Elizabeth Edwards

The AP is reporting:  CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) – Democrat John Edwards is forging ahead with his second bid for the presidency despite the sobering news that his wife, Elizabeth, is battling an incurable reappearance of cancer.

This isn’t going to play well with political pundits, who don’t like it when any candidate appears too aggressively ambitious.  That’s exactly what they will say about Edwards continuing to campaign while his wife battles incurable cancer, even though Elizabeth Edwards insists that the cancer is contained and more like a chronic condition rather than a life-threatening disease.   That might be true, but the American public probably isn’t ready to view cancer so benignly.  Get ready for the inevitable pundit soundbite, “If it were my wife…”  

Besides, the conservatives, who hate John Edwards for making money as a trial lawyer, will point to his previous statements pledging to drop out of the race if his wife’s cancer returned. 

Michael Baisden

If you want to know what is really going on in the African-American community, tune into Michael Baisden’s syndicated radio show.  I’m getting hooked on the self-proclaimed Bad Boy of Radio and I can’t believe I haven’t heard of him until now.  In L.A., Baisden’s syndicated show is on V100.3, a new-ish R&B station.  Baisden’s show is best when he’s doing something like hosting a quiz on African-American history.  Today he’s talking rather graphically about intimate health problems and he’s asking every female caller if she’s doing her exercises.  

Duke Lacrosse Case

Fox News is reporting that all charges may be dropped against the Duke University lacrosse players who were accused of raping a stripper at a team party.  If this is true, former DA Mike Nifong better brace himself for even more negative press and bar investigations and big, big trouble. 

Nifong played the media just right in the beginning of the case and reporters were too eager for the juicy story to question and investigate.  Spoiled jocks at an elite school raping a a minority at a sleazy party with underage drinking.   These days, the media is so eager for tabloid-ready stories that they just latched on to Nifong’s version of what happened, which, as we now know, is simply not borne out by the facts, including the DNA. 

But now that the truth is out, reporters will leave no stone unturned before throwing it at Nifong.  They feel like Nifong spun them and used the media to further his election prospects, facts be damned.  In the eyes of reporters, that is unforgiveable.  As one of the best reporters I know says, “He must be punished.”