On through the silly season
In the perpetual Silly Season of Presidential Campaign politics, Barack Obama has gone on the record as calling John Edwards “kind of cute” and “kind of good looking.” Obama, of course, is already “clean and articulate”.
The only news Edwards seems to be generating are these rather blase comments directed at him. Take, for instance, Ann Coulter’s reference to Edwards as a “faggot.” That is Ann Coulter’s schtik, though — every Democrat is a “faggot” — John Edwards just joined the hall of Bill Clinton and Al Gore (except the former she referenced as the less offensive term “gay”, still off in that I think Monica Lewinsky has other impressions of Clinton, and the latter was a “total fag”). It is a strange sense of humour, and one I admit to not understanding — along the lines of a four year old obsessed with the word “poopy”. Charles Krauthammer has a different schtick, which is to “diagnose” prominent Democrats’ “mental illnesses” (in the pages of his Washington Post syndicated editorials) — and I am not entirely sure which is more offensive — even if Krauthammer’s is by default more sophisticated — but they both seem equally predictable for the individual pundits.
Obama’s statement is a sort of back-handed compliment — he’s a pretty boy of little substance and an empty suit.  It is the current state of both the media and the presidential race that news on Edwards revolves around this stuff, some personality conflicts. An examination of their health care plans is a difficult task for anyone to perform, and nobody cares.