Can we just go back to debating the impact of Mitt Romney's $300 makeup consultants and move the conversation along?
I agree Lowell, nothing to laugh about in that video.
Anyone who dares to take on the critical issues of the day or dares to challenge corporate power will always be undermind by the corporate media. It's simply in their interest to destroy Edwards.
They did it with Dean. He was down when the scream happened but the way they turned it into a defining event drove a stake through his heart.
I point you to this diary on kos:
Why doesn't John Edwards's hair equal Mitt Romney's face paint?The primary difference is definitional: The centerpiece of Edwards's campaign is his anti-poverty efforts; he presents himself as a dedicated messenger for the cause, and he likes expensive haircuts, bought a gimungous house, etc. etc. His credibility as a messenger comes into question when he spends money ostentatiously. (The haircut was inadvertently billed to the campaign, a spokesman later said).
There is a difference in the political reality: fairly or unfairly, a healthy chunk of the national political press corps doesn't like John Edwards.
Fairly or unfairly, there's also a difference in narrative timing: when the first quarter ended, the press was trying to bury Edwards. It's not so much interested in burying Romney right now -- many reporters think he's the Republican frontrunner.
Digby nails this:
Now, I am not especially surprised that the press corps doesn't like John Edwards. Many of these people probably didn't like guys like him in high school either and one thing we know about the political press corps is that they have never matured beyond the 11th grade. (See: chilean bass stupidity.) But I have to ask, once again, just who in the hell these people think they are and why they think they are allowed to pick our candidates for us based upon their own "feelings" about them? I don't recall electing them to anything. (But, hey, maybe we should just poll the kewl kidz and find out which candidate they "like, totally, like" and we can cancel the election and save a lot of time and money.)This is exactly this kind of thing that makes people like me laugh when I get lectured by professional journalists about "objectivity" and "ethics." At least I put my political biases up front. These phonies hide behind a veil of journalistic conventions so they can exercise their psychologically stunted desire to stick it to the BMOC, or the dork or whoever these catty little gossips want to skewer for their own pleasure that day. Please, please, no more hand-wringing sanctimony from reporters about the undisciplined, unethical blogosphere. Their glass houses are lying in shards all around their feet.
The thing is, it doesn't matter that Edwards has the right policies or that would make the best president. His haircut billing error has allowed the biased press put the knives in. They'll spend the next few months cutting him again and again and again, until Hillary becomes the nominee.
This is why Al Gore isn't in the race, because our media environment had degenerated so deplorably.
Right now America needs the best leader, and the media is always looking and ready to pounce when he or she arises. Heaven forbid competition should return to broadcasting.
Edwards could focus on Iraq, immigration, or one of many hot button issues just to get votes.
Instead, he is focusing on something important to him that gets little attention in this country.
We have people dying of starvation and violence in Sudan. But why would anyone care about poor black people there when we have poverty here in America - and nobody cares about the poor black people here? Not to mention all the other races also in poverty.
Some people in America seem to have lost their souls. They forget what this country is (or at least was) about. This video is shameful.