John Edwards, Crazy

A not-to-be missed item from yesterday's Inside Politics column from The Washington Times:

Bob Shrum, the famed consultant to a string of failed Democratic presidential candidates, including Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, seems determined to embarrass his former client and current presidential hopeful John Edwards in the forthcoming book "No Excuses: Confessions of a Serial Campaigner," the New Republic's Michael Crowley writes at www.tnr.com

Mr. Shrum's book "repeatedly portrays Edwards as a hyper-ambitious phony," Mr. Crowley said.

For example, Mr. Shrum says Mr. Kerry had qualms about choosing Mr. Edwards to be his presidential running mate in 2004, but grew "even queasier" after Mr. Edwards said he was going to share a story with Mr. Kerry he had never told anyone else — that after his son, Wade, had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home and hugged his body and promised that he would do all he could to make life better for people.

"Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before — and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again."

Mr. Shrum says that, in the end, Mr. Kerry "wished that he'd never picked Edwards, that he should have gone with his gut" and selected former Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

You know how you can tell Edwards is deep into wacko-land? He makes John Kerry look normal by comparison.