Gary Pearce posted on May 17, 2012 10:28
The breakfast talk turned to John Edwards’ trial – and to a recent PBS special on President Clinton. Someone asked: “Is George Holding going to go down in history as the Kenneth Starr of North Carolina politics?”
Starr will forever be remembered as the obsessed special prosecutor who produced a detailed, explicit examination of Clinton’s tawdry, seamy sex affair with Monica Lewinsky. In the end, the panting, near-pornographic report hurt Starr’s reputation more than Clinton’s.
So the question arises: What happens to Holding’s reputation if John Edwards gets off (pardon the expression) or gets a light penalty?
It was Holding who started the government’s Javert-like pursuit of Edwards. At the trial, it appears, the government spent several weeks and called a lot of witnesses to prove something that everybody knew: Edwards behaved badly.
Less clear is whether he broke the law, which is what our tax dollars are supposedly being spent to determine.
Even a conservative Republican like Paul Coble, who lost the 13th Congressional District nomination to Holding, questioned whether the whole thing was a waste of tax money.
Republican primary voters, presumably, think this was no place where Holding should have honored his vow to cut federal spending.
Holding will doubtless be in Congress next year. Less certain is what reputation he will take with him.