Quote of the Day (Estrich, on John Edwards)

“Setting up a fall guy to protect the big shot, if that’s what it was (and that’s certainly how it looks), understandably bothers a lot of people. It’s one thing to mess up; it’s one thing to say, truthfully, that the details are not any of our business and simply to refuse to answer questions. If he can live with that, and his wife and kids can live with that, and the other woman can live with that, we should live with that. But setting up some other guy, especially a guy who is married and has a family of his own, to take responsibility sort of stinks.” – Longtime Democratic operative, former Bill Clinton defender and current TV commentator (no friend of the “vast rightwing conspiracy”) Susan Estrich on Fox News, August 1, 2008, on the John Edwards affair

(Estrich brings up some of the oddest, most troubling aspects of the Edwards situation: the fact that the former Presidential candidate’s supporter, Andrew Young—a young man who is NOT the former mayor of Atlanta, incidentally—has claimed paternity of Rielle Hunter’s baby, even though his name does not appear on the birth certificate as the father; that Young, his wife and their three children—and Hunter—moved to a gated community in Santa Barbara, Calif., all under the same roof, in what one blogger calls “a Jerry Springer wet dream”; and that Edwards’ former finance chair has admitted making payments to get them all out of the spotlight.

In perhaps the most fatuous quotation from this whole situation, Edwards said he denied the National Enquirer’s initial stories based on some inaccuracies, but that “being 99 percent honest is no longer enough.” Make that 50% honest—and even that is being generous. I’m afraid that rather than being 100% honest now, Edwards has decided to go what was termed, in the brilliant but now largely forgotten phrase from the Nixon White House, the “modified limited hangout” route. Now that the mainstream media know that at least some of the story is true, they’re going to feel free to investigate the financial arrangements involved in the interesting Edwards-Hunter-Young triangle.

David Bonior, a former Michigan congressman who served as Edwards’ campaign manager, spoke for many —including myself—who were either intrigued or inspired by the former senator and vice-presidential candidate in saying he was “disappointed and angry” over the initial denials of the affair. “Thousands of friends and supporters of Sen. Edwards put their faith and confidence in him and he has let them down,” said Bonior. “Young supporters who put their time and energy into his campaign with a newfound energy and idealism for politics have been betrayed by his actions.”)