John Edwards is Losing Ugly

I recently had a piece about Hillary Clinton winning ugly, and today Charles Krauthammer has a piece on John Edwards losing ugly:

Then there is John Edwards. He's not going to be president either. He stays in the race because, with the Democrats' proportional representation system, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might end up in a very close delegate race -- perhaps allowing an also-ran with, say, 10 percent of the delegates to act as kingmaker at the convention.

It's a prize of sorts, it might even be tradeable for a Cabinet position. But at considerable cost. His campaign has been a spectacle.

Edwards has made much of his renunciation of his Iraq War vote. But he has not stopped there. His entire campaign has been an orgy of regret and renunciation.

-- As senator, he voted in 2001 for a bankruptcy bill that he now denounces.

-- As senator, he voted for storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Twice. He is now fiercely opposed.

-- As senator, he voted for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind education reform. He now campaigns against it, promising to have it "radically overhauled."

-- As senator, he voted for the Patriot Act, calling it "a good bill ... and I am pleased to support it." He now attacks it.

-- As senator, he voted to give China normalized trade relations. Need I say? He now campaigns against liberalized trade with China as a sellout of the middle class to the great multinational agents of greed, etc.

Breathtaking. People can change their minds about something. But everything? The man served one term in the Senate. He left not a single substantial piece of legislation to his name, only an astonishing string of votes on trade, education, civil liberties, energy, bankruptcy and, of course, war that now he not only renounces but inveighs against.

Today he plays the avenging angel, engaged in an "epic struggle" against the great economic malefactors that "have literally," he assures us, "taken over the government." He is angry, embodying the familiar zeal of the convert, ready to immolate anyone who benightedly holds to any revelation other than the zealot's very latest.

Edwards is such a sactimonious little twit there's no way he was ever going to win a national election, let along the primaries. If it comes down to a close convention, he'll side with Hillary without question, because she'll promise him some high profile role that he won't be able to resist. I'm sure he also sees her as more electable than Obama.