Edwards Comes Off as 'Sinister,' 'Phony' in Book

Andrew Young’s The Politician is a mesmerizing, downright chilling book, which leaves both its subject and author looking like absolute scum. In one corner there’s Young, Edwards’ “body man, beard and shit-eating courtier,” a “craven acolyte” so pathetic that his main act of rebellion against Edwards involves leaving the armrest down in the car. In the other is Edwards, a “giant phony” whose megalomania slowly destroys everyone around him, writes Daily Beast founder Tina Brown.

“The truly shaming revelation here,” says Brown, is that the press and political establishment “allowed a man as devoid of authenticity as John Edwards to flourish for so long.” The fawning media, so easily duped by soundbites, and the allure of fame turned Edwards “from a spoiled, facile man with broadly good intentions into something darker, something even sinister. … This is not a political memoir. It’s a morality tale with the chill of Hitchcock.” (More Tina Brown stories.)