Why Does Jonathan Darman Hyperfocus on Edwards' Looks?

The kindest thing I can say about Jonathan Darman is that I firmly believe he's overpaid for the goo he's pumping out.

Media Matters called him on the horsecrap he'd spewed last March:

In a cover story for Newsweek's March 12 issue, senior writer and political correspondent Jonathan Darman baselessly asserted that "[i]t is hard to imagine" former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) "botching the response to Katrina in the way President Bush did," without noting the flaws critics have cited in Giuliani's supervision of the post-9-11 cleanup. Darman also asserted as fact that Giuliani is "America's Mayor" and is "heroic."

The Darman article further claimed that Giuliani is "always thriving at moments of crisis," that "when the crises come, Giuliani has proved to be big enough," and that, on September 11, 2001, Giuliani "was transformed into the man of destiny he'd seemed to always believe himself to be."

My goodness! Talk about a so-called serious journalist drooling over a candidate.





And now he shits out this nasty little hit-headline:

The Down and Out Tour
Edwards's poverty campaign echoes RFK's, but times have changed (and Edwards is no RFK)

Who is Jonathan Darman to say that Edwards is no RFK? He sounds more like an RNC staff writer than a well-educated political journalist. When are we readers going to start hearing about things that actually matter rather than seeing these nauseating, brash, and juvenile ad hominem jabs at our candidates in bold headline print?

Look at the way the decidedly shallow Darman uses John Edwards' outward appearance to discredit Edwards' heartful stance on poverty:

John Edwards is too perfect to be Robert Kennedy. In popular memory, all Kennedys are immaculately tailored and silver-tongued. But Robert was not John; the younger Kennedy's hair was wild and unkempt, his tie was eternally askew, his eyes were lined with crow's-feet from too many hours in the sun.[..]

[..] Edwards too has suffered. He was born into poverty; his eldest son was killed in a car accident at the age of 16; his wife is fighting bravely against terminal cancer. But he shows no sign of struggle. His face is tan but unaged. His famous hair is not just well coiffed, it is nearly immobile and lacks even a touch of gray. Edwards says his notorious $400 haircut and his 28,000-square-foot house are the obsessions of the media, not "normal voters." (He does have a snarkier press corps than RFK. Not only did reporters not criticize the size of Kennedy's Virginia mansion, they wrote fawning prose about the senator in the hopes of scoring an invitation.) He is also quick to point out that other rich men—like Franklin Roosevelt and Kennedy himself—were able to help the poor. But fundamentally, the problem caused by the house and haircut is not the appearance of hypocrisy. Rather, it is the perception that Edwards will pay any price to maintain his flawless veneer.

So, Darman's line is that Edwards hasn't really suffered in his personal life and the proof is that he looks so good.

Let me ask you, just how substantively empty and wrongly judgmental is Darman's hyperfocus on John Edwards' HAIR? This opinion piece (which shouldn't be called an article for all its reliance on vacuous right wing talking points) is a virtual BLACK HOLE on substance.

Simply put, it's stupid.
Moronic.
A waste of ink.
The lazy antithesis of good investigative political journalism.

One look at the comments from the collective brain trust under his hit-headline piece will show you the crowd Darman apparently wishes to write to.

It's all hate comments all the time at the after-Darman party:

Boy, do you have that right. I don't think Bobby Kennedy ever paid over $5.50 for his hair cuts. Edwards is even disliked by his neighbors for being a pompous you know what.....

I think maybe he blew it when he chartered a jet to keep the press focused on him. A flight is too short of a time period! He should charter asomething like the QE II and keep them locked up, I mean focused on him, for a week or maybe more, like until December 2008! This guy is so-o-o-o-o out of touch with reality and so in love with himself and the vast amounts of money he has..... pitiful that it's wasted in this manner.....

He is a ambulance chaser and nothing more. But fortunately for the DNC, qualifications and responsibility take a back seat to "image". Most people that vote DNC are uneducated and looking for a handout-what a perfect marriage, eh?....

I remember how Mr. Darman had judged Edwards on his looks rather than treating him as a whole person; failing to taking seriously the message Edwards was sending to the American voters:

The "real" John Edwards is not someone America knows well. When he first crossed the national stage, he called himself the "son of a mill worker," but he seemed more like a creature spawned in a focus group—attractive, well spoken and safe. Since then, he has weathered enormous hardship—his wife, Elizabeth, has battled breast cancer—but hardly a wrinkle has crossed his perpetually tanned face.

People who met Edwards last week in hardscrabble places like Marks, Mississippi and Wise, Virginia see things differently than this pampered purveyor of poof hitpieces.

I don't think Darman would be surprised by my critique of his writing. After all, in another of his poofy hit pieces, this one on Markos Moulitsas in 2006, he'd said, "Moulitsas is also learning another downside of membership in the elite: the bigger the liberal sniper gets, the more incoming fire he faces."

The same goes for writers with a warped view on what matters. The bigger the fish is, the more incoming fire.
Bang, bang, Mr. Darman.

I think that Newsweek should be embarrassed. A writer with a Harvard honors degree should be employed to focus on more than a personality/beauty contest. Ask my dear Harvard honors colleague and friend Anonymoses, who writes about substantive political matters and can tell Jonathan Darman a thing or two about his hero Nosferatu Giuliani.

Hair, hair, hair.




Perfect tan, perfect tan. Doh!


What Really Matters?

You Choose.

www.JohnEdwards.com