Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
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“You are poison! You’re dead to us.”
Back in the mid-1990s, Q magazine gave Naomi Campbell’s Babywoman album a devastatingly succinct two word review: Gobsmacking hubris. If the supermodel’s hubris was ‘gobsmacking’, then the delusional folly of former Democratic Vice Presidentialial candidate John Edwards’ during the 2008 presidential race is Shakespearean in scope. This is not hyperbole. With the exception of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s heroes ruled over tiny feudal kingdoms with no more than a few hundred thousand subjects. Edwards twice came close to achieving executive power in United States, a country of over 300 million citizen and the world’s only remaining superpower. But the picture of him that emerges of him in John Heilemann & Mark Halperin’s Game Change is one of a deluded egomaniac utterly unqualified for any kind of high office.
The public perception of Edwards was that of a “humble, aw-shucks son of a mill worker.” But if Heilemann and Halperin’s book is to be believe, there was no public figure for whom the gap between public perception and private reality was greater.
The full story from New York magazine.
January 20th, 2010 at 2:46 am
Seriously epic. Asshole makes Tiger Woods look like Florence Nightingale.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:33 am
That article says that the only campaign which didn’t have adultery claims against it was the Obama campaign. So is it really fair that Edwards should be demonized on his own?
January 20th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Quite a scathing article by NYmag. When you’re willing to go after the cancer ridden wife who was cheated on, you begin to think the writers were once believers who feel betrayed. Everybody gets demonised.
Edwards’ fall from grace angle doesn’t sit with me, he was always an egomaniac and if he cheated on Elizabeth their whole marraige with only one woman, it’s a miracle.
Two interesting clips:
The pre-air footage that helped spark hairgate (with new appro soundtrack) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kCAFkfFLQQ
The first of the infamous webisodes with Rielle Hunter – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDjxDL00mvg
January 21st, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Shock! Horror!
“Edwards Admits Fathering Love Child, Reportedly Separates From Wife” – http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/21/report-john-edwards-set-admit-paternity-love-child/
Used Fox News as they couldn’t contain their happiness over the announcement and actually ran with this on their front page –
“Surprise ;o) Edwards Is the Daddy”
Emotes are the future of journalism.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Well they’re entitled to gloat. This is a pretty colossal fall from grace.
Re: emotes. You see they’ve come up with the “sarcmark”…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/20/rise-of-the-sarcmark
January 21st, 2010 at 3:51 pm
The Americans/Canadians/Aran Islanders will finally be saved!
Charging two dollars for it though. Are they being sarcastic? Just stupid? Can anyone tell anymore?
January 21st, 2010 at 11:07 pm
I didn’t read that far down in the article. You have to pay to use an emoticon? How the hell would that work?
February 6th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
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