Sunday, March 25, 2007

The Attacks On John Edwards Begin

Posted by olvlzl.
When Mona Gable wrote a few days ago that the attacks on John Edwards were certain to come, it could have been predicted that the Boston Globe’s attack harpy, Joan Vennochi, would be near the head of the line. I don’t know exactly what it is about Vennochi that makes her such a reliably nasty piece of work. Today's column is just her opening gambit. If Edwards starts gaining in the polls, it will increase in nastiness. Notice the insinuations almost hidden between the lines. Her Jew-baiting John Kerry, her constant attribution of cynical motivations, reliably aimed at people who are relatively free of cynical self-interest, just wait a week and another one will appear. Like the incompetent and predictable Republican propaganda of Jeff Jacoby, the talking Portrait of Dorian Gray act of Avi Nelson, the Republican shill as everyman slime of Howie Carr, Mike Barnicle, ..... Joan Vennochi’s first blood hits on Democrats and pulled punches on Republicans - delivered only when the spectacle of their corruption mandates saying something - are a constant in the allegedly liberal New England media scene.

With both Elizabeth Edwards’ and her husbands’ clear devotion to public service, it’s not surprise me that virtue would be invisible to a carbolic spitting cynic like Vennochi. Acknowledging that there is something higher than self-interest is beyond the shriveled, twisted souls of these people. Why couldn’t The Globe have bought her out instead of the fine reporters they’ve been shedding like a dog’s winter coat? If they got rid of a few of their god-awful op-ed shills they might be able to do what a paper is supposed to, report NEWS*.

* Losing Stephen Kurkjian after the other great reporters they've let fall through their fingers. They should have lost the entire op-ed page first.

Update: Here is a more realistic column about why the Edwards have made the choice they made, by Eugene Robinson.