Johnny Reid (Edwards) I Knew Exactly What Ye Were

You-all knew that there was only one thing that could pull me out of Housecall's summer break.

As opposed to wasting any more time on Mr. Edwards than I already have, I think that simply melding and modifying/expounding upon some comments I've left on several of the Raleigh N&O's articles this week will shortly (well, shortly for me) and succinctly sum it up:

I've read the indictment (having copied it off - along with the arrest warrant to consider for framing), and it seems a fairly straightforward case to make to a jury stacked with ordinary people who don't have millions to pay big-gun attorneys . . . and who don't have old bunnies sitting around willing to pay their bills when the rabbit dies (I must confess the bit about the bunnies is not original - but from a comment left by someone else on another blog).

This guy was still trying to trade off an endorsement for a seat of power in the Obama (or Clinton) administrations right up until the bitter end of his campaign.

He could have been VP or even (horrors) Attorney General.  What if he had gotten there - with his secrets intact . . . ripe for blackmail and scandal?

Even when the Enquirer (as opposed to the N&O) had him dead-to-rights, Edwards earnestly looked straight into a TV camera and lied to the American public he once wanted to lead . . . about a daughter his wife once called "it" (someone should tell him he blinks more when he lies).

Does Johnny Reid really think anyone is going to buy that his actions were only about sparing Elizabeth - when she knew about the affair (in 2006) and let him run anyway?  I know that lawyers think that juries are malleable, gullible and stupid, but come on!

Our former Senator has no shame. Trotting out his eldest daughter to stand behind him as Elizabeth once did. Not taking his medicine (all irony and puns intended) when he's caught literally with his pants down.  Does anyone else wonder if the infamous sex tape (potential evidence in this case - do you really think the DOJ doesn't have a copy?) was filmed with camera equipment purchased by the campaign?

Oh, and did he pay taxes on that "gift"?  Isn't tax evasion a felony?

At least it's good to know that when, as a lowly constituent, I BEGGED Senator Edwards for help in my case, his indifference was not about the merits.

Lying just came second nature to him.

And what was my case about?  Why corruption in healthcare!  Healthcare being one of the very things John Edwards said he really cared about:   Two "non-profit" (Randolph) hospital executives used & abused this homegrown Pediatrician (serving honorably in the very kind of public service program that Edwards and his wife championed) . . . all but professionally destroying me after I blew the whistle on bad care in a newborn case.  As a result, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent to recruit two Pediatricians to Asheboro were wasted - poured down the drain in order to serve Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin's greedy schemes to monopolize the primary care landscape in Asheboro. 

THEN they SLAPP-sued me (unsuccessfully) for telling the government I served the truth (as I fought them off, the government pretended I didn't exist).  THEN they swindled me at settlement . . . by lying under Oath about the "confidentiality" of their non-profit books and salaries . . . pleading "near-bankruptcy" when the "non-profit" still had the profits to write fat checks for themselves. 

The "non-profit" hospital covered these guy's legal fees as their slimy, lying lawyers creatively "interpreted" the law - and used it like a battering ram.  Their useless, rubber-stamp Board-of-Directors looked the other way.

Perjury (a felony without a statute of limitations).  Contempt.  Fraud.

(It's all in the Housecalls' sidebar, so you'll forgive me if I don't insert all the links.)

So it's best not to get me started on the "ethics" of the lawyers in this state - or the JOKE that the NC State Bar makes of their oversight.  Indeed, what I've seen of Edwards' defense so far reminds me of the excuses I've been given since 2003 for lawyers who lie.

I did not vote for Edwards (this doctor could not quite bring herself to punch the chad for a trial lawyer), but when he won office, I took him at his word that he would be "different" from the status quo offered by the Harold Brubaker and Jesse Helms-types . . . that he really cared about good/responsible healthcare (he sued "bad" doctors after all) . . . and that he would be easily accessible when ordinary constituents needed his help.

When I made my appeals to his office, I'd already been to civil Court, and with perjury clearly documented, my case should have been a slam-dunk corruption case for the DOJ and IRS to investigate and prosecute.  One could argue that some testimony before the Congressional committees funding the National Health Service Corps might have been in order - certainly before President Obama threw more good money after bad (in his moronic "reform" bill that put the IRS in charge . . . the SAME IRS that basically told me it was okay for non-profits to lie to citizens - just not to the IRS).

(Yep.  Good ole, wealth-sharing President Obama is just the guy to save healthcare.  He's married to a former $317,00/year cherry-picking, patient-dumping hospital executive - and is pretty much just another lawyer who wants you to think that Pediatricians perform tonsillectomies just for the money.  WHERE DO WE FIND THESE PEOPLE?  HOW DO THEY GET TO POWER?)

Indeed, the U.S. Attorney's office has NEVER refuted the facts, but instead has told me that my case has never been "important" enough for them to pursue.

Can you put yourself in my shoes (maybe just for one damned minute) - and imagine how that might make YOU feel - after busting your arse to become a doctor, coming home to serve the "under-served" (you know, government-speak for poor people), and doing everything you were supposed to do - the way it was supposed to be done? 

Your life - your hard work - your sacrifice - is worth NOTHING?  But everyone else with their hand out for the government-funded freebies is some kind of victim?

I needed John Edwards to be what he said he was.  I needed my Senator to light a fire.

But alas, the sordid story, if it got to the masses, would've embarrassed a whole lot of very important people with "the right" name or lots of money (who might assist in - or donate to - his campaign), so I got endlessly bounced around Edwards' various offices . . . left out in the cold of the Two Americas.

Later on, when I took to the blogs . . . because local, state and Federal law enforcement basically ignore white-collar crime . . .and (perhaps even more sadly/pathetically) local journalists in the Piedmont-Triad of North Carolina are either brain dead, wholesale hypocrites or just plain sold out to the highest bidder . . . Elizabeth Edwards' "progressive" friends (my friends call them "the brie & Volvo" crowd) in the Greensboro blogosphere continued the pummel.

Given the run-around I'd gotten from the Senator's offices, I did not worship at the Edwardian altar.  And, fairly early-on, I made the tactical error of questioning the motives behind Elizabeth's appearance at Sue Polinsky's "Converge South". 

For that, I had to be DESTROYED.

They battered me online . . . hurling what Edward-Cone-of-the-Cone-Health-Cones (yeah, those Cones) would call "invective" if even a small portion of it were aimed in his direction . . . wtihout EVER asking a single objective question of the so-called "public servants" I accused of very bad, amoral, unethical, and illegal things.

It was partisan politics at it worst.  Right and wrong did not come into play.  The letter and intent of the law held no sway with these people.  The bottom line was that you simply could not tell a story that might reflect badly on the stewardship of Senator John Edwards.

Elizabeth - or more accurately in my case - Elizabeths' pals would go for the JUGULAR.  She could gracefully watch.

Too many people in this state . . . especially in its mainstream media . . . got caught up in the rarefied air of the Edwardian orbit and hopped on their bandwagon . . . too many people wanted to have that "inside connection" to the White House and jump up and down on the Lincoln bed.

The doctor-done-way-beyond-wrong needed to just "get over it", "move on", and "go away".

What torqued me the most was that if the doctor (who spent too many years battling the dirty trick of lawyers and fighting to keep her head above water to ever consider having her own children) complained about the ugly hands she had been dealt . . . if, after YEARS of fighting corruption all by her lonesome, she dared confront people with the difference between their noble words and their deeds . . . she was "whining" or needed "professional help".

The John Robinsons and Ed Cones and Lex Alexanders of this world were total jerks.  My medical ethics had compelled me to defy threats and save the life of another woman's child.  But their journalistic ethics did not compel them to buck the advertisers or jostle the family name (thank God for Armfields!) to expose the ugly in what came after.  A few strikes of their keyboards - aimed at "the right people" - could have changed my life for the better - and they KNEW it - and they did nothing.

Oh yes, indeed.  Come and sit by my side, Obi Wan, and regail me with the grand tales about how our local journalists bravely reported on the "non-trivial amounts of fraud" in their own back yards . . . as it was happening. 

IT'S FICTION!

Really, Mr. "Stench"/Martin, I broke Ed Cone's heart?  You're freaking kidding me, right?

On the flip side of being condemned for the "mememe", when Elizabeth did nothing but complain about her lot in the books that she wrote . . . the excuses for the mistakes she made predicated mostly on hiding behind her love for her children and her illness . . . she was praised for her bravery and honesty . . . and she made millions.

Now we're told that John Edwards' defense will be built on the notion that all of the lies and all of the subterfuge that went on during the campaign was about hiding the truth from his wife - as opposed to the American voter.  We're supposed to believe that using Bunny's funny money to keep his secrets was never about securing the Presidency . . . with all of the power and attention a truly "malignant narcissist" could want.

It's a total load of horse-hockey.  And I don't think the North Carolina juries that John Edwards trusted so much to do the right thing back when he was channelling-dead-babies-in-falsetto and suing OB-Gyns into oblivion will buy it either.  Being pretty isn't gonna get him out of this one.  He's earnestly looked into the camera and lied to us once too often.  And does he really believe he could be an effective trial lawyer again?  Puhlease.

Ironies abound.  As of 2011, after thirteen years of the public-service screw, I'm still a nothing and a nobody with black-&-white evidence of multiple felonies-that-have-no-statute-of-limitations (i.e. NOTHING to "interpret").  It's a slam-dunk . . . justice would be fairly easy and not very expensive for the government to extract.  But the people who turned the screw are still skimming their big phat salaries off the top of a non-profit's profits.  On the state's side of this sordid tale (a whole nuther story - as I got state loan repayment too), our Attorney General is spineless and useless as Edwards once was, and our ex-Governor is a convicted felon.  And the USDOJ, under Eric Holder, will let me swing while they spend a fortune broadly interpreting campaign finance statutes in order to send John Edwards to jail.

(Not that I have a problem with sending John Edwards to jail.  My point is he's not the only one who deserves to be there.)

And there you have it.  No hope, no change for Dr. Mary Johnson, NHSC alumna.  Nope.  She's not the "right" kind of victim for the brie-&-Volvo crowd to get behind . . . or a "success story" from the days of Hillary's village that the Obama White House can parade around.  She had stones.  She fought back.  She didn't give up.  She never asked the government for anything more than what she was truly owed after signing on the dotted line of public service.  And it's all just so damned embarrassing.

In the end, I feed sorriest for the totally innocent little girl whose parents "star" in a sex tape and who doesn't merit a mention when most progressives bemoan how much the family has already suffered (6/6 Update: CNN reported today that Edwards would not accept jail time because it would pull him away from his TWO younger children).  I cannot imagine what growing-up the "love child" under this thunder-cloud-of-scandal-and-shame is going to be like . . . especially later on, knowing that her Dad had a chance to own up and redeem himself . . . to cast off the cameras, and the prying eyes, and the very embarassing questions, and make her life just a little bit easier.

But even now, it's still all about him.

And that's why he did not cop the plea.  I might have understood (just a tiny bit) if he'd balked on the felony.  But Edwards turned down a deal on MISDEMEANORS!?!  And only 6 months of jail time!?!

(It bristles, given the even longer periods of time I've spent away from home and family because my Senator was too busy running for President to help me.  There will be no pity party for John Edwards at gatherings of the Ya.)

In closing folks, I knew what Johnny was a long time ago.  AND I TOLD YOU SO.  He did exactly what I expected he would do in choosing to fight these charges, and I hope the U.S. Department of Justice FRIES his smarmy, oily tail.

No quarter.

I also hope that this trial reveals a whole lot more about how John and Elizabeth - and their high-minded, enlightened friends (especially their friends in this blogosphere) - really operated when confronted with the injustices done to "little people" right under their up-turned noses.

Both Americas could really benefit from the lessons to be learned.

Now then.  I'm back on summer break.  As the case progresses (we can only hope it drags out until the Democratic convention in Charlotte), I'll certainly comment on the N&O's boards - and elsewhere.  But this summer, I won't be wasting any more space here at Housecalls on Johnny Reid Edwards.

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