One member of the Kerry family was overheard last week to confide, “I have the biggest crush on John Edwards.” Turns out, however, that it wasn’t the one running for president. (Sorry Drudge.) According to Taegan Goddard, Alex is the Kerry with the hots for the aspiring veep. Reuters also thinks that Johnny E. is dreamy: It claimed yesterday that “Picking Edwards Gave Kerry a Boost,” even as the AP argued that “Edwards Does Little for Polls.” “Is it any wonder,” asks Kos, “respect for the media continues to fall?”
Rich Lowry has a theory on the bounce (or lack thereof):
The Edwards selection helped knock Iraq off the front pages, and anything that de-emphasizes Iraq helps Bush, since it has been the main thing dragging him down. This means that any big Kerry campaign events that dominate the news — no matter how well rolled out, like the Edwards announcement — work in some sense in Bush’s strategic favor, since they serve to overshadow Iraq.
How’s that for a Catch 22?
Meanwhile, Mark Noonan over at Blogs for Bush has decided to stop taking Democrats seriously. “For a moment there,” he writes, “they seemed fierce opponents — now they just seem spoiled, petulant children who had their toy (political power) taken away from them. Just like a spoiled, petulant child they can cause a bit of havoc and no end of pain for the adults of the world but in the final analysis, people do not turn authority over to children.”
Um, really?
Wonkette! wants to talk national priorities, in light of the upcoming vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. “Homeland security? Feh. Genocide in the Sudan? Boorrrring. The CIA’s broken corporate culture? Yawn. Gay marriage? Bring it on.”
Speaking of the wedge issue that dare not speak its name, while the rest of the media goes ga-ga over John and Teresa, John and John, and John and Elizabeth, bloggers appear to have stumbled on the most intriguing marriage of all: Dick and Lynne. Andrew Sullivan leads the way, and he’s thrilled with Lynne Cheney’s opposition to the proposed amendment banning gay marriage. How might that sit with her elusive spouse? Just fine, suggests Sullivan. “[I]t’s incorrect to say that she necessarily differs from her husband. Dick Cheney has never said he disavows his belief that marriage should remain a matter for the states. He has merely said he’ll abide by George Bush’s decision to prevent any state from enacting marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships for gay citizens through a federal amendment,” he writes.
We prefer the imagination of Jesse Taylor at Pandagon. Taylor envisions a hypothetical smackdown in the making at Undisclosed Location. “Lynne totally outclasses Dick here,” he writes, speculating that it’s only a matter of time until she gets the Patrick Leahy treatment.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.