I wrote this as a comment to your diary on John Edwards: Say It Ain't So, DailyKos:  Stop the Denial on Edwards on July 29, 2008.

You have a right to write diaries or columns or whatever you want about this.  Clearly you find it alarming and compelling.  But it's only alarming and compelling "if" it is true, otherwise, it is simply alarmist character assasination, and I think John Edwards is owed more than that.  

Listen, if the LAT or some other reputable news organization comes forward with hard evidence, I'm happy to eat crow, but right now it just feels like you're "Richard Jewelling" Edwards.

There have been a number of poems posted lately about the campaign, most are of the epic sort, some quite good.  

Here's my view of the campaign.  From a much smaller and shorter perspective. (I am off to the hospital to spend the rest of the day with my aged mother, so I will collect your critiques and criticisms later. Mahalo.)

It's called "The Smallest Obama"

I like to look at a variety of polls and polling data and noticed that MyDD (this is true) has a "2008 Poll Watcher" at the very top right of their page. You have probably have seen the usual Democratic Primary delegate counts, and the Delegate counts with Florida and Michigan included,  the Republican delegate count, but MyDD has a surprising semi-scientific map at the very top of the page to help you in forecasting the election (emphasis added):

"This Electoral Vote map is constantly updated to forecast the 2008 Presidential election based on the lastest state polling."

It shows two names and two numbers:

"Clinton: 242"
"McCain: 296"

Then, at the bottom:  "270 needed to win"

Stupid Electoral Vote Map at MyDD

According to the MyDD (and Clinton talking point) general election Electoral College forecast based on primary election performance, John McCain simply can't lose.  In fact, he's already got 26 more electoral votes than needed to be the projected winner.

Today, as I wrote and lurked in a variety of political blogs, the constant beat of jokes and videos and cartoons about Hillary Clinton and Tuzla was universal.

Some of the material is funny, clever, some biting and unrelenting.  The constant is: ridicule.  

I believe Tuzla is Hillary Clinton's Katrina.  As the Bush narrative changed almost overnight from "competent MBA" to "disconnected incompetent" with Katrina, I think the Tuzla story changes Hillary Clinton's narrative from "tough fighter" (at home and in Tuzla) to "hapless exaggerator" (in Tuzla and at home). I don't necessarily believe it's all fair, but perception is sometimes all you have left, after a fib told too often.  

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made.

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/...

While I respect Hillary Clinton's right to express any opinion on any topic, I find her judgment peculiar and a bit ahistoric, given her own personal history and choices.  

I agree that there are serious and compelling reasons to withdraw troops now (the Edwards option or the more stepped Murtha option), but I believe it is psychologically difficult to define a national course as a negative – (Rove has taken linguistic advantage of this time and time again); I, therefore, propose that we open a new national conversation that allows for withdrawal of troops within the framework of a new role for the US in Iraq.