REFLECTION: A POLITICAL LESSON

Those of you who have been reading the Eppley Files for some time know that I am a Democrat and a political junkie. Every morning I read the editorials and political columns of the Plain Dealer, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal (to get another point of view).

Recently I came across a column by Richard Cohen which gave a scorching assessment of John Edwards and Sarah Palin, both vice presidential candidates at different times. I thought John Edwards was a good vice presidential choice of John Kerry when they ran in 2008, so I voted for that ticket. Anita voted for the Kerry ticket too, although she feared that John Edwards was an empty suit. So did Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen in an article he wrote for his paper on January 25 of this year:

. . .My early impressions of Edwards faded to disillusion as his colleagues and friends described him as oddly incurious, averse to homework, often unprepared. When he launched his second presidential campaign, we met again - and I was dumbfounded by what he did not seem to know about poverty, his proclaimed field of expertise. The man was mostly smile.

We have substituted the camera - fame, celebrity - for both achievement and the studied judgment of colleagues. The political machine, the organization, even the parties themselves are gone, severely atrophied or discredited as (ugh) mainstream. They once served as filters, admission committees, but they have been replaced by a sham familiarity - fame at its most beguiling and dangerous. This was John Edwards. He's not a scandal. He's a lesson.

The lesson is that whether we are Democrats or Republicans we had better take a very hard look at all of our candidates, especially those who run for the highest office of the land.

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