Mike Huckabee: GOP frontrunner

Mike Huckabee: Presidential Frontrunner

One of the first rules they teach pilots is that during a crash landing you should not give up but keep flying your plane all the way to the ground.  There may be things you can do and even in the most hopeless of situations there may be little gifts, changes in the wind or the topography that can save your life.  Only one GOP pilot has been flying his plane toward that crash landing and the Barack Obama landslide re-election in 2012 and that has been Governor Mike Huckabee.  And now, thanks to a change in the winds, he just might land safely after all.

Yesterday’s election demonstrates that the GOP is not dead and when the electorate has even three more years to forget George W. Bush, they may just be sick of Obamanomics.

Sarah Palin threw away her chances and continues to do so daily, demonstrating to her most enthusiastic supporters that the Katie Couric interview may not be the fault of Katie Couric.

Mitt Romney all but announced that he was too important to waste on a run for the presidency unless he could be assured of that win.  For months he has been privately telling friends that all of Obama’s spending will likely prompt an economic spike and thus a Republican win in 2012 was unlikely.

Bobby Jindal has bowed out.  And Tim Pawlenty must first pass through the evangelical gateway of Iowa. Where his only hope of victory is if Huckabee and Palin devour each other.

That later is a very real possibility.  Huckabee is a street fighter.  And Palin will throw a punch first and talk about it later.  The Iowa caucus could turn out to be as messy as the Russo-German front in World War Two as the only two “born again” Christians duke it out.  The one left standing will likely get the nomination.  If Huckabee wins and he has already demonstrated that he will not give Sarah a free pass, then it will be hard to beat him in the South where he almost pulled an upset last time with the media arbitrarily writing him off.

Newt Gingrich was counting on being the FOX candidate but the emerging story of his hypocrisy in attacking Clinton-Lewinsky while he was having his own affair is hanging over him like Chappaquiddick.  Every day he must ask himself, “If I run, will that sword fall?”

Karl Rove, looking for a candidate, assures him that no one remembers or cares.  But Sarah Palin does.  And so does Mike Huckabee.  Yes Newt, it will fall.

Besides, Gingrich also hesitated, stopped flying his plane, and Huckabee slipped past him with his own FOX TV Show, debuting in the inglorious, lowly, awful, Saturday night slot.  He was too nice, critics said, there is no conflict, he cannot be both a successful entertainer and a political candidate, one make audiences laugh and cry and the other better not or he will lose elections.

But Huckabee did not forfeit his future for ratings and a paycheck, he kept flying his plane, he stayed nice and the audience came to him anyway and now he not only has a successful television show, he is the front runner for the GOP nomination for president in 2012.

Oh, how they would all like to relive the last twelve months.  Keep flying that plane Mike.  Anything can happen, including a safe landing.

Rasmussen

Mike Huckabee    29%

Mitt Romney        24%

Sarah Palin           18%

Newt Gingrich      14%

Tim Pawlenty         6%

Obama’s changes. Can you believe it?

Are these the changes you can believe in?

Once in office, presidents often change their opinion or just “forget” their campaign promises.  And they are notorious for saying falsehoods.  Of course, we all “forget” and misspeak but because presidents do it in living color on the public stage it can be a little more embarrassing.  Obama’s situation is a bit different.  We cut him a lot of slack because he is our first African American president and that alone makes us feel good about ourselves.  But his changes have come so fast and furious that he is on the verge of losing respect as a leader.  And poll after poll affirms that leadership is the single most important quality we want in a president.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan made prayer in school and abortion big deals in his campaign but never touched the subjects or proposed legislation on them in the eight years of his presidency.  He called for abolishing the Department of Education, instead he grew it.

In 1988, George H. W. Bush ran as “the ethics president,” promising to upgrade the office of government ethics and make it answerable directly to the president.  But he never did a thing about it.  The position remained a low level slot which answered to the Director of OPM.  He also said, “Read my lips, no new taxes,” but he raised them anyway.

In 1992, Bill Clinton ran for health care reform but when his ideas crashed on the rocks in his first year and helped elect a Republican majority in congress the second year he never brought it back again. Ignored it for the rest of his eight years.  And btw, he famously said, “I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.”  But we all know about that.

In 2000, George W. Bush ran against nation building but after the election committed billions of dollars to Iraq and Afghanistan.  We know the story of Saddam Hussein’s bogus uranium purchases in his State of the Union address.

So all presidents forget or change their minds or tell lies.  Even so, Reagan was a consistent foe to Soviet Imperial expansion and ended the Cold War.  Clinton balanced the budget.  Bush the younger kept us safe after 9-11.  They all have some bragging rights.  And they all have moments of leadership.  The problem for president Obama, at least for now, is that nothing is clear.  No promise is sacred.  Everything is on the table.  There are no fixed stars to guide his course.  His liberalism is indeed open ended existentialism.

He said he wouldn’t tax the middle class but his massive infusion of new paper money will eventually amount to a tax on all Americans and will hurt the poor the hardest, as inflation always does.  And it looks like he will tax the middle class anyway.  He just won’t admit it.  He is using devices, such as redefining the middle class as a means to confuse the public.

He promised a non partisan Washington but used the economic crisis as a cover for passing a massive political pay out to unions, gays and democrat shill organizations

He is on again, off again on tort reform and a “public option” in his health plan.

He promised new jobs through a program that would rebuild the infrastructure, it was one of the few suggestions that critics felt had some merit, but then he set the timetables so far off that no immediate meaningful jobs appeared.  It provided little relief for the economic crisis and unemployment is up.

He ran against the Bush fumbling of the mortgage crisis but refuses even to tweak the simplest banking rules that would allow millions of homeowners to stay in their own homes and unleash new investors who which would raise the values of those homes.  All of his noise and promises offer relief to a tiny percentage of homeowners.  This is a tragic and extravagant lost opportunity.

He ran against the overstretched military that is breaking up families, causing divorces and spiking suicide rates and now he is sending those same boys back again and again.  So what is different?

He is against tort reform, he is for tort reform.  He thinks the doctors are scamming the system, he thinks doctors are the leading the way. He is for a public option in the healthcare plan, he is against it.

He ran for change you can believe in but the only thing changing is his daily positions.  And yes, he has a lot of goodwill, especially in the liberal media, who cast any opposition to any policy or position as racist, although that tactic didn’t work with the International Olympic Committee, leaving the president and his team a bit stunned.

The problem is that some of these changes are beginning to reach critical mass.

From the standpoint of presidential history, once an opinion sets in – positive or negative – it is very hard to erase.  So this president should be very careful.  He needs to stand for something, whatever it may be.  He needs to avoid the reputation of uncertain and unprincipled leadership.  It would almost have been better politically for him to have stood up to the doctors yesterday and gotten booed, and let the nation see him as a leader, than to contradict himself again by playing to his audience.

Doug Wead on Neil Cavuto, talking about health care.

A Chelsea Clinton Wedding?

Can a child of the White House be married in peace?

The fox and the hounds are at it again.

Rumors are flying that Chelsea Clinton will be marrying her beau, Marc Mezvinsky, the last week of August on Martha’s Vineyard.  The Clintons deny any such plans.  But the National Enquirer insists that all the signs are there—including President Barack Obama’s scheduled vacation, also on Martha’s Vineyard.

If the rumors are true, Chelsea and Marc are doing their best to have a private wedding—in the fine tradition of many other White House brides throughout history—with media hounds pursuing in full cry.

When future ambassador Frank Sayre was courting Jessie Woodrow Wilson, they would “escape the eagle eyes of reporters,” by meeting at a canal’s bank and paddling away in a canoe.  Reporters clustered around the White House for Jessie and Frank’s wedding, awaiting the new married couple’s exit, but the newlyweds sneaked out the south entrance and escaped. 

Six months later, sister Eleanor married Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo, and the press was determined not to be fooled.  But Mac, as he was called, parked four cars in various places around the White House with the shades drawn.  At the appropriate moment, Jessie and Frank jumped into one car, with three other conspiratorial couples diving into the others.  In a whirl, all four cars sped away, “pursued,” Eleanor said, “by wild-eyed reporters.”  When all was quiet at last, Mac and Eleanor calmly got into the “real” car and motored serenely away.

But can a child of the White House be married in peace if they get married after their father has left office?  For example, Ms. Clinton?

Margaret Truman said, in 1956, “I feel that marriage vows are sacred, and I hope that mine will be spared the hurly-burly attending a news event.”  She and her husband, Clifton Daniel, managed it, allowing only ten invited reporters into the church in Independence, Missouri. 

Julie Nixon was married just before her parents moved into the house on Pennsylvania Avenue, insisting on a private ceremony closed to the press, and officiated by her favorite minister, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. 

In a secret ceremony that defied all odds, John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his bride, Carolyn Bissette, pulled an impossible coup on the media and wed on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, in a church that didn’t even have electric lights.   

But these are exceptions to the rule.  Ten-year-old Fanny Hayes was the same age as Malia when she entered the White House, but her wedding, which came long after the family had moved out of Washington—even after her father had died—still commanded stellar attention.  The sitting President and his Cabinet took trains to Ohio to be present as Fanny Hayes, daughter of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19^th president, was wed.

And the wedding of Esther Cleveland to minor English gentry at Westminster Abbey in London was a huge international event, even though her father, President Grover Cleveland, had long ago passed from the public stage. 

So the wedding of Chelsea Clinton, whenever it comes, will be a biggy.  The nation still sees her walking across the White House lawn, flanked by her mother and father, quietly taking each of their hands in her own, a teenager, holding things together.  And the nation loves her for it.  When the daughter of any former President and sitting Secretary of State gets married it is a big deal around the world. But a wedding for Chelsea?  It will be a moment for history.

Chelsea Clinton Coming out. CBS interviews Doug Wead.

And Chelsea Clinton for president? Wead on Fox.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver: American loses a hero

By Doug Wead and Mary Achor

America lost a hero today. 

Throughout her life Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister to President John F. Kennedy, brought her unrelenting energy and tenacity to bear on the problems of the mentally handicapped.  She is best known for the founding and continual support of the Special Olympics. The passion she brought to that cause was forged early in her life.

Eunice’s older sister, Rosemary, who was born moderately retarded, was never able to keep up with the frenetic Kennedy siblings.  She was “slow and plodding,” historian Laurence Leamer commented, “living among the swift and nimble.”  Leamer, who wrote the excellent book, The Kennedy Women, said, “Rosemary had a protector in Eunice, who cared for her more deeply than any other member of the family.”  According to the surviving brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, Eunice made certain Rosemary had “her fair share of successes.” 

 Even after Rosemary’s tragic frontal lobotomy surgery, when she would pour out her frustration in fury, Eunice was the family member the caretakers called to soothe her moods.  That infamous operation, insisted on by father Joe Kennedy when Rosemary grew unmanageable for the nuns caring for her, was against everything Eunice held sacred.  The surgery was a defining moment in Eunice’s life.

 In his early political career, future president John Kennedy, was close to his sister Eunice.  They shared a house in Georgetown when he was elected to the congress.  During this time, father Joe Kennedy pulled strings to get her a job as an executive secretary in a new juvenile delinquency program.  Eunice thrived at the work and would bring fifteen or twenty girls home on Sunday evenings for a delicious dinner prepared by her cook.  John found other things to do on those nights.

 Fascinated by women criminals, Eunice went to a federal penitentiary.  Living on the grounds, she met with prisoners for two months, listening to their life stories.  The feisty, no-holds-barred Kennedy matched the inmates “vulgarity for vulgarity,” and got along famously.  “It’s the same old story you get always in life,” she said.  “I see that people are so much smarter than people think they are.”

 Politically astute, Eunice was a born politician.  She traveled extensively stumping for her brother during his campaigns.  After John was elected president, Eunice took her energy and her outrage over the plight of the mentally disadvantaged to her brother.  She had seen a newspaper article on mental health that never once mentioned retardation.  John put her to work, and Eunice was merciless in her efforts to champion the cause of mental health.  The president’s staffers made themselves scarce when she rushed in, ruthlessly arguing for the programs.  Wilbur Cohen, who was Assistant Secretary for Legislation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and who had often borne the brunt of her forceful personality, said, “If she hadn’t nagged the hell out of Sarge Shriver and her brother, there wouldn’t be a mental retardation program.”

 She married Sarge Shriver, who became the Vice Presidential running mate for George McGovern’s ill fated campaign of 1972. 

 Eunice Kennedy Shriver was a woman of great power, determination, and single-mindedness.  Her own father said of her, “If that girl had been born with balls she would have made a hell of a politician.”  But Eunice herself once said that she would not have accomplished more had she been a man.  Godspeed, Eunice.

The Obama’s: A functional family on the move

Some journalists are making a big deal out of how the Obamas are traveling to foreign ports together as a family unit. After the dysfunctional Clintons, Reagans and Roosevelts and even the Bushes, with their arcane rules of one at a time in the limelight, which meant a former president could not even be told his son was invading Iraq, it is a bit of a shock to see a working family, happy together, with dad doing his thing. In that sense, the journalists are right. This is something new.

On the other hand it is very irritating to read stories claiming that children of presidents have never traveled abroad during their father’s presidencies Anna Roosevelt was a major planner of Yalta and was there on board the Quincy, as were children of Winston Churchill. Notably, First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was not allowed to come. Eighteen children of presidents actually served on their father’s staff at the White House and had full time jobs, some as the personal secretaries to the president.

As to children of the president traveling abroad? It is very common, one of the perks of power, and the further away from the White House the more they thrive. A trip to Europe has been almost a rite of passage for children of presidents in modern times and in earlier years, when it required a rather lengthy sea journey, it was the place where many lived both before and after the White House.

The Bush twins visited Europe during their father’s presidency, as did children of the Carters and Fords and Nixons and Eisenhowers. I actually traveled with Neil Bush to Europe during his father’s presidency. And he was all over Asia. The Kennedy kids visited Europe with their mother during JFK’s presidency.

FDR had sons in Europe during his presidency, of course in the war, but even before as tourists and businessmen. Joe Kennedy dragged Jimmy Roosevelt around with him when he sought contracts with liquor companies, anticipating the end of prohibition. And Johnny Roosevelt was in the headlines for accidentally insulting the mayor of Cannes, France.

With great fanfare, Theodore Roosevelt sent his daughter, Alice, on a foreign cruise to China and the Philippines. It captured headlines and diverted attention from his secret efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War. So this was a formal, secret use of his daughter in American foreign policy. Having Malia and Sasha along on these trips is not new.

Likewise, President Ulysses S. Grant sent his daughter on a European cruise to get her out of town. He was determined to keep the attractive Nellie from marrying someone on his staff. Like Alice Roosevelt, Nellie Grant had an on board romance and ended up marrying the man she met on the high seas.

When the Grant presidency ended the whole family took a trip around the world. The youngest, Jesse, was so impressed by the experience that he made world travel a fulltime career. Heads of state were told that the visiting young Jesse Grant was a likely future American president himself and so he milked it for all it was worth, wine, women and song.

Webb Hayes, son of Rutherford B. Hayes, was a multimillionaire, founder of what became the Union Carbide Corporation and a soldier of fortune in wars in China (the Boxer Rebellion), South Africa and the Crimea. When his father was president he was his personal secretary and bodyguard.

The Lincolns had planned a trip to Europe but America was in the middle of a terrible Civil War. Their dream trip never happened. The president was assassinated. But the First Lady made the trip years later and took their young son, Tad Lincoln, with her.

Some presidential children were raised in Europe, like Liza Monroe, who ran the White House for her father and a couple of John Adams’ sons and one of Jefferson’s daughters. George Washington Adams was born in Europe. His father and grandfather were both presidents.

When George W. Bush ran for president journalists wrote stories claiming that his foreign travel was limited to a quick visit to Israel with two other governors and a one week jaunt to China when his father was the American representative to the People’s Republic. In fact he had traveled many times to South America and Europe. His sister, Doro Bush, daughter of George H. W. Bush, was baptized in Communist China.

So Europe and foreign travel is no stranger to children of presidents. Just to the know-it-all journalists who don’t pay attention. Malia and Sasha are actually following a very predictable path. Perhaps the reason people are seeing this as new is because the Obamas are new. There were no headlines when Jenna Bush shopped the Champs Elysee but Malia and Sasha would attract a crowd of thousands.

What should we expect next? A guest appearance on a popular sitcom. Another common rite of passage for the children of presidents. And again, journalists will assure us that this too is new. “Unprecedented,” they will say, Malia and Sasha on a television show. Don’t you believe it.

What is new is that we have a functional family in the White House, a marriage that works and children who are not abused or neglected. Regardless of one’s politics, that is a bit of a new thing for Americans and that makes them fun to watch.

July 4, 1863

All this business about the fourth of July missed one of the more remarkable days in American history. I am speaking of July 4th, 1863. There were celebrations in the streets of Washington because of the apparent outcome of the battle of Gettysburg. The people of the north were hungry for a victory and they thought this was it. They massed around the White House calling on the president to give a speech.

Well, Abraham Lincoln was not so sure. He had been disappointed before. What they all knew was that General Meade and the Union armies had held their ground at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania against Robert E. Lee and a Confederate invasion of the north. On July 4th, Lee and his army was returning South.

Abraham Lincoln was very circumspect, he just issued a statement. He was awaiting the outcome of the battle of Vicksburg, which would have divided the Confederacy and taken full control of the mighty Mississippi River. And that battle was still hanging in the balance. Or so Lincoln thought.

But as is often the case, the people were right. Gettysburg was huge. It all but guaranteed that Great Britain would not recognize the Confederacy. And unbeknown to them all, on that very day, Southern General Pemberton was surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant in Vicksburg and the Union was winning that battle too. So July 4, 1863 marked the turning point in the Civil War. And it was one of Lincoln’s greatest moments, he just didn’t find out about it until a few days later.

And that is how Abraham Lincoln came to give his July 4th speech, three days later on July 7, 1863.

July Fourth Trivia

Which three presidents died on the Fourth of July?
(John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. Adams, the second president, and Jefferson, the third president, both died on the same day in 1836.)

What other presidents were near misses?
(On July 4, 1850, President Zachary Taylor attended ceremonies for the Washington Memorial and returned to the White House for a bowl of cherries and milk. He became sick to his stomach that night and died five days later. On July 2, 1881, President James Garfield was shot. He died several months later.)

How many people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th?
(Two)

When was the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence?
(July 8, 1776. Actually, the Liberty Bell rang out from Independence Hall to summon the crowd.)

On what date did most of the signers actually sign the doc?
(August 2, 1776)

Who was the oldest signatory?
(Ben Franklin. He was 70.)

Who was the youngest?
(Edward Rutledge. 26 years old. He owned 50 slaves. Later became governor of South Carolina.)

Which state had the most delegates sign?
( Pennsylvania. There were nine.)

Who was the last signatory of the Declaration of Independence?
(Thomas McKean, January, 1777. He was at one time the president of the continental congress, later became a governor of Pa.)

When did Abraham Lincoln give his 1863, July fourth address?
(On July 7, 1863. On July 4, citizens in Washington were celebrating what appeared to be a victory at Gettysburg and wanted Lincoln to give a speech but he would only issue a short proclamation. He was waiting to get a complete report and for further news out west, where General Grant was laying siege to Vicksburg. He later found out that Vicksburg had fallen on July 4th. Lincoln gave his speech three days late.)

What other countries celebrate the 4th of July?
(Denmark, Norway, Sweden and England.)

In what year did July 4 become a paid legal federal holiday?
(It became an unpaid federal holiday in 1870. And a lot of trivia sites say that it became a paid holiday in 1941 but it was actually passed by congress in 1938.)

How did Nathan’s, Fourth of July, Hot Dog contest begin?
(It started out as a dispute among four immigrants over who was the most patriotic. And so, that explains why this country is overweight. We are patriotic?)

What American President was famous for playing golf every Fourth of July?
(Dwight D. Eisenhower.)

What modern First Lady wore a bejeweled American Flag in her lapel on every Fourth of July? Pat Nixon, Jackie Kennedy, Hillary Clinton or Betty Ford?
(Jackie Kennedy. And the jewelry actually sells on e-bay.)

What pitcher threw a no hitter on the fourth of July?
(Dave Righetti of the NY Yankees in 1983. But perhaps the wildest game ever played happened on July 4 between the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets. It went 19 innings and ended close to 4 AM. Mets won 16-13.)

Is Ron Paul too old to be President?

Ron Paul Shall Rise Again

Yesterday on Meet the Press they reviewed the declining prospects for the Republican Party.  And the yawning conclusion was that no one can really challenge Barack Obama in 2012 and no one can revive the G.O.P.  They assessed the prospects of all the possible candidates but there was one glaring omission.  Guess who?

Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham were the Republican guest commentators.  Romney has already made it clear that only an Obama owned recession will allow him back in.  And if Obama can’t get a temporary bump in the stock market, after trebling the money supply, well, we might as all start selling apples right now.  And one by one, on the Russertless Meet the Press, they ticked off all of the reasons why Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee won’t be returning after all.

Of course, the weekly news dominated and they bemoaned the loss of yet another possible G.O.P. standard bearer for 2012.  Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina, is now out.  His dalliance in Argentina means he is damaged goods.  Can’t you just see the governor sitting at a side walk café in Buenos Aires, with this nagging worry in the back of his head, “What if they are looking for me right now?  What if I am on CNN? Naaa.”  Indeed, the Sanford episode brings back all the painful narrative surrounding the infidelities of Newt Gingrich and Rudolph Giuliani. Is there no one left to lead the G.O.P.?

Meet the Press cannot be blamed for omitting the one man who is still on everyone’s lips, as in “you know, I think he may have been right, after all.”  The one man who predicted the economic collapse, who suggested that the Federal Reserve needed an audit itself, who warned that electing a Democrat or Republican was pretty much the same thing; there would still be a war where we don’t need one.  The lobbyists would still rule.  The government would still intrude.

On May 18, 2009 Time magazine ran a cover story on the Republican Party, entitled “Endangered Species.”  They had a Michael Grunwald article on “How the Republicans Lost Their Way.”  And an article by Joe Scarborough on “How They Can Come Back.”  Not once did the magazine even mention the name of the man who raised $32 million with a single call.  The man who was first to recognize and announce that Republicans had lost their way, their heart, their soul.

What made the Mark Sanford loss so regrettable to many in the press was the fact that he was emerging as a bit of a populist figure.  He had been able to articulate some of the views and the ideas of the one man whom Meet the Press and Time Magazine and the rest of the establishment so studiously ignore.  And Sanford had been able to pick up the mantle without all the odious, dangerous extra baggage that makes the people at the television networks recoil in horror.  Like actually auditing the Federal Reserve.

The fact is that Mark Sanford was never really a true clone to that man, who like Lord Voldemort, cannot be named.  The man who would shake Wall Street and Capitol Hill to their foundations.  I am speaking, of course, of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas

No, he is not dead, much as Meet the Press and Time would have you believe.  Tim Russert is dead. Michael Jackson is dead.  Farrah Fawcett is dead.  And now even, Billy May is dead.

Ron Paul lives.

And as long as Ron Paul lives, the heart of the Republican Party beats strong and an alternative to the new Socialist Republic of America still exists.

Make sure you read…. Is Ron Paul too old?

And see Reagan and the age issue.

Mark Sanford: It was a woman

It was a woman.

GOP, South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford was on the brink of greatness.  As one of the nation’s emerging political stars he was so principled that he turned down federal money for his state, saying it was wrong.  Some said he was in the process of inheriting Ron Paul’s massive insurgent army and taking it all the way.  And then?

He disappeared last Thursday.  When someone asked his wife she answered, “I have no idea where he is.”  Some staffers covered for him saying he was alone, writing.  A former press aide says he often disappears.  Others in his office said he was hiking in the wild.  By June 24, Wednesday afternoon, the governor was spotted disembarking from a plane in Atlanta.  It had flown in from Buenos Aires.

I disappeared once.  I was on staff as special assistant to the president at the White House and decided that the pace was driving me crazy. Without telling a soul I walked out of the White House and slipped into a cinema in downtown Washington.  I was gone from the office for exactly two hours.  And you would have thought that all hell had broken loose.  The world can change in two hours, especially at that level.

So what has the governor been up to?  Was he only looking for a moment on Walden’s Pond?  Don’t count on it.  Was he stealing money?  Settling his offshore accounts?  No, not the man who turned down billions from the government.  We all know what it is, or think we do.  We have all known what it had to be all along… a woman.

He must have recoiled in horror as the John and Elizabeth Edwards saga unfolded, with Elizabeth painfully  parading her feelings on the national stage while the rest of us squirmed uncomfortably on our couches.  He must have thought he could steal away a few minutes of peace.

And the women?  Likely a staffer.  Why?  Because some in his office were covering for him and obviously others not.

So, we are now only minutes away… we will see.

Postscript:  Yes, it was a woman.  But not a staffer.  And, in fact, an e-mail partner from Argentina.  And it appears he is still in love because he could not stop himself from talking about her.  Those last days and hours in Argentina must have been bittersweet.