Recent John Edwards photo from the Los Angeles Times.Hey you scandal-mongering folks out there... who among you is currently following the entertaining John Edwards follies?
Here and here are some fairly decent summations of the corruption trial so far. But I have to say, the hands-down BEST commentary came from a proud Men's Rights Marine over at the GendErratic blog, named Dungone -- who explains to us dumb wimmenz that John Edwards is NOT being publicly tried for funneling campaign funds to his mistress and their child (a violation of campaign-finance laws), but instead is being PUNISHED for having a $400 haircut and ROBUST MALE SEXUALITY!!!
Yes, its the feminists again, who made poor John Edwards take Rielle Hunter as his mistress, and in turn made Rielle refrain from birth control and get knocked up. OUR. FAULT.
Got that, bitches?
I can't do any better than to quote some of our exchange, verbatim. Just in case you think I am some crazy feminist exaggerating what this man has said, let me first link the whole thread HERE. And these are his exact quotes.
Dungone:
[Unlike] women, men are actually mocked for caring about their appearance, such as John Edward for his $400 haircut. [links to Wonkette photo of Edwards] If we were sane, we would acknowledge that a good haircut is a common sense investment for anyone who has to appear in front of a national TV audience on a daily basis – but we are not sane because we cannot even acknowledge that man even have an appearance. The fact that it’s even a political snowball in the first place is ridiculous – regular housewives spend as much money as some male celebrities on their physical appearance and no one thinks it’s a big deal. But men are in a double bind – they have to look good but it has to be a bigger secret than Victoria’s Secret or else they’re screwed.Me:
Dungone, as someone here in Edwards’ neck of the woods, let me clarify… it was all that down-home populism and I-love-the-poor-folks bullshit of his and THEN the $400 haircut –that brought the scorn. There was a context for that… now when the story went national, maybe they just talked about the haircut… but around HERE, it was in the context of his “fightin for the po folks” reputation and alla that.Dungone:
Please, don’t give me that. It’s straight up bullshit. All the feminists endorsed Hillary Clinton since she supposedly fought for oppressed women. But how much does she pay for a hair cut? Why was that never an issue? Every woman who runs for public office probably spends way more on haircuts than any man, so I guess if expensive haircuts would make a man into a hypocrite then we shouldn’t even consider voting for a woman.Of course, regular readers know that I did not back Hillary, so already, he is incorrect about "all the feminists"--and our election-year marching orders.
Dungone knowingly continues:
Don’t you think that $400 is reasonable for a haircut when your election campaign which is costing your backers millions of dollars could easily go down the tube over a bad haircut? Opportunists jump on any deviation from masculine perfection in political campaigns. And people, especially women, will in fact vote for the more handsome male candidate. We haven’t had a bald president since hats went out of fashion and women got the vote. Instead, we’ve had presidents who fucked Marilyn Monroe. But I guess you feminists are going to call men hypocrites for getting a decent haircut while you vote to uphold Sarah Palin in the ranks of pro-women women.Me: [Yes, my Irish was officially up]
Do you know what the biggest irony is? A $400 haircut is money that goes to support a laborer from the working class. And after that “scandal”, Edwards got a $13 haircut at Supercuts. So let’s be clear – under-paying an employee at a big corporate chain = pro labor. Paying good money for good work = hypocrite. Good call, Daisy. You love workers.
And how long did you live in the Carolinas during the 2008 election season? You are now informing me about what local people were talking about? Excuse me, but you do not live here and you do not have a motherfucking clue. My own HUSBAND voted for Edwards and said that, okay?Dungone:
...
The biggest irony is that you are defending a man who used his ‘status’ as a poor lint-head to con OTHER poor lint-heads into giving him money, then used that money to pay off his mistress for silence. And you are defending this embezzling piece of shit as a decent man. This is why he is on trial TODAY for embezzling and I hope they lock his ass up for it. Yes, I do love the workers, and I don’t like when some shyster politician can’t keep it zipped and then uses the money of the workers that was collected in good faith, to pay off his fucking sex scandals. And yes, I see why you admire such a person. Of course you do.
Are you going to visit him in prison?
Edwards would have seriously helped the working class and I find it deplorable that working class people would call him a hypocrite basically for no other reason than his physical appearance and personalityMe:
Um, he is ON TRIAL RIGHT NOW for his appearance and personality? Are you tripping? Earth to Dungone.Dungone: [FOR THE WIN!]
He’s on trial for being a male slut and a $400 haircut. He violated campaign rules, which was wrong, but it’s understandable given that men are judged so harshly and unfairly for their sex lives. There are people sitting fat and happy in their mansion who should be on trial for war crimes and you’re talking about daytime talk show crap, including some of the ones that your neck of the woods sent to public office. But god damn, he didn’t “keep it zipped” so it’s over for him any way you slice it. You’re part of the problem, given that you sound exactly like exactly the kind of person who hates it when a man has a sex life. Stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with what he would do for the working class. Kennedy also had a sex life and he was one of our greatest and most beloved presidents. “Keep it zipped,” you say. What a sexist, bigoted thing to say.Again, this is why you should not try to talk to Men's Rights Guys. DO. NOT. ENGAGE! This is a Marine, who in other contexts is quite proud of his war-making activities, talking about war crimes. (?) And the accompanying fact that much-lower-paid Andrew Young, Edwards' aide, will be taking the fall if Edwards is found innocent, does not seem to bother Dungone.
Campaign finance rules are supposed to keep powerful millionaires from buying elections. They’re supposed to prevent politicians from covering up real crimes, conflicts of interest, and scandals that are actually relevant to the task of public office. But they do none of those things. They’re used to bring down men who tried to prevent having their sex lives dragged out in front of the public by their political enemies. You can be a truly evil son of a bitch who tortures people all over the world, fails to do a thing about 9/11… but if you get a blowjob or sent a text message, you get impeached. And here we have Daisy Deadhead crying a river over the way female politicians get judged for their looks.
Obviously, per Orwell, some men are more equal than others.
Me:
So, let me clarify:Dungone, again FOR THE WIN:
You think that if I gave money to a campaign for a man to run for president, and this politician gives it to his mistress to shut her up and support her in high style, that is “daytime talk show crap”?
Dumbfounded. See, I call that stealing. I know some of the people he stole from.
Amazing.
I hardly know what to say.
....
Do you understand that he was STEALING? Millions of dollars? And trying to pin it on one of his underlings? In all your identifying with Mr Sexpot, what about his employee Andrew Young? Is he just not important enough to identify with?
Ain’t he a man, too?
I believe that keeping one’s sex life out of the media is a valid use of campaign funds. I believe that our country has gone down the shit-hole because underhanded fundamentalist scumbags keep dragging people’s sex lives out into the open to humiliate them and ruin their careers. If we can’t protect people’s sex lives from public scrutiny then we will never be able to have, let’s say, a president in an open relationship, perhaps even a single president who is dating. You won’t have a gay or a lesbian president, either. Only the most bland, cookie-cutter, dust-web-ridden “family values” liars can survive in our culture’s political climate, and I believe that this is a huge detriment to us all. So I believe that it’s fair use of campaign funds to keep sex lives private.And I will leave that unbelievable, amoral reply right there, for all to read again and behold for themselves.
Men's Rights Advocate assures us: A politician (in this case, a very RICH politician with a large number of POOR contributors) informing you that your hard-earned campaign contributions will be used for advertising or whatever, and instead using it to pay his mistresses' bills, is perfectly fine. Since nobody (of course!) can be expected to behave morally and honestly, then laws should be changed to allow candidates to use funds to pay off their girlfriends and tell you lies about where your money goes. To do otherwise is to be against MEN and SEX.
And you will notice, I never did get an answer from Dungone about duped fall-guy Andrew Young. Hey, Young is small potatoes, the important thing is that Rich Sexy Senator Who Can't Keep It Zipped can do as he pleases, at taxpayer expense. (PS: why is this "sexist" of me to say? Women do not have zippers now? Huh?)
As soon as I develop any sympathies for the MRAs, I am put in my place by one of them; usually banned from their blogs and/or given some sex-obsessed, thoroughly-entitled, good-old-boy insanity like this as a substitute for logic. Then I remember why I was a feminist in the first place.
So no, I don't believe Edwards should be able to take my friends' money and give it to his girlfriend to live in a pricey mansion, especially since he is a millionaire and can afford to pay her rent himself. Call me old-fashioned.
And yes, my feminism is intact.
I usually need something like this to remind me of how important it is.