Gawker reports [e.a.]:

Edwards Off Paternity Hook… For Now

Despite the wishes of her sister, former John Edwards bedmate Rielle Hunter doesn’t want the haircut-and-pants to take a paternity test to determine whether or not he is the father of her baby. “Hunter said through her attorney that she would not take a genetic test ‘now or in the future.’

How very convenient for Mr. (and Mrs.) Edwards.

Neal Gabler says that, yes, Barack Obama is in fact a star—the star of his own movie [e.a.].

Kennedy was the first politician to realize that the best politics wasn’t politics at all. It was a form of popular culture — dream-making. Or, as [Norman] Mailer put it, Kennedy turned politics into a movie.

All campaigns are movies now, consisting of competing narratives with competing stars. Part of Obama’s appeal, as it was for the Kennedys, is that he has what all rising stars have. He has youth. He has good looks. He has charisma. He has an ability to spellbind. He has had a rapid ascent that makes him new and unfamiliar. He has, in this McLuhanesque age, unflappability that plays especially well on television. And as the biracial son of a single mother, he has a great personal story that provides a terrific vehicle for his role.

But, above all, Obama has something else that all great stars have — he embodies a theme. …

Obama’s theme is a potent one. Whether one buys into it or not, he promises to cross divides — political, ideological, racial, geographic — and to transcend the old politics of fear and hate that has commandeered recent elections. He believes that America can — and should — be the moral beacon for the world by returning to its core values. In analyzing his own appeal, Obama says he has become a symbol — which, again, is exactly what all stars are. He is providing a really good, uplifting movie.

That’s all well and good, except let’s forget about Barack Obama for a minute and think about John Edwards. Didn’t he also provide us with a “really good, uplifting movie”? Wasn’t he also a star?

Do we want a star as president?

The New York Times barely even attempts to defend itself for failing to report on the John Edwards story [e.a.]:

A number of news organizations with resources far greater than The Enquirer’s, like The New York Times, say they looked into the Edwards matter and found nothing solid enough to report, while others did not look at all. …

The New York Times looked into the Enquirer reports last fall, though none too aggressively, editors said.

Bill Keller, the executive editor, said in an e-mail message that Mr. Edwards’s dark-horse status and the “added hold-your-nose quality about The Enquirer” contributed to the lack of interest by The Times and the mainstream media generally.

Tim Rutten, writing in the L.A. Times, smashes that reasoning to smithereens:

As pressure mounted on major newspapers to take some aspect of the unfolding scandal into account, editors and ombudsmen issued statements saying it would be unfair to publish anything until the Enquirer’s stories had been “confirmed.”

Well, there’s confirming and then there’s confirming. One sort occurs when an editor mutters, “Find somebody and have them make a few calls.” Then there’s the sort that comes when that editor summons an investigative reporter with a heart like ice and a mind like Torquemada’s and says, “Follow this wherever it goes and peel this guy like an onion.”

Suffice to say that the follow-up of the Enquirer’s story fell into the former category in too many newsrooms, including that of The Times.

Some of this reticence may have reflected a regard for the feelings of Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, who has incurable cancer. There was, however, every reason to set that deference aside.

First, it was less than unlikely that Elizabeth Edwards was unaware of the allegations. (She says now she knew of the affair in 2006.) Second, Edwards’ name has surfaced as a possible running mate for Barack Obama and as a possible attorney general or Supreme Court nominee — posts in which character and candor matter. Finally, throughout his political career, Edwards has made his marriage a centerpiece of his campaigns.

The hypocrisy angle alone (Rutten’s point number 3) should have had the MSM on Edwards’s tail.

This was not the MSM’s finest hour, but John Edwards is certainly being dragged through the mud by them now, like he deserves.

He’s just gross—he’s got an excuse for everything, and he’s his own judge and jury. Yuck.

Kaus is still on the trail of the story, natch, and he’s not sparing Elizabeth Edwards’s feelings, because she has already named the villain in this story, and curiously it’s not her husband.

Update: Elizabeth Edwards is already up on Kos with a diary attacking “the present voyeurism.” … HuffPo’s Lee Stranahan, a former Edwards supporter, responds “Say It Ain’t So, Elizabeth: You Knew But Let Him Run.” Excerpt:

[I]f you’re an Edwards supporter, let me put this bluntly; if you gave John and Elizabeth Edwards time, money, support, or goodwill, they played you.

They made a conscious decision to make their relationship a focus throughout the campaign. That emotional goodwill you feel for them? They not only let you feel, they took actions and made statements specifically so you would feel it.

Now do you see why I hate politics?

I know nothing about Georgia, but TigerHawk’s observations about Stateside political reactions to events there struck me as a very sensible reading [e.a.]:

The Politico fairly objectively examines how John McCain and Barack Obama responded to Russia’s invasion of South Ossetia. Both statements were clearly crafted to achieve a political objective, while at the same time preserving each candidate’s flexibility in the event that he is elected and actually has the burden of command. Money quote:

Obama’s statement put him in line with the White House, the European Union, NATO, and a series of European powers, while McCain’s initial statement—which he delivered in Iowa and ran on a blog on his Web site under the title “McCain Statement on Russian Invasion of Georgia,”—put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.

That is certainly one way of looking at it.

Another is that Barack Obama took the same position as a European Union that is very worried that Russia will cut off its supplies of natural gas and the most politically weak president since Jimmy Carter’s hostage year of 1980. …

George W. Bush has given up out of political weaknesses and organizational exhaustion, Barack Obama is giving up out of transnational romanticism, and John McCain is signaling the world that the United States under his leadership will be a reliable ally.

Wretchard has a lot more at the Belmont Club.

CNN is reporting more than 2000 killed in South Ossetia, according to the Russian ambassador. Reuters reports that the Russian commander has been wounded.

The New York Times reassures me that China was trying hard to reassure the rest of the world about its obvious ambitions, appetites, and might [e.a.]:

An ecstatic China finally got its Olympic moment on Friday night. And if the astonishing opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games lavished grand tribute on Chinese civilization and sought to stir an ancient nation’s pride, there was also a message for an uncertain outside world: Do not worry. We mean no harm.

Usually, that message is delivered by the dour-faced leaders of the ruling Communist Party, who dutifully, if sometimes unconvincingly, regurgitate the phrase “harmonious society” coined by President Hu Jintao. But in the nimble cinematic hands of Zhang Yimou, the filmmaker who directed the opening ceremonies, the politics of harmony were conveyed in a visual extravaganza.

The opening ceremonies gave the Communist Party its most uninterrupted, unfiltered chance to reach a gargantuan global audience. At one point, thousands of large umbrellas were snapped open to reveal the smiling, multicultural faces of children of the global village. Benetton could not have done it better.

Maybe! But the children soon gave way to soldiers, pictured here:

Have you ever seen soldiers at the Olympics before?  Me neither.

That was pretty goddamn weird and disturbing and intimidating.

How can that creepy image stand side by side with the beauty of this?

and this?

and this?

And that is just one of the many, many conundrums of contemporary China.

The fascinating background story of the film director who staged the opening ceremony extravaganza is told in the NY Times here.

Nearly two years in the making, his spectacle is intended to present China’s new face to the world with stagecraft and pyrotechnics that organizers boast have no equal in the history of the Games. Whether or not it succeeds, it will underscore one reality of a rising China: many leading artists now work with, or at least not against, the ruling Communist Party.

Rising nationalism and pride in China’s emergence as an economic power, and robust state support for artists who steer clear of political defiance, have transformed China’s cultural landscape since the early part of this decade. Today, directors, writers and painters who seek to expose the darker side of authoritarian rule not only enrage the censors, but also often find themselves shut out of the lucrative market for Chinese art, books and film. Many of those who find less political outlets for their talent, on the other hand, can get rich.

“People really are selling their talent in a way that can make them money,” said Ai Weiwei, an internationally recognized artist based in Beijing. “They really know that if they work with the government, they’ll benefit.”

The opening ceremonies will represent a particularly momentous conversion for Mr. Zhang, whose experience during the horrors of Mao’s Cultural Revolution appeared to inform several of his internationally acclaimed — and domestically banned — films, including “Ju Dou” and “To Live.”

Mr. Zhang said in a recent interview that he never had political aims. His supporters say it is the Communist Party that has become more sophisticated, seeking to harness the country’s top talent and embrace a broader notion of national culture.

But critics accuse Mr. Zhang of making a pact with a political leadership that has a long record of restricting artistic freedom, playing the role of favored court artist — a kind of Chinese Leni Riefenstahl, creating beautiful backdrops for iron-fisted rulers.

“He went from being this renegade making films that were banned and an eyesore for the Chinese government to kind of being the pet of the government, in some people’s eyes,” said Michael Berry, who teaches contemporary Chinese culture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It’s almost a complete turnaround from his early days.”

The country’s fervor about the Olympics was so great that even blase twenty-something Beijingites were roused:

Ms. Tian, 29, an executive assistant at GlobalLogic, an American software company, said she had overcome her initial lack of interest in the Games and organized a viewing party for 20 friends, human resource executives, marketing managers and public relations strategists.

“To be frank, at first I didn’t feel connected to the Olympics,” she said. “I was annoyed by all the restrictions.”

But once the opening ceremonies started, Ms. Tian was transfixed. The eyes of some of her friend welled up with tears. They screamed and cheered when the Chinese team appeared on the screen. They shouted, “Go China.” They put down their smartphones and hugged each other with joy.

“I’m so proud of my country,” Ms. Tian said, a Chinese flag affixed to each cheek. “When I see this, I suddenly appreciate all the things the government put us through.”