Jun 17, 2009 01:31 PM
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New York, 3:41 AM
Wed Feb 10
55 posts in the last 24 hours
To be fair, a personality disorder is not the sort of thing that just takes care of itself overnight. Still, in an interview with the Washington Post, shamed horndog mill-worker's-son John Edwards sounds kinda self-important, still.
The guy won't even admit that running for president in 2008—when his wife's cancer came back as the Enquirer reported on his affair with a crazy lady—was maybe a bad idea!
He said that for all the trauma that came of the 2008 campaign, he is not ready to declare that it had been a mistake to run, calling that a "very complex question." He believed, he said, that he had pushed Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in a more progressive direction on issues including health care — Edwards was the first to propose an individual insurance mandate — and that the value of his having run will be determined partly by what Obama achieves on these fronts.
"Did it make sense to run and stay in the race? Time will tell," he said.
TIME TOLD, JOHN. IT WAS STUPID.
Anyway it turns out that John Edwards is still the only person in the entire world who is ever willing to talk about poverty, at all. Back when people actually listened to him and cared what he said, this was a defensible thing to say, but now that he is a shamed former politician, he is just one of many people talking about poverty that no one listens to or likes. And even back when you weren't a complete loser, you always sounded smarmy and insincere and pandery, when you talked about the poor poor people.
But he did not rule out a return to politics. He said it was too early to say what the future held — though an Al Gore-style advocacy role was more likely than elected office, given the scandal. He thinks "every day" about what form his future role in activism or public life could take, but "right now, a lot of that is unanswerable."
Maybe you should write a column for Slate, John?
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
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