Raging Moderate: "Too" Americas

by Will Durst

Not content to be viewed as your ordinary run-of-the-mill hypocritical oaf, former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards compounded his monumental weaseldom by trying to sneak an overdue admission of serial monogamy infractions under the cloak of the Beijing Olympics. Nice one, John-Boy. Surprised you neglected to blame the whole sordid affair on the little girl who lip-synced opening night because the real singer wasn’t deemed cute enough by the Chinese government. Question: How much cuter can one 7-year-old girl be than another?

What is this guy’s major malfunction? Has he not been paying attention? Does the term “impeachment proceedings” ring no bells here? The hell has he been doing since 1998? Eating fudge in a cave, wearing earmuffs and galoshes? You’d think the public dredging of Bill Clinton through 24 months of partisan mud might intimidate a man with a penchant for $400 barber visits, wouldn’t you? As clueless as a junior-varsity cheerleader’s fifth Long Island Iced Tea.

Talk about arrogance. He made his presidential run with the sheets still warm. Now imagine Camp Clinton trying to reconcile the fact that if this guy had come clean at the beginning of the primaries, Hillary’s dead-solid lock on the nomination would have been sealed tighter than her smile after the Iowa Caucuses. The irony is so rich and thick you could mix it with water and call it a driveway.

Those “Two Americas” of his are apparently those who barricade themselves from the press in hotel bathrooms and those who don’t. What is it with southern male Democrats? Why do they insist on having red-neon romances with winsome business associates when the obvious antidote to their testosterone poisoning is the way of the northern Republican male? That being anonymous sex in an airport men’s room stall. More importantly, why do they continue to commit the greatest political sin of getting caught? Is this a muffled cry for the spotlight to dim? The Carolina Lothario is giving Pretty Boys a bad name. Not that I’m affected or anything.

The senator pleads he didn’t instigate the affair with his videographer (so that’s what they’re calling them these days) until after his wife’s cancer went into remission. Dude. Even if that’s true, as a defense, it is so, what is the word… sucky. Though he’s denied the affair since the National Enquirer broke it in October last year, his public admission incomprehensively included; “Being 99 percent honest is not enough.” The hell does that mean? That his affair with Ms. Rielle Hunter constitutes only 1percent of his peccadilloes? What worse transgressions lie festering under that rock-hard helmet hair of his?

The one redeeming residual this squalid interlude hopefully will accomplish is to prod Barack Obama into being more circumspect with his VP decision than a safecracker in a nitroglycerin factory suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Especially considering the last two Democratic nominees, Edwards and Lieberman, will be as welcome at the Denver Convention as chlamydia. Calling all liberal eunuchs. Now is the time to come to the aid of your party. Whoa! Not all at once, people. The line forms on the right. I mean the left. Best you clump up there near the center. After all, that’s where the candidate is headed.

Catch Will Durst’s campaign update at Zanies, Vernon Hills, Ill. on Aug. 21 and 22; and Zanies, Downtown Chicago, on Aug. 23 and 24. Yes, he will be at the conventions. Outside. Somewhere. Wandering around. Aimlessly.

Copyright ©2008 Will Durst.

E-mail Will at durst@caglecartoons.com. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast.