Adam Nagourney - Clueless *AND* Humorless?

OK, the notion that political reporter Adam Nagourney is utterly clueless does not really merit a headline.  But with this coverage of the Mrs. Edwards and Spouse campaign swing through Iowa, Mr. Nagourney reaches a new pinnacle of absurdity:

TIPTON, Iowa, June 16 — Elizabeth Edwards was holding court in the sweltering basement at the Cedar County Courthouse in Tipton, where local Democrats fanned themselves under fluorescent light. Her husband, John Edwards, making his second run for the presidency, watched and winced as she quizzed her audience about what they knew of his biography.

“How many know how many members of his family went to college before he did?” Mrs. Edwards inquired. The correct response emerged in murmured guesses from a few listeners: none.

Mrs. Edwards nodded approvingly, and went on to Question 2. “How many people know what his father did?” Again, the correct response could be heard from a few people, who recalled a stock line from Mr. Edwards’s 2004 campaign speech: worked in a mill.

Mrs. Edwards nodded proudly, so she moved in for the final question.

“How many people know the price of his most expensive haircut?”

A roar of laughter filled the room. Mr. Edwards grinned, gamely if barely, at the reference to the $400 haircut that had made him a subject of some derision. “She’s been doing this joke all day,” he said.

Mrs. Edwards was laughing at her husband with her audience. “I’m having fun,” she said. “How about you guys?”

...But her swing through Iowa also produced moments that broke the mold of political spouses’ customary manner. Typically she introduced her husband with the joke about the haircut, reflecting her own keen political instincts. How better to deal with the mockery over it than to force-feed Mr. Edwards a little humble pie and make a few jokes at his expense? And who better to do so than his wife, who presumably felt she could do it without undermining him?

Uhh, is that joke exclusively, or even primarily, directed at John Edwards?  If I were not a major media figure, I might have recognized the ever-so-subtle possibility that Ms. Edwards is also mocking the proclivity of our national media to obsess over nothing.

Comments

[Maybeex]

reflecting her own keen political instincts.

Oh, she has political instincts. I'm not sure I'd call them "keen". I find her a nasty piece of work. I'm sorry she has cancer, but when she said Lynne Cheney was ashamed of Mary, I felt ashamed of Elizabeth Edwards.

I also don't find the haircut obsession to be over nothing. I don't care that he paid $400 for a haircut, although I would have expected better results. It is typical of a Democrat to pay so much for so little.

I do care that Edwards is a millionaire and he charged a $400 haircut to his campaign, so the people making $7/hour could contribute to it. If they want to joke about it, fine. But what other jokes is the middle-income American going to have to pay for if Edwards gets his way?

[BarbaraS]

We would probably pay with our lives since Mr. Wonderful doesn't even believe we are in a war on terror. His idea of deplomacy is probably to invite them to the nearest spa.

I can't stand these two. They come into an area and build a tremongous house and then proceed to try to get rid of the people who have lived there for a hundred years by using their national voice to trash these people. They knew these people lived there before they built their mansion. They probably planned to get rid of them all along. Not only that but their mansion raised the local ad valorem taxes for the local people. It might get to the point that they cannot afford to live in the area of their birth.

[dick]

What gets me is that they claim his dad worked in a mill. What they fail to point out is that he was the supervisor of the mill and not just a plain mill worker.

I agree with Barbara S that I can't stand these two - and for some of the same reasons. The other reason is that here we have an ambulance chasing lawyer who got elected to the Senate. Within 2 years of being elected he starts running for president. You hear that he was a senator and a lawyer. You hear the stories about some of his cases. You do not hear that he was such a lousy senator that he would probably not have gotten re-elected and that he accomplished precisely nothing while in the Senate. In fact he seems to me to bring absolutely nothing to the campaign except a lot of propaganda and a witch of a wife who parlays her cancer into a major campaign issue.

[Neo]

What is the February 17th, 2009 DTV deadline date?

Congress passed a law on February 1, 2006, setting a final deadline for the DTV transition of February 17, 2009. Most television stations will continue broadcasting both analog and digital programming until February 17, 2009, when all analog broadcasting will stop. Analog TVs receiving over-the-air programming will still work after that date, but owners of these TVs will need to buy converter boxes to change digital broadcasts into analog format. Converter boxes will be available from consumer electronic products retailers at that time. Cable and satellite subscribers with analog TVs should contact their service providers about obtaining converter boxes for the DTV transition.

[RalphL]

If the basement was sweltering, the rest of the courthouse must have been an oven.