I am McTroll. I am right-wing Freeper progressive!You can't control me. This site is dedicated to MY free speech rights, dammit! I can say whatever I damn well please. The Democrat Party is all about free speech, so you can't silence me!

So by now, everyone who uses a keyboard, cpu, monitor and mouse to learn things knows John Edwards has admitted an affair. But seriously, why is everyone getting so worked up about this? Its not the end of the world. A majority of men, overall men, admit to having affairs while married. Its not like John Edwards invaded a country for no reason or traded arms for hostages.

Anyone surprised he had an affair? I'm not. Not only have most men had affairs, but these are politicians, who by their nature are at least disingenuous. And its John Edwards. Honestly, who ever really bought what he made himself out to be? Maybe he does really care about poverty. But look at him, he barely won 1 senate election, for which he didn't even run for re-election, he got swamped in 2 presidential primaries, and when he was the Veep nominee, he did little to help Kerry. People didn't really buy his schtick anyway.

But overall, I think we need to stop caring about politicians affairs. In Europe and elsewhere in the Western world, no body does, so as long as the affair is not with anyone underage or rape. This should by no means nix him from an Obama administration. He would be still a great Solicitor General. By the time he'd be appointed, this whole thing would be so passé that people will either have forgotten or ceased to give a shit. lets stop making something out of nothing, and feeding into what the media thinks we should think.

Whether or not you consider Barack Obama's (brief) complacency concerning John McCain's attack ads last week to be wise, you can't consider it surprising.

Many haven't... I get the feeling many who complained he wasn't enough of a "fighter" were of like mind when he was competing with Democrats.

...but Obama's campaign declared at the beginning it would be run cleanly and projected that image to the public. David Axelrod has run negative campaigns in the past yet has stated, openly, that Obama is not that sort of candidate. Robert Gibbs, we know, has been involved in political attacks none here would condone. Obama did not hire him for that purpose. We already know what effect that has, from the primaries, but if you need a reminder then follow the fold.

John Edwards was my first choice in 2004.

John Edwards was my first choice in 2008.

(All things being equal, I back the southerner, because southern dems have a better win / loss record.)

But, I never bought into the BS about "all the baggage the Clintons have", as if they are unique and all other politicians are pure as the driven snow.  So, after JE dropped out, I drifted to HRC.

John Edwards has dealt yet another blow to the image of politicians and to men in general.  I was never an Edwards fan and hardly a believer in the National Enquirer, granted they have been right more often then not, but this all stinks.  

Seems he is finally admitting to the affair, but still denying that he is the father of the child.  I believe this was leaked on the opening day of the Olympics for a reason, and prompts me to dislike this man even more.  I don't know if it is the wife with cancer aspect, the child that he still denies aspect or the just another lying politician aspect, but this whole situation is bad.

The story is here http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5 441195&page=1.  Gotta feel sorry for his wife, who might be more popular in the party then he is. This guy needs to be barred from speaking at the convention and anything to do with the party.  I think his wife will still be a great champion of cancer research and a benefit, I cant say the same for him.  

In today's Sacramento Bee newspaper Dr. Bill Durston finally got some press coverage about his race against one of the most well-known California Republicans, Dan Lungren. You can decide whether it was a positive article or not, but one thing is for sure: Bill Durston is putting up a fight for this seat.

Part of Durston's fight to "take back our government from the special interests that control it, and to restore government of, by, and for the people" is online. He has recently created a video that pieces together clips from a debate he had with Lungren in 2006 about corruption and a more recent ABC News segment in which Lungren is found to be taking luxury vacations paid for by special interests, despite House ethics laws which prohibit such trips. If that video gets you riled up about Lungren, please consider sending Durston some love on his ActBlue page.

Speaking of ethics issues and abuse of power, one of the reasons Durston is having to fight such an uphill battle against Lungren, who refuses to debate him this year, is the fact that Lungren is paying for much of his campaigning with taxpayer money. Lungren has three "town hall meetings" coming up in the district next week and he is promoting them with color advertisements in the Sacramento Bee (a quarter-page full-color ad appeared Sept. 4), automated mass phone calls, and a fancy color mailer touting his "energy plan" that went out to residents of the 3rd congressional district. In tiny text on the mailer is: "This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense." These town hall meetings are nothing more than campaign stops. It's outrageous that Lungren's campaign for re-election is being funded by taxpayers like you, me, and Bill Durston himself.

Just as it looked like things were calming down somewhat from the nomination campaign, a whole lot of documents will be coming out from within the Clinton campaign.  We'll learn quite a lot about their decision-making and strategies.

Just when you thought everyone had moved on... former advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are in a tizzy over an upcoming piece in the Atlantic Monthly that chronicles the inner workings of the now-defunct campaign. Of particular concern are nearly 200 internal memos that the author, Josh Green, obtained -- 130 or so of which he plans to scan in and post online. When the piece is published sometime next week, readers will be able to scroll through the memos, from senior strategists such as Mark Penn, Harold Ickes and Geoff Garin, and see what exactly was going on inside the infamously fractured Clinton organization.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-tra il/2008/08/07/atlantic_scores_internal_c lint.html

Last fall I was sure - like many - that Clinton would win the nomination. She had the name recognition, strength in the polls, lots and lots of money, and a 100 superdelegate lead.  We all know her campaign made some dumb mistakes (even as the Obama campaign did an excellent job in longer range planning).  

A lot of times this kind of stuff doesn't come out until after the general election, maybe even years later.  I tend to think it would be better if that were true now.

The Url below leads to a fairly detailed assessment of a phenomenon many have observed here and I am seeing in many corners of the echo chamber.

If you've been wondering about the improbable frequency of commenters claiming to be disgruntled Clintonists now ready to vote McCain, you may well be seeing the swift boat ploy of 2008.

While there are legitimate aggravated Clintonists there are differences in their comment patterns such as little presence of a drift to McCain.