Egg on Their Faces

-By Dan Scott

The Edwards scandal has revealed for public viewing many things about today’s politics which those more cynical among us knew instinctually. We held back because we didn’t want to come off as conspiracy loons like Mel Gibson in the movie, Conspiracy Theory. Most of us who follow the political drama are continually cataloging the various pieces of the puzzle to connect the dots as it were to look ahead to the final game plan.

This week the dots are falling into line as we arrange more of those seemingly disconnected stories. The stories of note are the ones where John Edwards finally admits the obvious and Harold Wolfson spills the beans. Back in February I noted the clever game being played by the media using the Deselection process to eliminate candidates they didn’t like.This deselection process choked off undesirable candidates by smothering much of the coverage they should have gotten. The MSM excused their actions by claiming they only needed to cover the more popular candidates and not clutter the airwaves and pages with no name candidates they deemed the public had little interest. Now it seems the MSM kept one candidate (Edwards) in the running to deliberately siphon off votes from another candidate (Clinton) they wanted to loose.

The NE (National Enquirer) followed up on a tip regarding John Edwards having an affair. The NE’s reporters did some good old fashioned investigative journalism, which seems to be an oddity these days and found that indeed John Edwards was committing adultery, inappropriately using his position to hire his paramour, arranged substantial monthly payments, it seems fathered a child with a woman not his wife and then lied about it when confronted. Now there is nothing of great news worthiness in and of itself regarding a philandering politician. However, this year being an election year anything regarding a candidate is newsworthy and especially if the candidate presents themselves as the clean cut moral edifice as John Edwards has. However, we should not be too quick to focus on John Edwards because he is not the real story here, but how the story was handled.

The MSM has repeatedly admitted it knew about it story last year but claimed they wouldn’t stoop to publishing such a tawdry story as it was beneath them and of course the story couldn’t have been true in any event because look who’s reporting it. Scandal mongering was something for low life rag tabloids like the NE. The confirmation it seems had to come from elsewhere like the internet blogs and FNC. So the MSM is telling us they were content to be stenographers of platitudes instead of journalists reporting the real stories. Or was it really something else?

It has been noted for quite some time after Hillary Clinton fell out of favor with the MSM that they almost uniformly have supported Barack Obama. In fact so much so, the official presidential race has essentially already begun with rhetorical broadsides between the two presumptive nominees, Obama and McCain. Yet for some reason a different standard applied to a Republican candidate as opposed to a Democrat candidate. The MSM carried a story about a supposed affair regarding McCain and the story never seemed to get legs. A story often does this when mere allegations are flung with no supporting facts in an attempt to put a candidate on the defensive making him waste his political capital on baseless charges. The MSM was quick to claim Edwards wasn’t a candidate at this time. But yes, Edwards was a candidate in October of 2007 when the NE first broke the story, so obviously reporting on personal failings was not beneath the MSM, nor were the ratings of interest either. If a clique like the MSM can pick a Political party (Democrats) to influence the election, then that same clique has the power to pick a candidate as well.

Which brings me to an unspoken truth, a conspiracy theory if you will. As we further connect the dots, “I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee,” former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com. The claim is if the MSM had covered the NE story, forcing Edwards out of the race, Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama would be the presumptive nominee of the Democrat Party. In the words of ABC’s Jake Tapper: Many Clinton supporters are already resentful of Obama, whom they see as having only won the nomination with the support of a sexist media and Democratic establishment. Wolfson’s argument that these same players helped keep Edwards in the race, thus hurting Clinton — a highly debatable contention — will likely only fan the flames of Democratic division. Highly debatable is not the point now is it? The point is as Wolfson indirectly accused the MSM of deliberately not covering a story in order to help their preferred candidate – Barack Obama.

At the same time Wolfson was making the accusation that the MSM covered up the story to siphon votes and coverage away from Clinton because they (MSM) chose their candidate, Wolfson nearly admitted that the tip to the NE came from the Clinton campaign. No, Wolfson didn’t say it directly, however, why would Wolfson make the claim unless like before when Bill Press (Clinton MSM operative) claimed the MSM was in the business of deselecting candidates and the Clintons were their target? Further lending credence to this idea is that the owner of the NE, Roger Altman is a Clinton supporter.

So what we have here are two groups, the MSM and Clinton campaign apparatchiks manipulating the story line in an attempt to deceive and influence the public as to their decision on which candidate they prefer for president. The MSM won’t say it lest they admit their own lack of ethics, but they saw what the Clinton campaign was attempting to do another candidate and foiled the political dirty tricks plot. Instead, the MSM turned the tables and kept Edwards in the race to siphon off votes from Clinton to support Obama, their choice of candidate. This is what we observers call Machiavellian politics at it’s most interesting. However, it’s the public who now gets the last laugh as a recent survey now indicates that the public is wise to the scheme, both of them.
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Dan Scott calls himself a “Member of the Global Capitalist Cabal preaching Capitalism and personal responsibility as the economic solution to world poverty.” He is also a member of the 14th Amendment Society — victimhood is a liberal code word for denying the civil rights of others. He is also a proud member of the Global Warming Denier Cabal, insisting that facts not agendas determine the truth.

Dan can be seen on the web at http://www.geocities.com/fightbigotry2002/ as well as http://www.geocities.com/dscott8186/saidwebpage.htm, And can be reached for comments at dscott8186@yahoo.com.