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 It's more about the legal perspectives of their respective cases than any personal connection:

This is a very interesting GQ interview with the now-infamous mistress of John Edwards. If I could rank her as far as celebrity mistresses go, I'd say she's the classiest and smartest one yet. If there one quote from her worthy of repeating for the ages, it would be: "People pay attention to scandal more than they pay attention to politics." So that's the short version. For the long version, some notes/observations: Like just every other mistress, she is heads over heals in love with the guy and believes that he's completely honest with her. Her account of how she first met John Edwards and how Elizabeth Edwards found out about the affair are completely different than what's been out there. Again, she has a brain ("Who gets a cell phone for a one-night stand?") From her POV, Ms. Edwards was the shot caller in the marriage. Hunter sees John Edwards as more of a humanitarian than a politician, saying his position to embrace the latter contributed...

If Sarah Palin's resignation from being Alaska's Governor is a great move for getting the White House , doesn't that mean her main competition would be former Democratic Senator (and fellow quitter) John Edwards?

If so , the Democrats soooo dodged a bullet.

"... but the kid is not his son ..." er, daughter . Oh noes! the Democrats are done! How can they ever recover...what? He's not the Democratic candidate for President? Oh, OK then. H/t: OW . P.S. What is up with the Democratic VP candidates? You have Al Gore (the smartest, most qualified guy to ever lose a bid for president), Joe "Count Dooku" Lieberman, and now Edwards (who, if you believe John Kerry, wasn't exactly Captain Honesty). I don't want to jinx Obama's pick because of this, but Dem VPs seem to be like Hogwart's Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers.

Remember what I said before about a " close endorsement ?" Well, forget I said that : GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - Democrat John Edwards is endorsing former rival Barack Obama, fresh signs of the party establishment embracing the likely nominee even as Hillary Rodham Clinton refuses to give up her increasingly long-shot candidacy. Edwards was to appear with Obama in Grand Rapids, Mich., as Obama campaigns in a critical general election battleground state, the Obama campaign said Wednesday. The endorsement comes the day after Clinton defeated Obama by more than 2-to-1 in West Virginia. The loss highlighted Obama's work to win over the "Hillary Democrats" — white, working-class voters who also supported Edwards in large numbers before he exited the race. But don't take this as a sign that Hillary Clinton is calling it quits: Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a written statement, "We respect John Edwards, but as the voters of West Virginia showed ...

Former Sen. John Edwards says that Sen. Obama " will be the nominee ."

"Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America who was a top supporter of Democrat John Edwards, endorsed Obama ."

David Letterman proves that presidential wannabe John Edwards isn't as caught up about his follicles as the media is.

I heard Air America radio personality Rachel Maddow say this on her on show a few days ago, but I couldn't remember the whole text and didn't want to reprint it or talk about it until I could find it. Lucky for me, she repeated it on MSNBC's Countdown w/Keith Olbermann (thanks to C&L for their video as well ). The topic? The meaning beside all this "change" rhetoric: And I think that Obama and Clinton and Edwards are actually identifying what needs to be changed in three really different ways. I think Hillary Clinton is saying the Republicans and Bush need to be out and Democrats need to be in. I think John Edwards is saying the special interests and the lobbyists need to be out and the people need to be in, in the populist way. And I think that Barack Obama is saying that he needs to be in because he can transcend the differences across the political divide right now. There’s three very different visions of what you would do to the country if you had the rei...

They're calling John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Obama a "snub"; but that's not necessarily true ( if you believe Robert Shrum , that is). But this does invite an interesting question: why hasn't Edwards garnered the big-name endorsements ? I mean, his donors are more well-known. Is it that none of the congressional Democrats think he can beat the star power of Clinton and Obama? Is it that they don't support his populism message? Or did Shrum's story make it's way through the Senate and House, thereby poisoning Edwards' chance of getting too much party support? While having the people support you is admirable, you need at least three things to make a presidential run work: money, primary wins, and major endorsements. Edwards has yet to hit this trifecta.

I think John Edwards has a message that many voters want to hear, but when it comes to comparing himself to his fellow Democratic candidates, he needs better talking points Thom Hartmann had a Congressman who's supporting Edwards on his show today and asked him the difference between Edwards and Dennis Kucinich (who also has a progressive-populist message). The Congressman said (and I'm paraphrasing because this just happened), " You need to look at "presentability," you need to look at the voting record and you need to look at electability. Dennis Kucinich can't get elected. John Edwards can ." Now, if the "I'm more electable" argument is the strongest thing Edwards has, I feel sorry for him. It's almost like saying "I'm more photogenic" or "I'm more well-known." I'm sure there are other differences, and if Edwards is smart he'll rehearse some of them the next time someone asks this question.

With Hillary's campaign not going as expected, two things are apparent with pundits and the media: (1) they don't really feel like covering John Edwards, and (2) they don't know how to handle Barack Obama. Edwards came in second in Iowa, but you wouldn't know it with the lack of coverage. It's hard to say what the root cause of this is. Maybe it's Edwards' populist message, which essentially paints big business (who owns a majority of the news networks) as the bad guy. Maybe it's because he's a rich, white southern lawyer and the press feels that we've " been there done that ." Maybe it's because the media feels that the "two-person race" between Hillary Clinton and Obama is more interesting. Maybe they think Edwards slighted them sometime during the campaign and they want revenge. Whatever. I personally think having a three-person race is better because one of them is bound to bring up a topic or issue that the others eit...

One might look at John Edwards and ask, "Why bother taking a swipe at Hillary Clinton ? Her star's not on the rise right now." Well, the first thing is is wasn't necessarily Hillary Clinton who started this, it was one of her spokespeople (who she really needs to get a handle on). Second, the spokesperson made a comment directed at Edwards and his populist message. But most importantly: Edwards probably understands that if he attacks Obama, Clinton's the person most likely to pick up the pieces. Obama's message of change is resonating with voters more than Clinton's message of experience, and Edwards' platform matches Obama's more than Clinton's. So attacking Obama is almost like attacking himself. People are going to back Edwards and his message , and others will take his calling Clinton "the status quo" seriously. There are enough facts to back up such an assertion, whether it's her work during her husband's administration, ...

Michael Moore reminds us what the Iowa results mean in regards to foreign policy: If you're a candidate for President, and you voted for the war, you lose. And if you voted and voted and voted for the war -- and never once showed any remorse -- you really lose. In short, if you had something to do with keeping us in this war for four-plus years, you are not allowed to be the next president of the United States. Over 70% of Iowan Democrats voted for candidates who either never voted for the invasion of Iraq (Obama, Richardson, Kucinich) or who have since admitted their mistake (Edwards, Biden, Dodd). I can't tell you how bad I feel for Senator Clinton tonight. I don't believe she was ever really for this war. But she did -- and continued to do -- what she thought was the politically expedient thing to eventually get elected. And she was wrong. And tonight she must go to sleep wondering what would have happened if she had voted her conscience instead of her calculator. He has...

OK, seriously: what the hell does OJ Simpson have to do with Barack Obama or John Edwards ? Sure, Obama is black and so is OJ. Sure, Edwards talks about socio-economic disparities -in has occasionally mentioned such disparities in race- and OJ is relatively well-off financially (or as well as one could be after avoiding a guilty charge for double-murder). But really; are the people in Iowa so caught up in race, are they so detached on how a majority of black people (and not just those in California) felt about OJ, that they think they need either Edwards or Obama to make some kind of "I won't let black people off the hook" pledge? Or is it just that the guy who asked it is in the minority, and he's a little screwy? Oh, and Obama: Harold Ford did not lose because of his race, but he did lose because of the racist feelings that still infect his home state.

But daveawayfromhome peeked my interest with the glassbooth test . After taking it, it seems like my candidate(s) would be a tossup between John Edwards and Barack Obama . But for the record, I haven't made my choice yet.

So far, only the John Edwards campaign has shown disdain for both the MoveOn.org ad and the Rush Limbaugh ordeal.

1. Jonathan Alter thinks that giving Democrats a new bumper sticker will help them . 2. It turns out that journalists actually (gasp!) give money to politicians ! Who knew? 3. Apparently, John Edwards dusting off an old speech about helping to bridge the country's social-economic gap is played out. 4. Because we've been in Iraq long enough to foster a civil war there, the commander over there thinks we're in a prime position to be seen as...(wait for it)..." liberators !"

Bill O'Reilly lies again...this time about John Edwards view of terrorism .