John Edwards - Can we believe anything he says?

I have devoted most of the "quotes of the day" over the past couple of weeks to John Edwards and the various panderings and misrepresentations that he has committed:




(1) Edwards has managed to creep out even John Kerry, with the conspicuously private story of his own antics at his son's funeral. He has found other ways to exploit his son's death.

(2) He has channeled dead babies and misled juries in an effort to increase the number of Caesarian births, with no corresponding decline in birth complications.

(3) Edwards claimed that voting for John Kerry would allow Christopher Reeves to get out of that wheelchair and walk again.

(4) He has invented a creepy story about his own father being unable to afford the prices at a milltown restuarant.

(5) Edwards and his wife attempted to "out" Dick Cheney's daughter and vilify Mrs. Cheney's parenting during and after the election debates in 2004.

(6) He has used his wife to attack political opponents, while decrying the tone of American election campaigns.

(7) He has used his "poverty center" in North Carolina for political purposes and to benefit his campaign.

(8) Edwards hired a blogmaster who was notorious for anti-Christian and anti-Catholic rants to run his campaign website, shortly before his wife began decrying "hateful" comments by his political opponents.

(9) Six months prior to the first actual primary voting, he has attempted to block various Democrat Senators and Congressmen from the debates (and then lied about it).

In addition to Edwards' appeals to class warfare and the usual leftist demagoguery, Edwards has exploited the death of his own son, the financial status of his own father, the story of his wife's illness, Christopher Reeves, the death of infants, the sexual orientation of his opponent's family, etc. Most, if not all, of these stories involved outright falsehoods or falsehoods at some level [in addition to the shamelessness of Edwards' exploitation].

In short, can we believe anything that he says? Is there no depth to which he will not lower himself? Is there any lie he will not invent, any suffering he will not exploit, any raw nerve upon which he will not saw? Is there anything that is more sacred to John Edwards than a few more votes?

Can we believe even the simple, seemingly uncontroversial things that he tells us about himself, his children or his wife?

Does it really matter? Should we simply resolve to remind ourselves that nothing he says can be trusted, no matter how small or unimportant? If John Edwards tells us that the sun is shining, should we immediately reach for the umbrella? Should we treat him as the perfect reverse barometer?

There will undoubtedly be more fodder from the Edwards campaign over the next few months. They will seek to play on our sympathies and our emotions. In each case, we should remember his record. The MSM/DNC won't remind us, yet the record set forth here is crucial to our ability to steel ourselves from each fresh onslaught of manipulation.