The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Because Edwards Needed Flacks Like You, Stephy

The Spectacle Blog

Because Edwards Needed Flacks Like You, Stephy

By Paul Chesser on 1.22.10 @ 11:15AM

The Media Research Center was amused by the shock expressed yesterday by “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos at John Edwards’s philandering cover-up.

The Media Research Center was amused by the shock expressed yesterday by “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos at John Edwards’s philandering cover-up:

With a complete lack of irony…Stephanopoulos on Thursday commented on the revelation that John Edwards had fathered a love child. The former top aide to Bill Clinton marveled, “How did he ever think he was going to get through a presidential campaign sitting on all this?”

Stephanopoulos, perhaps not thinking of his old boss and the Gennifer Flowers scandal during the 1992 campaign, chided Edwards: “It is just unbelievable.”

For those who can’t remember that far back, Georgy was one of those aides running interference for Clinton. Slate’s William Saletan recounted back in 1999:

On This Week, former bimbo-leak plumber George Stephanopoulos argued, “Gennifer Flowers starts out in the Star tabloid, Paula Jones [in] the American Spectator, Monica Lewinsky with Matt Drudge, and now this on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. … We have a history of right-wing pressure tactics to push these into play without verification.”

Unfortunately for Edwards, while he did have the cowardice of the major media as Clinton did, he did not have the robust army of flacks to brazenly embarrass them into shutting down the allegations. Clinton and Stephanopoulos showed ‘em all “how to get through a presidential campaign” hiding scandalous behavior; Edwards just didn’t build a team of operatives without a conscience like Clinton did (profanity in clip):

topics:
Bill Clinton, Mainstream Media, Political Scandals, John Edwards

About the Author

Paul Chesser is executive director for the American Tradition Institute and a senior fellow for the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives. The views he expresses do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.

http://spectator.org/blog/2010/01/22/because-edwards-needed-flacks

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