorical question, although she does ask him several of her own,
like, where he was at their daughter's Grace's 12th birthday party, when he "had"
to leave early. Not a wisp of her hair falls out of place. (Although, this is a
woman who goes to bed caked in makeup.)

The judge is a white male, so liberal, Alicia's boss, jokes
that he, "makes Ralph Nader look like Rush Limbaugh." The Judge even
forces the court to take a moment of silence to reflect on those in Darfur. (If
some one that progressive would warm the bench, let it be known that they
should sport a plastic bracelet or ribbon pen. Nothing says compassion like
accessories.)

He isn't as progressive when it comes to sexual violence and
refuses to re-examine a DNA sample, evidence that would better resolve a sexual
assault case than eyewitness testimony. The idea that a liberal male might still
be sexist is not news, but The Good Wife deftly hints at how even the most well
meaning of us, men and women, aren't always well doing.

The show ends without answering why a spurned woman would be
an effective champion for a sexual assault case, although it implies that
empathy is one of the unwritten duties. Wives don't do good or bad acts, they
are good or bad, and to be a good wife means to be sexually frustrated, able to
see the imbalances of power and dance around them, but not (yet) able to solve
them. The answer probably won't lie in future episodes of The Good Wife or on
Oprah or a Sarah Palin bipoic, but at least The Good Wife asks substantive
questions.

Darryle Pollack: A Woman's Nation Embraces The Emotion

2009-10-29T12:35:44Z

Empower--- one of my least favorite words---is the key word in the mission of Maria Shriver's annual Women's Conference, held this week in Long Beach:We Empower Women to be Architects of Change.

With all due respect---and new respect for what California's First Lady accomplished at this conference----I thought the Women's Conference was powerful, but it wasn't about empowering.

Possibly that's due to where I stand--part of the pioneer generation of women who look back at where we were and sees today's women already empowered. For me, the Women's Conference and the times represent another significant change that also begins with "em:" less about empowerment and more about emotion.

It started, appropriately enough, with Eve. Not the biblical Eve, but with Eve Ensler. The woman who made it popular to carry on monologues about vaginas is moving up....geographically speaking....to our hearts.

Her own emotion passion rocked and roiled the Long Beach Convention Center like a tsunami as she read from her upcoming book: I Am An EMOTIONAL Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.

I thought this might be the emotional high point of the day, but the emotions were just getting started. If Eve was a hurricane, other speakers were the storm surge in a day filled with emotional, memorable moments. There was Somaly Mam's saga of her life of slavery in the brothels of Cambodia, then her return to help thousands of others escape. Katie Couric's successful story of resilience, both professional and personal, told with honesty and humor.

I thought about all the times I've heard women say, "I'm an emotional mess," when I heard ABC anchor Robin Roberts repeat her mother's mantra: "Make your mess your message." (Maybe a slogan for future conferences.)

And the waves of emotion continued, peaking during the session on Grief, Healing and Resilience.

There is no more indelible and undeniable part of the human experience than grief, loss and suffering. Nothing is more painful; nothing is more private. So quite possibly nothing is more profound than four amazingly brave women who open their hearts, take their most private emotions and express them in public. This conversation was a symbolic, powerful gesture that will resound and ripple into countless other lives, effectively multiplying the emotional impact as others take in the emotions, share them and learn by example. All around me, women sat stunned and sobbing in their seats, listening to four remarkable women:

Lisa Niemi, widow of Patrick Swayze, making her first public appearance since his death two months ago.

Susan Saint James-- --so real, so raw, so authentic, so open about the loss of her 14-year-old son Teddy.

Elizabeth Edwards, who has lived several versions of every woman's nightmare .... and is still standing strong.

Maria Shriver--embodiment of everything powerful; yet, in her own words, "brought to her knees" by an event that is a natural and inevitable part of life, the loss of her mother.

Maria's comments about her mother as her touchstone were echoed later by Jane Goodall, the essence of elegance and eloquence. Her emotional words of gentle grace and quiet dignity, mixed with her amazing rendition of simian sound, sent us on our way, taking our emotions home with us as we re-entered our own lives.

After being immersed and inspired by incredible stories, the take-home message of this enormous energetic coming together is something we can all see, reinforced every day in ourselves and in the other women around us:

Instead of our emotions as a source of weakness, our emotions are a source of our strength.

To me, the power of this conference and the power of women as individuals and as a group came from embracing those emotions. By letting our emotions rule us in a positive way and by harnessing our emotions to change our lives, we can change the world.

Maria Shriver, Elizabeth Edwards, Lisa Niemi Discuss Grief

2009-10-28T18:58:38Z

It was an emotional afternoon, Tuesday, at The Women's Conference in California, as a group of prominent women gathered for a special panel on grief -- including Patrick Swayze's wife Lisa Niemi, who spoke publicly for the first time since her husband's death.

New Yorker Festival Attracts Throngs Of Fans Despite Publishing Woes

2009-10-21T15:17:42Z

NEW YORK — The journalism industry may be in precarious shape, but you wouldn't have known it at the annual New Yorker Festival, where star worship of the magazine's most famous writers seemed to be in full force.

"Did you see Calvin Trillin?" a middle-aged woman could be overheard saying excitedly to her companion at one event over the weekend. "He looked at me!"

Catie Lazarus: TV Review: The Good Wife Goes to Better Heights

2009-10-21T12:56:15Z

The
Good Wife is closer than any Oprah or Barbara Walters special will ever be to bringing
this viewer to understanding why Hilda Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards (until
recently), Hilary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Onassis, and so on, stood
by their men.

In
this one hour, weekly, CBS procedural, Alicia Florrick, who Juliana Margulies
adroitly portrays, must pick up their pieces when Peter Florrick, her attorney
general husband is caught in salacious sex and corruption scandals and lands in
prison. Alicia finds herself forced to into a new role as a breadwinner and
single (for all intents and purposes) mother, one she seems to mainly enjoy. Why
doesn't she divorce Peter remains elusive, except that it seems logical that an
educated mother of two children would focus on the bottom line instead of on keeping
face.

Sure
Elizabeth Edwards was finally forced to pull the plug, but the majority of the wives
unwillingly embroiled in political scandals stay on and Elizabeth Edwards held
out as long as she could. Based on the divorce rate, fewer non-famous couples
feel the need to stick it out, even under less salty circumstances.

If staying put seems unrealistic, the
unsexy nature of Alicia's new life is believable. She returns to practicing
law, as an associate at a fancy Chicago firm, a life she had put on hold when
Peter became a political appointee. Every episode revolves around her cracking
a new uphill legal battle, albeit not all on her own, but always on behalf of
the runt.

As with other procedural shows, she will prevail and justice will reign in the runt's favor. Alicia's newfound life-calling is to rescue the underdog, whether it's a neglected, wealthy white, innocent teen unfairly pinned
with a murder or three widowed single mothers whose husbands were unfairly killed and blamed with a train crash by a (faux) conglomerate Cross National Freight. Her cases get solved with the help of humans who feel for her. Like when Alicia
is tipped off, somewhat miraculously, by a low-level Cross National Freight
worker who returns after hours to Alicia's law firm, to give her a two
word clue, "Newbury Heights." (Later in the episode, the same witness blurts out that Alicia shouldn't do to her what's been done to Alicia.)

Even
though most corporate battles are rarely this black and white or centered on
innocent individual victims, mainstream depictions of heroines these days seem
forced to revel in their feminine instincts, come off as assertive but not too
aggressive. When Alicia is forced to decide between caring for people and
protecting her own job, she feels torn. While she pities a key witness, a young, working class white
mother, and her clients, three, Latina and black, poor, widowed mothers, Alicia
turns to her high school aged daughter, Grace, for advice. Her daughter's name
is no more (or less) cliché than her pearls of wisdom. As the two sit on the
couch, watching TV, Grace tells her mom, "You can't just not do your job."

One,
meaning I, hope The Good Wife won't fall prey to other formulas. Thus far,
Alicia hasn't fallen for her modestly arrogant (if such a phrase exists), old
friend and boss, Will Gardner, played by Josh Charles. He is attentive and
protective of Alicia, defending her against his biting, nakedly ambitious,
aging, competitive female colleague, Diane Lockhart, perfectly played by
Christine Baranski. There are no legal
records documenting partners, even those who want to shutup their associates,
applauding every softball caught, not that it's not something to strive
towards.

Outside
of these soapy moments, most of the tension and airtime revolves around
Alicia's work as an associate. Her sidekick is Kalinda Sharma, a scrappy, underpaid,
sexy, and "down-to-earth" research assistant, played by the agile and
beautiful Archie Panjabi.

If
The Jay Leno Show cut work for dramatic actors, The Good Wife has brought more
opportunity for New York based dramatic actors. The fourth episode features Martha
Plimpton, who guest stars as a pregnant executive with a bloated defense of her
corporation, Cross National Freight. She undermines Alicia, sniping jealously
about Alicia's comfortable relationship with Will by saying, "I guess he
finds you challenging, something with an interesting history." Luckily,
Alicia has built up an arsenal of answers, like "After the past seven
months, I'm vaccinated."

Alicia's
public humiliation is not a hindrance, even though many of her opponents try to
turn it into a problem. Her baggage is a bonus. The assumption is that her own
experiences inform her ability to empathize with victims in need of a champion. There is another, albeit unspoken, assumption that the other white, well read, fed, and bread
lawyers haven't experienced real pain
and therefore can't empathize with real people.
It's a believable hypothesis, but the idea that one must be able to identify, psychologically speaking, in
order to execute a task is problematic.

Indeed,
she has suffered. Alicia must relocate her and her teenage children, Zack and
Grace, to a small Chicago apartment and pull them out of their tony private
school and suburban Highland Park home. She also loses friends, including one
whose son Alicia the lawyer goes on to rescue from juvie, with little thanks
from his folks.

To
the show's credit, Alicia's husband, children, and mother-in-law don't
idealize or pity her. The misogynistic, sleazy, smart, politically ambitious
husband is performed, not surprisingly, by Chris Noth. It's hard to tell Peter
Florrick apart from Mr. Big and Detective Mike Logan, as his distinct,
low-pitched, gravely voice can be heard on three channels simultaneously, including re-runs.

While
their relationship can be testy, Peter tips Alicia off during her first legal
case, helping her to solve the case. Their relationship also works against her.
In the same case, an old political foe of Peter tries to sway the judge against
Alicia, claiming she received confidential information from Peter. She did, but
he can't prove it, and somehow he comes off the bad guy for trying to do so.

Peter's
shadow looms in her private life as well. At the beginning of the fourth
episode, Peter questions his mother Jackie for referring to Alicia as only the
third person pronoun,
"she." Unapologetic, Jackie belittles Alicia, telling on her
to Peter for spending long hours at the law firm, hinting that Alicia is
probably having an affair with her boss. (Since
when is midnight at a law firm for an associate "late"?) The two
women rarely see eye to eye, as Jackie refuses to acknowledge her son's bad
behavior. It is a different generation and Alicia won't cower.

"You
respect me," Alicia screams at Jackie, furious when Jackie sheepishly
admits to having taken Zack and Grace to see their father without Alicia's
permission. Enraged, she threatens to kick out Jackie if it happens again. It's
too bad she isn't volatile more often, because she's remarkably authentic and captivating when
she comes unhinged.

Alicia's
own stabs at parenting are limited. She seems less involved with her children
than one imagines (and hopes) was the case when she was a stay-at-home mom. Instead,
Alicia seems more like a traditional, breadwinner father. Their bonding time
consists of her taking them to school in the morning and popping in their
bedrooms at night for a minute or two. The two teens seem to show little
interest in coddled. That said, there's no syrupy attempt to mask the
challenges in parenting teenagers, but the show seems to assume that children,
even teenage ones, are better seen and not heard. Alicia doesn't consult her
husband, she tells him what is going on with the kids.

It's
evident she misses having a partner. In the second episode, Alicia indicates
how much she misses the intimacy, sexually, of being with her husband, and
caresses the scrape in their headboard, as she reminisces about an indent they
made during some tawdry, fun, biblical activities. But the happier memory turns
sour when she recalls Peter sliding out of the bed to deal with a work call
and, despite her objections, leaving her to return to work.

Now
the tables are turned and Peter is longing for her to stay loyal and forgive
his trespasses, like his being caught sucking on the toes of an escort. Peter tells
her how beautiful she is now, confessing that jail gives him plenty of time to
mull things over. Alicia responds that she has had time to think outside of
prison. By the end of the fourth episode, we are left not knowing whether she
will continue to stand by him. Alicia is taking it day by day.

After
all, she is attractive and now the breadwinner having returned to the legal
world. She must shepherd Zack and Grace through adolescence and teach them and
herself how to navigate the constant unsolicited commentary from strangers, including
a homely, older, fem

ale applicant who has the nerve (and lack of self
awareness) to compliment Alicia for looks less dowdy in person than she does on
TV. Alicia is always being judged, whether the input is positive or negative,
even subordinates feel comfortable eschewing their opinions.

Yup,
it sucks to have married a shmuck. Alicia is forced to ask herself if Peter
always was one, a question which non-political mates ask themselves in even the
most respectful relationships. One wonders what role, if any, Alicia Florrick, will
play in informing the decisions made by bright, self-actualized political wives,
when they find themselves in similar circumstances. Based on the number of
stories just this year, including Governor Elliot Spitzer, Governor Mark Sanford, Senator John Ensign,
Senator John Edwards, is no question that the circumstance will arise.

Ellen Sterling: Jerry Springer: A Passion for Politics Burns Brightly

2009-10-20T16:21:17Z

Quickly! What's the first thing that comes into your mind when I say, "Jerry Springer?"

If you're like most people, it'll be that talk show he's hosted since September 1991. If you possess more arcane information, you might also think of Jerry Springer: The Opera "Weird Al" Yankovic's song about him. If I asked you to think of Jerry Springer and politics, you might recall that he was mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio.

But, if any of that is all you know about Springer, you're missing out.

Springer is here in Las Vegas to host America's Got Talent at Planet Hollywood through December 11. His schedule is insanely busy as he commutes between the live stage show in Las Vegas and the taping of his syndicated TV show in Stamford, CT. But, happily for me, he found time to sit for a few minutes and talk politics which, he says, "is my passion. The show is my job."

He was born in London -- precisely in the Highgate tube station -- the child of Margo and Richard Springer, refugees from the Holocaust. When he was five the family emigrated to the USA, settling in Queens, NY. They came here, Springer says during the show, "because America was the land where anything was possible and where you could be any religion you wanted to be." He still believes that and that belief has guided much of his life.

Springer's interest in politics was kindled early. He recalls:

Every night at dinner we'd go around the table and talk about a story we read in the paper that day. I'd talk about sports. That was my interest and they let me. As I got older I'd and I realized what my parents were interested in, I began to read about and talk about politics.

He became interested in the civil rights movement. "It was clear. There were good guys and bad guys. It was about justice."

As he grew up:

My interest in the civil rights movement morphed into the anti-war movement. When we left Vietnam, I thought it would go back to being communist. It began as a good deed but, in the end, you have to ask, why 58,000 Americans died for a result that was predetermined.

Looking back, Vietnam never made sense, just like the Iraq War. In both cases you had the so-called best and the brightest making decisions. The lesson there probably is that being intelligent doesn't necessarily mean you make good judgment calls. At some point you start getting enough information to stop. At first Vietnam was a humanitarian move, but you have to recognize where you can have influence and where you can't.

Springer earned an undergraduate degree in political science at Tulane in New Orleans and then went to law school at Northwestern in Evanston, IL. In Chicago in 1968, he was one of the student protesters in Grant Park during the Democratic convention. A few months later he cast his first vote presidential vote for Hubert Humphrey. He's stayed involved ever since.

At the 2004 Democratic National Convention I was an Ohio delegate and a big contributor for John Edwards because I liked him on domestic issues. Of course, by the time the convention comes, everything has been decided through the primary process. And, I do think we'd be better served with four regional primaries, rather than individual states having them.

The 2008 election of Barack Obama, Springer believes, "said more about us than about him. Grant park where, 40 years ago the Democratic Convention demonstrations took place was a great setting for his victory. I think in time no one is ever going to remember his race was an issue."

Okay, but how has the President done in office? Springer is a fan and he is clear in his reasoning: "The expectations people had of him were phenomenal. And it was going to be tough for him. To his credit he's taken everything on."

He inherited a disastrous mess. I like his activism but we've got to do more in the area of employment and the President shouldn't shy away from it. Right now we've got to put everybody to work and if that means government projects, then we have to start them. And we need health care, but it's going to cost money. If there's a hole in your roof you have to pay to fix it, you don't just let it go and let the roof collapse. The same is true with the country.

You can look around this country and put everyone to work with government projects. More workers mean more taxes and we shouldn't forget that the price we pay for kids growing up in unemployed families is phenomenal. How can we pass onto our children a nation that is over 10 percent unemployed? The President doing exactly what a president should do.You may not like all the the programs but they're working. He stemmed the financial panic. And at least some of our economy is returning.

There is so much to do and he's got to push through until it gets done. Once people are working -- even in government-funded jobs -- they have to take a lunch break. They go to the local cafeteria and spend money. The cafeteria has to buy more food. There's a ripple effect. It will cost money to get going and he shouldn't be afraid to say that.

And Springer, for one, is pleased about Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I understand what the Nobel committee was thinking. America was in a downward spiral and that could, in the long-term, be very dangerous to the world. If we became the bad guy there would be no help for anyone. Barack Obama got the world to understand what America is all about. It's about being a good citizen, about working with others. Now we're back to the America everyone thought we could be.

Obama changed the tone and tone is important. To have the most visible spokesperson in the world speaking about inclusiveness is so important. We're not stronger than all the world combined. We're strong, but we're part of the world. Now, when it comes time to choose sides, they'll choose us. It's not America against the world.

"And that," Springer says, "is good for everyone."

Meredith C. Carroll: Revisiting Misstressed Opportunities

2009-10-15T12:02:56Z

It recently came to my attention that opportunity once knocked on my door but unfortunately I was upstairs at the time taking a nap with a pillow over my head.

In light of the David Letterman extortion incident, it dawned on me that at an earlier time in my life I should have tried and might have had a chance to become an Other Woman. And not just any Other Woman (because I have standards), but the Young Other Woman in a high profile sex scandal.

After every possible intimate, shocking and creepy detail of each sensational nooky story du jour is recited over and over for weeks and weeks on the nightly cable TV shows, the men involved always go back to doing what they did before (except for the ones who are occasionally shipped off to prison or forcibly shamed into resigning).

But the Young Other Woman's life is never the same. She becomes eminently unemployable by traditional means. While she vows to keep her head up, mouth shut, legs closed and return to work at her entry-level desk job, the whispers at the water cooler of her harlot-like ways eventually grow too loud and she becomes too emotionally drained to maintain a 9-5 office existence.

So instead she sells her story to the highest bidder among the weekly tabloids, takes it all off for the right price in one of the monthly skin magazines, fights in a celebrity boxing match, appears on a schlocky reality TV show or practices law with the degree she was able to earn because the high-profile married man with whom she was involved paid the tuition bills. In fact, if she plays her cards right, post-scandal she'll only have to work a handful of days in her life (which is key because, seriously -- who's going to hire a lawyer who can't even ensure the contents of her own diary remain confidential?).

My best shot at being the Young Other Woman came and went in the mid 1990s. For a short time I did some side work as a personal assistant to a cast member on Saturday Night Live. As part of the gig, it was necessary for me to be involved in almost all aspects of his life, including spending time at his apartment with his wife and baby. I'd be kicking myself now for having missed out on the chance to be a (retired) star in my own right if I hadn't since learned that he's gay.

If only Monica Lewinsky had made a name for herself a few years before that, I could have had the perfect role model. After all, Monica and I are the same age, attended good colleges, have loving parents. Like Monica, my people know people. My cousins have cousins who know people. In fact, I'm sure if I tried I could have been a White House intern, too. And with enough liquid courage and the right G-string, I totally could have out-Monica-ed Monica. (Although I would have been classy enough to destroy the blue dress or at least bright enough sell it before it was seized as evidence.)

Prior to that, emulating the Long Island Lolita, Amy Fisher, might have been an extraordinary option for me. (Never mind that I grew up on the other side of the Long Island Sound in Westchester County, where it's safe to say there aren't too many Joey Buttafuoco-types. He's 100 percent Long Island.) I'm sure my aim with a pistol would have been bad enough to maim but not kill, too. And 17 years later, Amy's still making money on her notoriety, whether it's through "stolen" sex tapes, starring in her own pay-per-view movies or performing regularly at a strip club. Some girls have all the luck.

Had I been on the receiving end of former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's toe tapping (forgetting that it's pretty clear I'm not his type), I would have tap-tap-tapped right back and then type-type-typed it up into a tell-all tome (with the help of a ghost writer, of course).

And where has South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's Argentine girlfriend been hiding? Does she think she's better than all the other Young Other Women by remaining silent on the affair? Such a waste. Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's bimbo got it all wrong, too, by charging up front and not realizing the real money comes at the back end. Rookie mistake.

But all Young Other Women, aspiring and otherwise, can take a page from Rielle Hunter's playbook (although she's not so Young). She did and is still doing everything she can, including getting knocked up and hanging around like bad case of the clap, until she can morbidly move up to John Edwards' first lady status with Dave Matthews as her wedding band. While she's clearly one in a million, a girl can dream.

Annie Stamell: Enough With the David Letterman Hoopla Already!

2009-10-08T16:52:01Z

Okay. Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, please! Enough with this David Letterman hoopla already! You know something? I DON'T CARE! I don't. In fact, I don't even want to know about Dave's indiscretions, just like I didn't want to know about John Edwards' (I still can't believe that dude thought he could be president), or Bill Clinton's, or about that time when Billy Crudup left pregnant Mary Louise Parker for Claire Danes. And I really, really don't want to hear another word about this Jon Gosselin character or if he's back together with the nanny after his fling with the reporter from OK!, okay?

I realize that public figures in the public eye must open their lives to public scrutiny. Tabloid magazines need to sell, and I certainly respect that (hey, I spent a summer interning at Us Weekly myself), however I'm sick of the constant judgment. People make mistakes! I've made more than my fair share. Spoiler alert: we're human. Don't judge Letterman for his mistakes as a man. If he flubs up on the show, then we can judge him. His job is to be the most entertaining late night host there is, and as far as I'm concerned, he's still got 'em all beat (with Conan and Craig trailing close behind). Clinton's job title was President of the United States, not Top Married Dude of the United States. And yes, I'm in a Facebook group called "Bill Clinton is and Always Will Be My President" (pre-Obama, mind you), and I still think Billy Crudup is really, really good looking, and I'd like to applaud John Edwards on his perfectly coiffed 'do (how does he do it!?! And also, really, president!?!), because at the end of the day, I don't want to know about these people and the mistakes they make. If those mistakes aren't impacting my life in a direct and detrimental manner then I don't need to hear about them. I'd rather watch the new episode of Stargate Universe (I watched it last night, and it's surprisingly good!).

About Roman Polanski, however, I'd rather just stay out of that one entirely. Actually, why not, really ... he raped a 13 year old. REALLY?

I'll repeat: Stargate Universe anyone?

Bruce Kluger: LettermanGate: One Week Later

2009-10-08T01:10:31Z

It is now nearly one week since LettermanGate first burst onto TV screens, front pages and BlackBerrys nationwide, and the media remain in unapologetic full-throttle. Having already wrung every drop of dirty dishwater from this odd tale of sex, checks and affections, reporters continue to survey the outer fringes of the story's seedy landscape, hoping to tap a fresh reservoir of bodice-ripping, scurrilous slime.

Last weekend, the New York Post heavy-panted its way through a largely empty expose that dubbed Dave a "skirt-chasing funnyman" while depicting his private office at the Ed Sullivan Theater as a door-swinging sex-den, complete with fold-out couch.

The Daily Beast unveiled the down-and-dirty on Joe Halderman, the "rogue" CBS News producer-turned-alleged extortionist, whose clumsy attempt to blow the lid off Dave's randy past earned him a phony $2 million check and a very real bill for $200,000 in bail.

And TMZ.com -- ground zero for all that is knock-yer-socks-off-shocking -- posted an interview with a heretofore unknown Letterman intern, complete with the usual unspectacular quotes ("I was madly in love with him") and predictably blurry jpegs.

And yet for all the ink and bytes devoted to this bizarre saga, here's what I find most compelling: that David Letterman successfully navigated his way through three explosive crises -- personal, professional and legal -- by simply telling the truth.

Unlike the similarly cornered Sens. John Edwards and John Ensign, Gov. Elliot Spitzer and (sigh) Bill Clinton, who initially body-blocked media inquires about their affairs with everything from finger-wagging resentment to faux-humility to flat-out denial, Letterman confessed to his past philandering instantly ("I have had sex with women who work for me on this show," he revealed), and he did so proactively, rather than in the crouch of self-defense.

Unlike the bathroom-cruising Sen. Larry ("I am not gay") Craig, who responded to charges of "lewd conduct" at a Minneapolis airport by claiming that cops had simply misread a little innocent stall-footsie, Letterman approached authorities the moment he knew he was being shaken down, and even testified to the facts before a grand jury.

And unlike Gov. Mark Sanford, who justified his 5000-mile field trip to rendezvous with his secret Argentine "soul mate" as something more spiritual than your typical sleazy tryst, Letterman copped to the all-too-ordinary sordidness of his office-fling history, even calling his own actions "creepy."

This is why David Letterman will be forgiven his workplace hanky-panky. Because, in the end, what people (and, should it go this far, juries) admire most is straight talk, and that is precisely what Dave dished out last Thursday evening -- along with a few laughs, of course.

Which brings up an interesting question: Did Letterman effectively duck more serious scrutiny of his trespasses by donning his customary goofball persona and beating the media to the punch by beating himself up first?

Probably -- but the fact is, this is wholly consistent with the Letterman America has been inviting into its bedrooms for more than a quarter-century. Not only has he routinely used his late-night forum as his own personal scrapbook -- talking about his heart surgery, his speeding tickets, the birth of his son--he's also been the first to bust himself for the occasional idiocy -- such as mistakenly targeting the wrong daughter of Sarah Palin in an off-color joke last June. He apologized immediately.

CBS and Worldwide Pants (Letterman's production company) will undoubtedly continue to investigate this matter, if only to determine whether David Letterman crossed the line -- or broke a law--by engaging in sex with subordinates. But unless something else erupts -- and it would have to be something pretty big -- you can file the story of Dave's Deviant Dalliance where it belongs -- as yesterday's news.

This essay originally ran in the October 8th, 2009 edition of USA Today; Bruce Kluger is co-author, with David Tabatsky, of the new book, Dear President Obama: Letters of Hope From Children Across America]

BJ Gallagher: Celebrities Behaving Badly

2009-10-06T17:07:42Z

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning," wrote English mystery writer Catherine Aird.

I love the way revelations about celebrities' personal lives give us all an opportunity to explore, discuss, and learn about important issues. "You're as sick as your secrets" therapists tell us -- and each time a famous person's secret comes to light, we have a chance to consider our own secrets. Who knows? Perhaps we can get a little healthier, both individually and collectively.

Mackenzie Phillips' is shining a light on the painful issue of family incest. Her new memoir, High on Arrival, details the excesses and debauchery of a life of sex, drugs, rock & roll - and reveals how her father, "Mamas and Papas" singer John Phillips, initiated a ten-year sexual relationship with his young daughter.

Roman Polansky's arrest reminds us that sexual predators come in many guises: the sleaze ball creep, the boy next door, the trusted priest, the popular coach, the distinguished political leader, and yes, the creative genius.

David Letterman's current troubles are a cautionary tale of the dangers of fishing from the company pier. He's giving us an education about what's sexual harassment and what isn't. And we see - in living color - the fallout from a workplace romance gone bad.

John Edward's ongoing, painful, public twisting in the wind illustrates - once again - that the cover-up is always a bigger sin than the transgression. Sadly, he's going down in history as just another liar hoisted by his own petard.

Michael Vick's arrest, trial, conviction, and jail time for dog fighting has done much to heighten our awareness of the ubiquitous problem of animal cruelty. Dog fighting, cock fighting, cat hoarding, puppy mills, and more - Vick brings renewed attention to an old problem.

Michael Jackson's untimely death reminded us that power and money can buy you doctors and drugs - but it can also buy you accidental death. We've seen this movie so many times before - with Anna Nicole, Elvis, Marilyn, Janis, Belushi - the list is a long one.

Bernie Madoff's astounding Ponzi scheme provides a glimpse into the financial heart of darkness beating in the chest of more than a few titans of Wall Street. The "greed is good" mantra doesn't die easily - recession or not.

Sociologists tell us that deviance plays a positive role for society. Deviance shows us what happens with you cross certain boundaries - as well as what and where those boundaries are. Deviance reminds us of cause and effect - the law of karma is alive and well. We see - up close and personal - that you really do reap as you sow. It may take awhile for misdeeds to catch up to you, but they almost inevitably do.

So, what can we learn from famous people behaving badly?

First, the human mind's capacity for denial is powerful. Most, if not all these transgressors undoubtedly rationalized their behavior in order to continue it. They are con artists who conned us into believing their public persona - and most of all, they conned themselves.

Second, power, prestige, fame, and money are intoxicating. Mixed together, they are a powerful cocktail that lowers moral inhibitions and frees one from the constraints of conscience. These people are LUI - Living Under the Influence.

Third, Henry Kissinger was right when he said, "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." There will always be plenty of women who are drawn to power like moths to a flame. That power may be political, financial, intellectual, social, musical, artistic, etc. Remember, Monica Lewinsky told friends she was "going to Washington to get my presidential kneepads." Rielle Hunter sought out John Edwards to tell him, "You're hot." It is not easy for a man to resist such a crime of opportunity.

Fourth, who among us has not behaved badly? Or, who among us would not behave badly, given the opportunity? It's easy for us to jump right in as judge, jury, and executioner - but I wonder if any of us are as pure and righteous as we'd like to believe we are. Perhaps our time and energy would be better spent cleaning our own houses, rather than telling others how to live.

Fifth, one of the hallmarks of wisdom is the ability to learn from others' experiences. If we are wise, we will view celebrities' scandals as learning opportunities. Instead of finger-wagging and clucking admonishments, we would be smart to look for what we might learn from others' misdeeds.

And finally, we can practice compassion for the ne'er-do-wells among us. Bad behavior is often driven by deep-seated insecurity, self-loathing, fear, and/or a profound longing to be loved. Every great spiritual tradition teaches the value of compassion. That doesn't mean that we don't people accountable for their bad behavior - but it does mean that we must always extend the hope of forgiveness and redemption.

Years ago I saw a marquee in front of a church in North Carolina that read: "Those who deserve love least, need it the most." Amen.

Jacob M. Appel: Hate the Husband? Sue the Mistress!

2009-10-06T15:30:16Z

Earlier this summer, after news broke of former Mississippi Congressman Chip Pickering's alleged affair with college sweetheart Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd, Pickering's wife transformed a personal tragedy into a public farce by suing her husband's purported lover under Mississippi's antiquated "alienation of affection" law.

Now North Carolina has proven that the New South is still capable of old tricks, "modernizing"--but not repealing--its own "alienation of affection" statute. Such causes of action, vestiges of legal codes that also prohibited divorce and criminalized premarital sex, provide a consummate example of the sort of private controversies in which the government has no business meddling.

Unfortunately, an unlikely alliance of trial lawyers and Christian fundamentalists continues to defend the prerogative of jilted spouse to turn love triangles into quadrangles--with the state judicial system serving as an ungainly fourth wheel. Yet the publicity surrounding the Dickensian-named case of Pickering v. Pickering may prove the best hope in a generation to curtail such misguided suits.

Washington insiders have already done their share of snickering as the Pickerings' bickering degenerated into dickering. After all, Congressman Pickering built his political career as an outspoken conservative and former Southern Baptist missionary who sported his religious stripes on his sleeves. He was widely regarded as Governor Haley Barbour's favored choice to replace the retiring Trent Lott in the United States Senate--an opportunity that Leisha Pickering alleges her husband turned down in order to continue his extramarital affair.

From a public relations standpoint, it appears that Congressman Pickering also trysted in the wrong place at the wrong time: He lived alongside embattled Nevada Senator John Ensign in the complex at 133 C Street that has become for infidelity what the Harding era's Little Green House on K Street once was to political corruption. By the time Mrs. Pickering filed her lawsuit, her disgraced husband--once a darling of the Christian Right--had become a poster child for the Christian Wrong.

In most states, the matter might have ended there. But Congressman Pickering's mistress turned out to be a wealthy woman whose family owns Cellular South. So Mrs. Pickering has opted to soothe her heartbreak inside Ms. Creekmore Byrd's deep pockets.

Far harder to explain is North Carolina's recent decision to retain its own "alienation of affection" statute. That state's relatively progressive governor, Beverly Purdue, approved legislation that would narrow the state's law to exclude couples who have already separated, but have not yet divorced. Businesses and commercial enterprises also may no longer be sued for tortuous interference with marriage. Alas, the legislation only applies from October 1, 2009, onward--so previous transgressors, such as alleged John Edwards paramour Rielle Hunter, could still face such litigation. Whatever else one might say about Tar Heel lawmakers, no one can accuse them of going soft on adultery.

Adultery itself is still illegal in many states, but these criminal statutes are sporadically enforced. Law Professor Jonathan Turley has written compellingly that they are also likely unconstitutional in the wake of the Supreme Court's legalization of sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas, although that didn't stop Virginia from prosecuting John Bushey in 2004, a sordid case which concluded with the defendant pleading guilty and paying a $125 fine plus $36 in court costs. Not exactly a public stoning. (The exception to the rarity of infidelity prosecutions is in the United States military, which continues to target adulterers; men who covet their neighbors' wives are no more welcome in our Armed Forces than girls who sleep with girls or boys with flat feet.) In contrast, lawsuits for "alienation of affection" and "criminal conversion" remain surprisingly common.

More than two hundred such suits are filed each year in North Carolina alone. The verdicts can have devastating financial effects on the lives of the defendants, but often prove great windfalls for the cuckolded parties. For example, betrayed wife Christine Cooper of Greensboro, North Carolina, won a $2,000,000 judgment against her husband's lover in 2001. Davidson College wrestling coach Thomas Oddo garnered $1.4 million from Florida physician Jeffrey Presser that same year after the doctor "stole" his wife's heart. In Mississippi, the state's Supreme Court upheld a $700,000 judgment against businessman Jerry Fitch for seducing the married Sandra Valentine.

In addition to North Carolina and Mississippi, six other states still permit lawsuits for either "alienation of affection" or its sister sin, "criminal conversation"--in which conversation is a polite legal euphemism for sexual intercourse. Moreover, "alienation of affection," unlike "criminal conversation," does not even require physical contact. Effective flirting will suffice. Needless to say, residents of Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah should be careful whom they entice. So should tourists and business travelers who happen to pass through these jurisdictions.

Some argue that we live in a "center-right" country. The reality is that we live in a "center-left" country governed by center-right laws. Most sensible people--including many deeply troubled by infidelity--view the notion of suing your spouse's lover as rather asinine. (The exception is State Senator Jake Knotts of South Carolina, who recently proposed reestablishing an "alienation of affection" tort in his home state, where in 1992 the Supreme Court had declared an earlier law invalid. As Knotts sees matters: "We protect our automobiles. We protect our homes. There's laws to protect everything and we just need laws to protect the family.")

The problem is that husbands and wives aren't chattel. True love cannot be bought and sold. Even if such litigation does deter infidelity--a highly dubious notion, as passion tends to be a far stronger force than civic virtue--it is not at all clear why this is a proper role for government. Just because conduct is distasteful does not mean it automatically deserves legal redress. Just ask the citizens of Sterling, Iowa, who make their town a laughingstock in the media several years ago with their quixotic effort to criminalize lying.

I feel genuinely sorry for Leisha Pickering. First, she squandered half her life in the company of New Hebron, Mississippi's very own Elmer Gantry. Now, in order to win her bizarre lawsuit, she must prove that Ms. Creekmore Byrd pilfered her husband's love. In response, all that the defendant must show is that the Pickerings' marriage failed for reasons independent of her own conduct--that she was a symptom rather than a cause. For example, she could argue that Mrs. Pickering had lost her looks. Or that Congressman Pickering had never truly loved his wife from the outset. Not pleasant claims. But that's what you open yourself up to when you start using the judicial system as a mechanism for personal vengeance.

The unfortunate reality is that the case of Pickering v. Pickering, already under seal, will likely settle before such titillating matters can be litigated. And Mrs. Pickering may have the final laugh, as she will walk away a rich divorcee while Ms. Creekmore Byrd gets stuck with the man that she bargained for. After all, husbands, like golfers, rarely cheat but once.

The real losers from such an outcome, of course, will be the citizens of Mississippi, who will have missed out on a chance to rid themselves of this wacky and invasive law. A far better result would be for Ms. Creekmore Byrd to challenge Mississippi's "alienation of affection" statute as a violation of the United States Constitution. In the post-Lawrence era, she might win. And well she should. The consensual conduct of adults in their own bedrooms ought to be their own business, and maybe that of their spouses, not a matter to be deliberated over by a jury of meddlesome peers.

Paul Slansky: This Preposterous Week in Review!

2009-10-03T11:37:22Z

American Girl

• "homeless" doll — "Gwen" — with a $95 price tag is marketed by

American Police Force

• control of empty Hardin, Montana, jail is turned over to, despite the lengthy criminal record of the leader of, and despite the utter shadiness of the entire enterprise, because, as the deal-maker says, "What have we got to lose?"

Arizona

• guns are now allowed in bars in, unless there's a sign banning them, but if the sign has fallen down it's okay to bring them in

Bachmann, Representative Michele

• possibility is raised by that if health care reform passes, Planned Parenthood "could become a proprietor" for "school sex clinics" in "every school across the United States" and "someone's 13-year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night," and though the probability of such an event is roughly .0000001 in a gazillion bazillion, not a soul in the House chamber laughs out loud at

Beck, Glenn

• Vancouver is said by to have "lost, how much was it, they lost a billion dollars when they had the Olympics," which, of course, the city will host next year

Berlusconi, Silvio

• President Obama is idiotically referred to as "sun-tanned" by

birthers

• first infomercial by features attorney named Gary Kreep

Boehner, House Minority Leader John

• astonishingly sheltered life of

Cheney, Liz

• threatened political future of

DeLay, Tom

• tango partner of is almost dropped by

Edwards, John

• more details from upcoming book by former toady for

• wife of may have finally had enough

Ensign, Senator John

• examination of the unethical-at-best and maybe even illegal efforts of to hush up the unhappy husband of the mistress of may yet end the career of

Family Guy

• Disneyfication of

Fisher, Carrie

• observation by that "celebrity is just obscurity biding its time"

football

• deleterious effects on brains of professional players of

Fox News

• Hugo Chavez is not a fan of

• lies by about President Obama are actually called "lies" on official White House blog

Franks, Rep. Trent

• spokeswoman for explains that statement by calling President Obama "an enemy of humanity" actually should have been worded "an enemy of unborn humanity"

Gingrich, Newt

• 527 group of rescinds Entrepreneur of the Year Award bestowed upon the owner of a topless club — the same award that was earlier given to and then quickly taken away from a porn executive

Grayson, Representative Alan

• Democrats are urged by to show some "guts" after characterization of Republicans by as "foot-dragging, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals" whose health plan consists of wanting sick people to "die quickly" is not apologized for

King, Larry

• Michael Moore is asked by if he wrote "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

For more, including Palin, Polanski, and the utterly useless Harry Reid, click here.

Jill Brooke: Elizabeth Edwards Reportedly Thinks Serial Cheating Is Worse Than an Affair. Do You?

2009-10-02T13:09:14Z

At the National Enquirer rumor station, which pumps out more toxic fumes than Exxon, it was reported that Elizabeth Edwards wants to divorce her husband John Edwards because she now thinks he was a serial cheater vs. just having had an indiscretion with Rielle Hunter. An indiscretion I may add that led to the birth of a child.

As someone who specializes in marriage and divorce, I arched my eyebrows like half moons and immediately called my colleague, Dr. Bonnie Eaker-Weill who wrote "Adultery:The Forgivable Sin."

"What are the odds of that being true for most women?" I said.

"Very low," laughed Bonnie.

Because the truth is that most women who marry powerful men find it easier to accept serial cheaters vs. having them involved with one special person.

As Bonnie said, "When it happens over time with many people, wives can justify that it's like a flavor of the week, an addiction, a love drug."

More or less like sky diving, where the guy looks for a thrill over and over again and then comes home to the wife. The wife is willing to make this Faustian bargain as Hillary Clinton did because she can say that he doesn't love these women, he just can't help himself. The wives find ways to justify the behavior by blaming the other women's values that are as low as the plunging necklines of their Versace dresses. Because deep down they know that the guy eventually comes home to the bosom of his nurturing and far more wholesome family.

And that thinking isn't too far off. Guess what the stats are of powerful men leaving their wife after an affair? Less than 3 percent eventually married their lovers.

Oh and here's another juicy statistic that should give some predators something to think about. The ones who get married to the lovers that caused the family break-up? Those couples have a 75 percent divorce rate. And the vast majority have ironclad pre-nups. (Or as iron-clad as they can be.)

But the real threat to a marriage is when the man gets emotionally involved. When he cares, when he offers financial support. When he claims, as Gov. Mark Sanford did that he loves the other woman. Those sincere heartfelt words bruise like bubbling acid which is part of the reason that Jenny Sanford ditched her hubby on the mea culpa podium. And most likely why Silda Spitzer did not.

When it's not a woman he loves, it also gives the wife a narrative to explain the affair to the children who can't help but see the on-going drama in our seamy stake-out culture with 24/7 cable rotations. But make no mistake about it, the children are still scared and scarred.

"I found it much easier when I knew my father was a serial cheater," Dr. Bonnie Eaker-Weill told me.

He later told me he had a relationship with someone for over three years. I had looked at his serial cheating as though he went to a movie and had ice cream and one year he wanted banana, another time strawberry. It didn't feel as threatening. But when I found out he had had one special person for that time, it was gut-wrenching. It hits you in the gut. I felt so bad for my mother.

Because no one wants to be replaced. No one wants to feel disposable.

But Elizabeth Edwards reportedly feels differently. And she may. Each of us processes pain differently. But most of us haven't performed on a media circus where the precarious balancing act was implying it was not a chronic problem. This latest revelation could be just too much to bear and the woman has gone through so much.

When I look at what is happening, it makes me think of one of my clients who ping-ponged between being angry and numbed by pain. Elizabeth has endured both physical and emotional pain. Her anger has been marinating a long time and she may be ready to finally fry her husband.

What is the tipping point in a marriage? Each one is different.

But Bonnie and I discussed what happens behind closed doors when affairs have been revealed.

Sixty-five percent of marriages break up after adultery. One of the reasons is that the betrayed finds it almost impossible to not bring up the hurt in the couple's day to day life. It permeates each dinner, each trip to the grocery, each night in bed. The person who has gone back to the family doesn't want to hear about the indiscretion being dredged up day after day. And it's risky.

When the other spouse brings up the other person, it reminds him/her of the thrill which he/she is trying to get over. That doesn't mean the injured party shouldn't have a place to discuss it. But it should be in a therapist's office or a pre-scheduled allotted time where one can just vent and get it out of their system and both wear the emotional equivalent of bulletproof vests. If someone holds in pain, it festers and can cause disease and heartache.

So how long will a guy listen in these scheduled venting sessions? "Between one minute and ten. No more," says Bonnie. And I agreed. Though many of you will think this harsh.

This is not to say that men haven't suffered from affairs. But in our experience, women need to talk about it more. These gender distinctions don't mean that the pain is any less searing. It just means that it's dealt with in different ways.

And whether it's a man or a woman who cheats, it is still a selfish act. When a spouse says that their serial cheater isn't in love with anyone else, that's not completely true. They're in love with themselves. And the sweet gooeyness of the other relationships is actually dripping with poisonous venom that hurts and scars the family and especially the children.

John Edwards Divorce Planned By Wife Elizabeth: National Enquirer

2009-10-02T08:32:46Z

Elizabeth Edwards is planning to divorce her husband John, according to the National Enquirer.

Elizabeth Edwards has finally had enough - she's threatened to divorce her cheating husband John and claim her share of their $53 million fortune! [...]

Furious at his betrayals, Elizabeth - still battling Stage 4 breast cancer - has vowed to destroy her husband of 32 years by disclosing everything she knows about his political career in divorce court, insiders say.

The Enquirer was the first publication to report that John Edwards had had an affair. The tabloid has also continued to allege that the child of his mistress, Rielle Hunter, is his. In an upcoming book, the Edwards aide who claimed that he was the father of the baby is expected to recant and reveal new details about his old boss' affair. The New York Times reported recently that, according to associates, Edwards "is considering declaring that he is the father of Ms. Hunter's 19-month-old daughter."

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Arianna Huffington: Sunday Roundup

2009-09-27T03:10:17Z

This was not a good week for public figures with notable heads of hair. The boyishly coiffed Tom DeLay caused jaws to drop all across America with his rump-shaking cha-cha to "Wild Thing" on Dancing With the Stars. Breck Girl-turned-Cad John Edwards saw his already-tarnished reputation further sullied by the release of details of his affair with Rielle Hunter, including a promised post-Elizabeth rooftop wedding featuring the Dave Matthews Band. And the idiosyncratically maned Donald Trump made headlines by allowing Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to pitch a tent on his Bedford, New York estate. But it was follicly-challenged columnist David Broder who took the prize for the week's most ludicrous act: criticizing President Obama for "his determination to rely on rational analysis, rather than narrow decisions." God forbid. It was enough to make your hair stand on end.

Andy Borowitz: John Edwards on Verge of Admitting He Is Total Douche

2009-09-23T09:02:14Z

In what amounts to a complete about-face, former presidential candidate John Edwards is about to admit that he is a total douche, aides to Mr. Edwards confirm.

The former North Carolina senator had been attempting to maintain the fiction that he is a decent human being, but recent revelations about his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter have cemented his douche status.

"People were willing to stand by John, but then it came out that he was planning to hire Dave Matthews to play at his wedding to Rielle," said one Edwards aide. "I think people were like, whoa, what a douche."

But Mr. Edwards' decision to admit he is a douche might not spell the end of his political career, says historian David Logsdon of the University of Minnesota.

"Of our country's forty-four Presidents, over thirty of them were total douches," he says. More here.

Edwards Promised Mistress Rooftop Wedding With Dave Matthews Band

2009-09-19T15:08:54Z

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — A man who once claimed to have fathered the child of John Edwards' mistress says in a book proposal the former presidential candidate is the real father and that Edwards and worked with his campaign finance chairman to hide that secret, according to a newspaper report published online Saturday.

The New York Times said the book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young states he helped facilitate the affair between Edwards and Rielle Hunter. According to the newspaper, Young wrote that Edwards once told Hunter they would wed after Edwards' wife, who has cancer, died.

Chris Campbell: An Open Letter To Our Leaders

2009-09-18T18:18:35Z

Dear President Obama, Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi,

In 1991, I clearly recall standing in my hometown library, filling out my voter registration card and mulling my party affiliation. I can't say I followed politics all that much at the time, but my early heroes were John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and a rudimentary knowledge of their policies led me to check the box "democratic." I went on to vote for Bill Clinton twice, Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama. In 2004, I was so dismayed and disgusted with the state of our government that I quit my job to volunteer for the Kerry campaign in New York. I woke every day and took the F Train from Brooklyn to midtown Manhattan to phone voters in Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Michigan and all over the country. I went to rallies. I celebrated Kerry's primary victories with fellow volunteers. I felt like I was doing something that truly mattered.

The result of that election left me enormously saddened and bordering on despondent. I firmly believed that John Kerry could take this country in the right direction. Early in the presidential race, I saw him speak in Queens, NY, and unlike the media's endless portrayal of him as a stiff elitist, I was incredibly moved by his words and conviction. Despite the sting of the loss, there was still hope in the future. There was hope in 2008.

I initially backed John Edwards. I was taken by his interest in the lower and middle classes and working to foster a more balanced America, something that most networks would clearly deem to be "communism." Jokes aside, when Edwards' run faded, I quickly moved into then-Senator Obama's camp. I was drawn by his call for sweeping change, accountability, ethics, fairness, health care reform, ending torture and just about every policy position that the candidate supported. Once again, I couldn't sit on the sidelines. A few days a week I walked down to the volunteer center on Fillmore Street here in San Francisco and picked up the phones. I chatted with citizens from all parts of the country. After just a few hours on the phones, it was clear that the passion we felt in that room was shared by many, many fellow citizen we reached by phone. I spoke extensively with fellow volunteers, almost all of whom were absolutely thrilled to be playing a part, but more importantly, appeared clearly taken by the moment.

And then came November 4th. Wearing one of my 47 Obama t-shirts, I went for a run during the day in an effort to ease my nerves. As I turned corner after corner, complete strangers would spontaneously toss a high five, shout something in support or press their car horns as I crossed city blocks. We could all sense that everything was about change. When the announcement came at 8pm PST, I sat in disbelief. My heart still picks up as I remember that moment. I just couldn't believe it. And then came the sweeping wins in the House and Senate. Our time had come. It took weeks, if not months, for the euphoria to ease.

This afternoon I printed out a voter registration card, filled in all my information and under party affiliation wrote "Independent." Oh, I knew that a lot of the hyperbolic language on the campaign trail probably wouldn't become reality, but I was absolutely certain that we'd be up for the fight. I knew that health care reform would be a grueling and dirty ride, but I knew we'd take it on with all that we had. I knew that the disparity between rich and poor would persist, but I also knew that we finally had a government that would look to bridge that gap. And the list goes on. Again, it was our time. Yes, we would make every effort to include everyone in the debate and crafting of policy, but in the end, we would move forward with our party's initiatives, policies that democrats have lived by for as long as one can remember.

When I saw the "Baucus Bill" today, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I could no longer fight for a party that I barely even recognized. This bill doesn't represent fight, it represents very little in the way of what brought millions of us out to volunteer. Yet after months and months of debate, this is what we're handed? Sure, we can all blame the Montana Senator and the "Baucus Six," but aside from a deluge of words, where has the leadership been from above? President Obama has certainly given us a lot of face time, but his management of the dialogue and ability to lead the country through this complex debate have been questionable . He basically ignored single-payer, and as time has passed, even the public option has been treated as an afterthought. One is left to wonder if our president is even fighting for the change that he spent almost two years championing.

That registration card sits to my right, sealed in an envelope, but missing one final piece: I have yet to place a stamp in the upper right. I guess that's the result of one final vestige of that word that likely led a young senator from Illinois to the White House: hope. Please don't take that away from us.

Ian Gurvitz: The United Taitz of America

2009-09-17T14:01:25Z

When John Edwards said there were two Americas, he was making the point that this country is divided into the haves and have nots, based on money and opportunity. But based on the recent insane behavior on the extreme right, it seems he left out another element: intelligence.

There are two Americas. Smart America. And Dumb America. And Dumb America has been shrieking like a wounded animal, flailing away with one ignorant, ridiculous, histrionic claim after another. It's like someone spiked the school punch with vodka and now the kids are raging all over the playground like drunken lunatics.

As someone who prefers to live in Smart America, I'm making a plea to the GOP: If there are any limited government, old-fashioned values, strong defense, low taxes, honest day's work for an honest day's pay- type Republicans left, please stand up for reason and sanity, and reclaim your party. Lose the logorrhea and the hysteria. Instead of privately trading on the insanity and fobbing it off as legitimate dissent, denounce the lunatics, and re-join the national debate.

And if you won't, I have a second request: secede. Take Rick Perry's advice. Split. Carve out a humble plot of land somewhere within our borders, start your own country, and go be batshit crazy together.

You could even set it up like an old western town. Lou Dobbs as Mayor. Ted Nugent as Sheriff. Matt Drudge as his bumbling deputy. O'Reilly as the gunslinger. John Boehner as the shady gambler with a Derringer in his boot. Limbaugh as the sadistic, wealthy cattle rancher. Glenn Beck as the town drunk. Sarah Palin as the local schoolmarm. Pat Robertson as the preacher.

You can even take the national anthem. It's a grating, unsingable song. We'll get Stevie Wonder to pen something new. And name your new country whatever you like. Maybe The United Taitz of America. Fatagonia. Or how about just Dumbfuckistan.

Then we'll build a wall between the countries. With a Disneyland-style sign at the border, reading: You have to be THIS intelligent to live in Smart America.

Read more: John Edwards, Orly Taitz, Comedy News

John R. Bohrer: The GOP Is Too Crazy To Be Racist

2009-09-16T14:28:03Z

Not to go all Maureen Dowd on you, but today's Republican Party is a lot like the line from that old Brando movie, The Wild One. Somebody asks Brando, "What're you rebelling against, Johnny?" And he says, "Whaddya got?"

With all due respect to former President Carter, he is wrong when he says that "an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man... that he's African American."

Perhaps someone who grew up in the rural South as Carter did is more likely to see race as the basis for the Republicans' outrageous behavior over the last few months. It is undeniable -- undeniable -- that people like Matt Drudge and Glenn Beck are consciously stoking racial fears.

And yet, the color of the President's skin does not matter to the lunatics dictating the direction of the Republican Party. I mean, it matters in that it's icing on the cake -- but they were baking regardless of all that.

Scores of Republican activists would've accused President Hillary Clinton of setting up "death panels." Rallies would've been filled with Hitler mustaches painted on the portrait of President John Edwards. A grandstanding GOP congressman would've shouted "You lie!" at President Bill Richardson.

Why? Think back to the fall of 2007 (even earlier than that, maybe). Hillary Clinton was the Democratic front-runner, staking out a cautious path to the White House. And what did we see on what seemed like every Republican website? Big ads for black t-shirts showing Hillary with a red slash over her neck, sandwiched between the words, "RE-DEFEAT COMMUNISM; 2008."

The point is that there is no method to their madness. The hardcore whatever-they-are's at these rallies would be there no matter what. How did anyone ever get the idea that these protests are actually about something? And I don't just mean policies or race, I mean anything.

It just goes to show that if you say something loud enough and long enough, you will drown out the truth. Remember how these rallies started organizing during President Obama's first month in office? It was so very clear that they were about nothing -- that they were parties for sore losers and extremists. Yay! Bring some crazy signs! Wrap yourself in the flag and call everyone else a traitor! Woo-hoo! The media, politicians, people in general saw all that for what it was: a bunch of loonies who were bummed that the guy they hate won.

That's one thing. People like that have always been around. They will always be around. What's different is that a political party has never adopted them before.

Because as the rallies met again and again, the Republican Party and their echo chamber got even more into it each time. This was, they said, proof of grassroots opposition to the President's policies. Wrong. It got bigger because Republican bigwigs realized they couldn't compete with Democrats on ideas; that Americans will reject the Bush-Cheney portfolio they continue to use today. So, they figured out something not-so-secret: policy discussions make for boring TV; loud anti-everything rallies make for great TV!... Who needs ideas, anyway?

So they're putting everything they've got into feeding this beast of boisterousness. Are there some racists out among the crowd? Absolutely. Is race an overtone? You bet. But -- and it's a big 'but' -- is "the overwhelming portion" of it based on race as President Carter contends? No.

Christian Avard: Peeling Away the "Obama Phenomenon": An Interview with Paul Street

2009-09-15T00:23:02Z

How progressive is Barack Obama? It's a question pundits, bloggers, and journalists have trouble grappling with. But one individual goes beyond the Obama phenomenon and investigates who Obama is and what he's all about. In Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics, author Paul Street cuts to the chase and takes a closer look at the man who became the 44th president of the United States. What Street uncovers is a man crafted by campaign consultants with political beliefs consistent with elite party interests.

Street is an independent journalist, policy adviser, and historian. He is a former vice-president for research and planning at the Chicago Urban League, and author of Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History and Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era.

I caught up with Street to discuss his new book by Paradigm Publishers.

You paint a portrait of Obama that shows he's a centrist and not inclined to support progressive causes and ideas. What has shaped Obama's views on politics and how has he been shaped to representing elite interests?

Street: Trying to figure out who Obama is, is like trying to nail down a blob of mercury. It's very difficult. Is he progressive or not may in a certain sense be somewhat besides the point. It's one thing to be a progressive as the head of a Urban League affiliate or a union Local or something, but Obama is in the top executive position, the apex of an empire as far as I'm concerned. That's the world you enter once you decide it's really about getting into the political system and rising to the top.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was asked to run for president in 1967 and of course it would've been just a protest candidacy. Dr. King turned it down. He said something like 'it's not my role as a organizer or a social justice activist.' So whatever Obama's values may truly be, once you enter into that 'I'm going to the prince or king and I'm going to rise to the top' it really may not matter all that much. Then you're in a whole other ball game where you're talking about money, concentrated wealth, and a disproportionate influence that is exercised in this dollar democracy we have. I think Obama's calculus was that he wanted to win.

He was a progressive community organizer for years. But what nobody seems to know was that Obama hated it. Ryan Lizza wrote about it in The New Yorker. Obama told his mentor in community organizing that "there's nothing for me to continue on this path." So he went into politics. When that takes over and you're working for David Axelrod and Richard Daley, etc., a lot of those principles that you may or may not have are going to go by the wayside.

Supporters of Obama claim he's a president who believes in the idea of pragmatism and consensus building. Is it consensus building or conciliation?

I remember John Edwards saying in Iowa that you don't cut deals with big business. I remember Edwards called out Hillary Clinton and Obama on the "complete fantasy" that meaningful progressive from could be attained by "sitting down at a negotiating table" with the big insurance and oil and drug companies. Whatever his motives, Edwards accurately said that "only an epic fight" with concentrated economic and political power could achieve big progressive change. In Iowa, Edwards would quote FDR on how the Obama's response to Edwards' "big table fantasy" line at one of the Iowa debates was what the prolific left author Mike Davis calls "typical eloquent evasion"; "we don't need more heat, we need more light." Well, shoot, crazy John Edwards was right! We need more heat from the bottom up and on the left-progressive side.

I've often heard the argument that a majority of Americans don't buy into party purity ideals of the likes of Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards, or Mike Gravel. Some Democrats believe if we elect leaders like that, we'll only lost more elections. Is that true?

They can't get elected because they can't be taken serious by the media. I saw Edwards destroy the opposition at a campaigner. Then I went to see Clinton and she was incredibly boring. After that, it was really transparent that Edwards wasn't being taken seriously. Kucinich was also treated as a gadfly. It just doesn't make any sense for NBC, owned by General Electric, ABC, which is Disney, or Fox, which is Rupert Murdoch, to really give a lot of favorable coverage to someone they can't trust to handle their corporate interests. If that log jam could be broken, the two things I would emphasize that need to be changed are the money primaries, the need for money or access to people who have it, and the media filters. If you can get past those, you'll see there's a lot of good progressive opinion data on issues. If you can get the focus away from the marketing of politics (i.e. personalities, what they look like, what they're name sounds like, whether we want to have a beer with them, etc.), then that could help the likes of Kucinich, Edwards, etc.

You write a chapter called "How Black is Obama?" What does he represent as an African-American leader and what does he represent in terms of change related to racism?

I remember Obama as a state Senator, and I worked in black communities in the Urban League. You'd be amazed how unpopular Obama was initially. You didn't hear people say Obama was "too white." Instead, he's "too bourgeois." I heard that a lot. He got killed by Bobby Rush in a U.S. congressional primary in 2000. Rush said again and again, Obama went to Harvard, he lived over in Hyde Park, etc. As Obama's star was rising, you heard a lot of "he didn't really come from the community," or "he didn't rise from the community." Obama was handed to black America rather more than he arose from black America. Obama was more African plus American than he was African-American.

If you track Obama's positions on race, you can find a lot of traditional black-bourgeoisie, personal responsibility lectures to blacks, like his recent NAACP address. He's similar to Henry Louis Gates who has centrist-culturalist explanations of why black people are disproportionately poor. Obama also said some things about history, that I find very odd. He once talked about how the GI Bill was this great victory for ordinary working class Americans. But the GI Bill was deeply discriminatory on race terms. His Philadelphia speech was eloquent and effective, but if you dig down, there's a narrative in there that a lot of racial justice advocates are not pleased with. That narrative is 'we can understand why Reverend Jeremiah Wright may be angry because of his age, where he comes from, and how he was a product of the Jim Crow era, but there's a pronounced suggestion that that kind of anger is not appropriate.' Many people in the general black community take exception to that, especially when 2.3 million people are behind bars and half of them are African-American.

You also ask "How Anti-war is Obama?" Is he an imperialist just like George W. Bush or a more of a benevolent dictator with the same polices?

Obama has never denounced the war in Iraq as immoral. Obama's has been very careful to oppose something that's not working. He's always been very careful to suggest that it is a reflection of benevolent intentions. Even to the point of campaigning in Wisconsin by telling autoworkers, we're spending enough money to help the Iraqis, now we need to spend it to help out America. We're not helping them and we ought to be. We owe them big time.

In his career, Obama was much less anti-war in his image. He did speak out against the Iraqi invasion in Daley Square in October 2002. But on the day before Obama's famous keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he told The New York Times, he might have voted for the war had he been in the U.S. Senate at the time and had access to the same information as other senators. During the convention. Obama also told The Chicago Tribune reporters Jeff Zeleny and David Mendell "that there's not that much difference between my position [on Iraq] and George Bush's position at this stage." He told the journalists "the difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." That's a remarkable statement to make. Yes, he did speak against the war. However, he never said it would be immoral, he never said it would've been criminal, and he never said anything about Iraqi casualties.

Marshall Auerback: Obama's Health Care Speech: Soaring Rhetoric, Scant Imagination

2009-09-10T19:43:38Z

A history of failed attempts to introduce universal health insurance has left us with a system in which the government pays directly or indirectly for more than half of the nation's health care, but the actual delivery both of insurance and of care is undertaken by a crazy quilt of private insurers, for-profit hospitals, and other players who add cost without adding value. A Canadian-style single-payer system, in which the government directly provides insurance, would almost surely be both cheaper and more effective than what we now have. And we could do even better if we learned from "integrated" systems, like the Veterans Administration, that directly provide some health care as well as medical insurance.

Yet Obama is not prepared to grasp the nettle. His speech was even weaker than the spin preceding the joint address to Congress suggested. I thought the Obama people were lowering expectations with a view toward a big positive surprise and they managed to go even lower than the bar they set. He took caricatured positions on single payer in order to create a false "centrist" option. The President has basically has reduced the public option to a marginal welfare style program for 5% of the population, rather than seeing it as a way to break the monopoly of the private health insurance companies, thereby helping to reduce costs. He's basically forcing everybody into a private health insurance run program.

The bad news is that Washington currently seems incapable of accepting what the evidence on health care says. The Obama Admininstration remains under the influence of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists, and is captive to a free-market ideology that is wholly inappropriate to health care issues. As a result, it seems determined to pursue policies that will increase the fragmentation of our system and swell the ranks of the uninsured.

We need affordable health care, not health insurance. Just look what is happening in MA. It's not solving the problem at all, because there was no mechanism introduced to REDUCE HEALTH INSURANCE COSTS. Physicians for a National Health Program's (PNHP) study of the Massachusetts model found that the state's 2006 reforms, instead of reducing costs, have been more expensive than expected. The budget overruns have forced the state to siphon about $150 million from safety-net providers such as public hospitals and community clinics:

"We are facing a health-care crisis in this country because private insurers are driving up costs with unnecessary overhead, bloated executive salaries and an unquenchable quest for profits -- all at the expense of American consumers," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "Massachusetts' failed attempt at reform is little more than a repeat of experiments that haven't worked in other states. To repeat that model on a national scale would be nothing short of Einstein's definition of insanity."

Yet Massachusetts seems to be the implicit model. Despite the obvious popularity of Medicare, there was no serious discussion of expanding it as a possible public health care option (as we had suggested earlier) and there was no attempt to use the public option as a means of expanding choice and competition if a worker was unhappy with the health care program offered by his employer.

The Clinton health care version at least tried to deal with the issue of portability, so that health care did not get tied in directly to employment (a highly germane consideration in a time of double digit unemployment and mounting economic insecurity). There is no hint of that in the Obama plan. If anything, it represented a retrograde step from what was on offer in last year's campaign via the Clinton or Edwards health care proposals. Most advanced countries have dealt with the defects of private health insurance in a straightforward way, by making health insurance a government service. Through Medicare, the United States has in effect done the same thing for its seniors. We get the status quo. The paucity of imagination of the proposals themselves were completely at variance with the President's soaring rhetoric, something which is unfortunately becoming a recurrent theme of the entire Obama Presidency.

Originally published at New Deal 2.0.

Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Marshall Auerback is a market analyst and commentator.