Steve Huntley in the Chicago Sun-Times: [John] Edwards and [Hillary] Clinton [...] at Thursday's NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit [...] didn't know their post-debate conversation was being picked up by Fox News microphones.Beautiful! And even
Edwards walked up to Clinton at her podium and said, "We should think about at some point ... maybe some time in the fall, we'll try to have a more serious debate with a smaller group of people."
Clearly agreeing, Clinton said, "We've got to cut the numbers of these, because they are just being trivialized."
"And they're not serious," Edwards answered. "They're not serious."
The Fox video shows Edwards walking away and Clinton following and saying, "I think there was an effort by our campaign to do that, but it somehow got detoured. We've gotta get back to it."
Then in a moment of high comedy, one of the targets of their plot, Kucinich, walks by and Clinton shakes his hand. The Ohio congressman is still in the picture frame as Clinton tells Edwards, "Our guys should talk."
after learning that the conversation had been caught on an open microphone, Edwards' office said he was not trying to limit who participates in the forums. Nonsense. That was exactly what he was trying to do ...Incredible! Even after being caught on network television saying one thing, they come out with a new spin: He wasn't trying to do what he was obviously trying to do.
Steve Huntley thinks it's a brilliant idea:
Look, it was good to have all the contenders on stage in the first couple of debates. But now we've seen Gravel whack Clinton over her husband's support of free trade and we've heard a couple of GOP wannabes explain why the theory of evolution isn't real.
They've had their time in the spotlight, and these forums need to start focusing on the policies and views of the candidates who actually have a shot at winning.
LV has much more, including the video, at his blog.