Posted on 02/28/2010 9:01:06 AM PST by STARWISE
Over the past few weeks, the world has learned quite enough about John Edwards – from the lies he told in trying to cover up an adulterous affair to the compulsive vanity that left some people close to him questioning his judgment and even his grip on reality.
Democrats who seriously considered making Edwards the party’s 2008 presidential nominee could be forgiven for asking: Now you tell us?
The revelations about Edwards, contained in two best-selling books, have undermined one of the favorite conceits of political journalism, that the intensive scrutiny given candidates by reporters during a presidential campaign is an excellent filter to determine who is fit for the White House.
While the media “usually does well” in vetting candidates, said presidential historian Michael Beschloss, “Edwards is a good case” in which it didn’t.
And that failure is worrisome in a changed political world where politicians - be they Barack Obama or Sarah Palin - can burst upon the national stage and seemingly overnight become candidates for higher office.
The media, according to Beschloss, now has “a much bigger responsibility than it used to.” In the past, he said, the political establishment “would usually have known the candidate for a long time, and if there were big problems, they probably would have known about those, and tried to make sure those people wouldn’t be nominated.”
That did not happen with Edwards, even though as a Senator he had run for president once before, in 2004, ended up on the Democratic ticket as John Kerry’s running mate, and was a known quantity to many top Democrats.
In 2008, there were conversations among some Edwards staffers, according to “Game Change,” the new book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, about the responsibility of coming forward with what they knew about Edwards, perhaps leaking to the New York Times or Washington Post, if it looked like he might win the nomination. But there is no evidence they ever did.
Two stories by the National Enquirer that ran before Iowa described Edwards’s affair with Rielle Hunter. But the mainstream media went to sources within the Edwards campaign to try to confirm the stories and got nowhere. No one in the campaign would confirm them.
Those staffers are the ones who should be held accountable, Marc Ambinder wrote in response to the question he posed on The Atlantic’s website: “Should Edwards Aides Be Shamed And Blamed?”
“It’s your responsibility to quit the campaign and not enable it,” he wrote. “If you enable it, you are responsible in some ways for the fallout. Your loyalty isn’t an excuse for that.”
The failure to follow up aggressively on the reporting by the National Enquirer, which has nominated itself for a Pulitzer Prize for its Edwards coverage, has served as fodder for conservatives and others convinced the media has a double standard when it comes to vetting Democrats and Republicans.
"I feel sorry for the liberals who were duped by Edwards,” said Cliff Kincaid editor of the right-leaning watchdog organization Accuracy in Media. “They were the real victims of the failure to vet Edwards.”
“Now we know that Edwards was a phony in more ways than one,” Kincaid added. “Our media, especially progressives in the media, were in love with Edwards because of his liberal views. But he wasn't in love with them. He was in love with someone else—and it turns out it wasn't his wife.”
Not everyone agrees that the media completely dropped the ball, including a former spokesman for Hillary Clinton, who might have had the most to gain from any Edwards disclosures.
“Edwards was pretty thoroughly vetted but there are limits to what the press can reasonably be expected to uncover, said Phil Singer, Clinton’s former deputy communications director, “and events that take place in the bedroom are probably at the top of that list.”
Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, said that there isn’t a “simple yes or no” answer when looking at whether Edwards was fully vetted. What news organizations can cover, he said, comes down to a question of resources.
“News organizations just don’t have the horsepower to go out when there’s fields of eight people in each party to do the level of vetting it would take to uncover that,” Lemann said of the Edwards affair.
Rest @ link
All right. :)
I don’t know. Obammie had plenty of competitive instinct. It was only ole brown-nose McCain that couldn’t get up off his knees whenever The Amazing and Wonderful Negro walked in the room.
UGH.. my BS meter went off the charts the first time I heard that pond scum speak... I just can’t understand so many people who suck up the BS like its a lifeline..
You have it right. This article wasn’t about Edwards. Not really. But you can’t ask this question about Obama on Politico. They wouldn’t like it.
Good points Tzimisce,
How many reporters were sent to dig up dirt on the Cuda?
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER of all people had this clown pegged from the word go, yet no major media source would TOUCH THIS (other than FOX, of course), out of fear of angering thier Democrat allies.
And with their limited resources, the Associated Press assigned 11 fact checkers to pore over Sarah Palin’s book.
They have the resources to do whatever they want to do. It’s all how they allocate the resources. They allocate their resources based on whom they want to bring down.
And they are selective in their reporting. We now know that Newsweek magazine had the Monica Lewinsky story for many months, but chose not to go with the story. If I recall correctly, Drudge broke that story, by reporting information that Newsweek had but was choosing to withhold from publication.
Let us see, FDR (wheelchair, polio), JFK (drugs, girls) LBJ (money, vote stealing) WJC (Primary Colors), yea they are right, too hard to uncover.
Don’t forget the LA Times story with Obama at the fundraiser for the Palestinian terrorist that they didn’t run. They had the video and REFUSED to release it.
Though his former law firm came under indictment more than a year ago and he himself appeared likely to face criminal charges, prominent trial lawyer William S. Lerach of the law firm, Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach LLP, slipped past the vetting of John Edwards' presidential campaign and was permitted to raise large amounts of money for the Democrat's 2008 bid.
Lerach, his family and members of his new law Lerach Coughlin law firm accounted for nearly $78,000 in donations to Edwards' campaign in the first half of this year, making the trial lawyer one of the North Carolina Democrat's leading "bundlers" of contributions.
In the midst of that fundraising, Lerach negotiated behind the scenes for a plea deal that was consummated on Tuesday and will send him to federal prison for at least 12 months on a conspiracy charge involving his past legal work as partner in the Milberg Weiss law firm.
Through it all, Edwards stood by his fellow trial lawyer and even took an action this spring that was helpful to his longtime financial supporter in a government matter WRT the SEC.
In May, Edwards used the bully pulpit of his presidential campaign to publicly pressure the SEC not to oppose Lerach's new law firm in a Supreme Court case over whether Lerach's lawsuits could proceed against banks on behalf of investors who lost millions in the collapse of energy giant Enron.
"The question for all Americans is whether their government will be on the side of those big banks or regular families," Edwards said in a statement that was trumpeted on the Web site of Lerach's law firm.
All of this transpired while Edwards campaigned against what he calls a "corroded and corrupt" Washington system in which politicians raise money from special interests who then seek their help on government matters. To make his point, Edwards campaign is refusing any donations from lobbyists registered in Washington.
SOURCE http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/09/19/lawyer_in_plea_deal_was_edward.html
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Feb 28, 2010
Circle of greed; Lawyer William Lerach fought the fatcats, then he became one
By FERN SIEGEL, NY POST
For more than 20 years, William S. Lerach was the most feared lawyer in America. He and his former firm, Milberg Weiss, were Jedi masters of security law, targeting Fortune 500 companies for corporate fraud and recovering a staggering $45 billion in judgments.
Tough and relentless, plaintiffs saw him as a savior, successfully suing WorldCom, Tyco, Disney, Merrill Lynch and Enron, among others. Lerach brought down high-flying CEOs and companies that routinely cooked the books to keep executives rich and shareholders broke. Famous for his class-action suits and novel legal tactics, he was the scourge of big business, forcing many companies, terrified of being “Lerached,” to settle out of court rather than fight. But Lerach shared one trait with his adversaries: insatiable greed. He was on the hunt for Dick Cheney and Halliburton when the hunter became the hunted.
In January 2008, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, admitting he paid a few regular plaintiffs millions in kickbacks to instigate cases that netted the firm some $200 million over two decades. (No plaintiff can benefit more than others in class-action suits.) He was fined nearly $8 million and sentenced to two years in prison. Lerach was famous for tracking stock prices — charting fluctuations against optimistic statements and insider selling — before a stock crashed.
If company chiefs cashed in while investors lost their savings, Lerach smelled blood. If public investments were fueled by false claims, the charge was “fraud on the market.” Plus, any investment bank and Big 8 accounting firm that aided and abetted the principles were charged as secondary participants, unleashing a legal juggernaut.
Conservatives like Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush called Lerach’s methods “legalized extortion,” while shareholders saw him as an “avenging angel for the little people.” From the beginning, he sought justice for his clients — and an enormous fee for himself, often taking as much as 30% of a settlement. (His own fortune was estimated at $700 million.)
Still, Lerach claimed better results than the SEC: He got $1 billion from Drexel Burnham for clients; the SEC got $650 million. He earned a $750 million settlement from Washington Public Power, the SEC zero. By the mid-1980s, 31% of public companies and 42% of banks had security claims against them — and Lerach’s firm handled one-quarter of those cases.
His law partner (and later convicted felon) Mel Weiss was right: “Greed was a growth industry.” But when one of the law firm’s plaintiffs was charged with art theft and defrauding his insurance company, he gave the police a bigger prize: Lerach’s firm.
“Circle” details the massive payoffs and lavish lifestyle the four-time married workaholic Lerach enjoyed. Prison slowed him down, but didn’t diminish his fame. The biggest irony? He’s fielding offers from commercial insurers eager for his expertise on coverage policies. The moguls “he once feasted upon” want Lerach to protect them. Or maybe they just want to make sure he won’t get up to his old tricks. Lerach is expected to be released from prison next week.
BOOK REVIEW Circle of Greed; The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees by Patrick Dillion and Carl M. Cannon (Broadway Books)
Tons. And that was just the press. In co-hoots with the press, the Democrats have airdropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers into Anchorage, the state capital Juneau and Mrs. Palin's hometown of Wasilla to dig into her record and background. My sources report the first wave arrived in Anchorage less than 24 hours after John McCain selected her on August 29.
“His law partner (and later convicted felon) Mel Weiss was right: “Greed was a growth industry.” But when one of the law firm’s plaintiffs was charged with art theft and defrauding his insurance company, he gave the police a bigger prize: Lerach’s firm.”
LOL! Justice is served.
Good job Servant of the Cross,
I remember these crazy numbers of lawyers and such going to try to smear the Cuda with any dirt they could dig up.
Couldn’t so they made it up.
ExACTLY!!
Crooks of a feather ... thanks, Liz !
We can only imagine the hue and cry if a Republican Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee had been found guilty of similar ethical breaches.
Or, a Republican nominee for Treasury Secretary being an admitted tax cheat.
Excellent point!
And Rather’s infamous “Fake but Accurate” TANG document.
They liked him and he fit the Liberal Profile—so he was OK. Everyone thought someone else did it. This is why we need a Conservative Media to do this job. The papers have become a branch of the DNC since Clinton.
uh, considering that we got the Obamanation as POTUS without ANY real “vetting” at all, the obvious answer is no, when liberals are involved the MSM doesn’t even pretend to “vet” them (unless another well-connected lib wants them to fall, then sometimes......)...... but the fact that even the Clintonistas could not stop Obambi shows how well the MSM can protect a candidate when they want to do so
Had the Clintonistas realized a lot sooner that Obama could actually win, then they could have taken him down easily, but once he was viewed by the party and MSM as a very viable candidate then it was too late for the Clintons b/c he was viewed by many as a welcome “person of color” replacement for Hillary and Bill
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