John Edwards' rising star

I've been accused of dwelling overmuch on the Marcotte kerfluffle but I continue to be fascinated by the aftermath of the faux scandal. Under the law of unintended consequences, the rightwing smear machine that attempted to take Edwards down over his hiring of progressive bloggers succeeded only in giving his campaign a boost.

For myself, I had written him off prior to this. I thought he had some serious negatives that would prevent any meaningful chance at the prize and hadn't even been reading what little press he was receiving. When he stood up to the smear swarm, I got interested enough to check out his site and sign up at his blog. It appears I'm not the only one. Despite a somewhat misleading snarky title, Newsweek posts a very favorable piece on the candidate this week. All that talk about eschewing consultants will sit well with middle America.

How ironic that John has the horde of hatemongers to thank for this opportunity to establish his independence from the conventional insider "wisdom" that ordinary Americans increasingly find rather foolish.