Monday, August 11, 2008

Edwards, Kos, Lee Stranahan

On Friday, July 25, the titular Kos wrote about the National Enquirer's story about John Edwards' visit to Rielle Hunter and the silence of mainstream media on the possibility of an Edwards affair:
Oh, apparently the wingnutosphere is in a tizzy because the traditional media won't cover the latest tripe from the National Enquirer.
...
Seriously, I can't believe this is even subject to debate, but for the crazies, no source is too disreputable if it validates their warped world view.
Of course, Edwards has since admitted to both an affair with Hunter and his presence at the hotel.

DailyKos banned Lee Stranahan for writing about the Edwards scandal before his admission.

I'm sad about John Edwards. He stood up for liberal principles in a way that Obama doesn't. His affair shouldn't disqualify him from public life or even the presidency.

The love child aspect of the scandal probably does. It's suspiciously convenient that he gets to be seen openly calling for a paternity test only to be blocked by her denial. As he explained in the ABC interview, after all, he visited her in the hotel in an attempt to manage the story.

It also doesn't help that he's using the same language to deny the love child ("tabloid trash") that he used to deny the affair. If the tabloid trash was right once, maybe it's right again.

Ultimately, I feel disgusted with Daily Kos. If you read Stranahan's original pieces, you don't find a guy filled with invective or acting like a shrill republican troll. You read a guy taking a reasonable look at the evidence. The echo chamber drowned him out and, because he didn't toe the line, banned him.

And he was vindicated by John Edwards' admission of infidelity. Kos response? Silence.

3 comments:

Stranahan said...

Honestly - it just occurred to me reading your piece that the problem with Kos might not be that I was right - it might be that he was so completely WRONG. That really could be why I haven't heard from anyone at DKos

factory123 said...

I think that's true. The community got it very wrong about a pretty well-liked figure.

I don't remember if I read this on your site or not, but I think there's an interesting comparison to the allegation that McCain called Cindy a "cunt". The source of that story, Cliff Schecter's book, was worse than the sourcing on the Enquirer story. Schecter's sources were anonymous reporters recalling an exchange from years ago. And yet the community ran and ran with that story.

Stranahan said...

Cliff's a friend of mine (I'm thanked in the book) and he and I have discussed that sourcing. I believe it and anonymous sourcing is sometimes what you get. I agree that the NE stuff was clearly better...first person.