An "Angry" Edwards?

"When did you stop beating your wife, Senator Edwards?"

No, John Edwards has not been asked this question. But he has been asked arguably the political equivalent of this classic loaded question. In a blog written on 12/31, 2007, Roger Simon of politico.com said earlier that day he "interviewed Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth. I asked them if John was an angry man and, if so, why."

It has become a truism during this campaign that "Iowans like nice." Everywhere, we are reminded that in 2004, Howard Dean was expected to win the Iowa caucus and Richard Gephardt perhaps to place second. Instead, following sniping between Dean and Gephardt, Kerry won, Edwards (then reportedly pleasant and optimistic) placed second, Dean third, and Gephardt (who quickly withdrew from the race) finished fourth. And now Roger Simon continues the narrative which journalists believe is poison: Edwards as "the angry man." He approvingly quotes Stuart Rothenberg in his Rothenberg Political Report alleging "if Iowa Democrats choose Edwards, they are choosing anger, confrontation and class warfare." And he could have quoted Rothenberg when the latter charged "Edwards’s bet is that, unlike 2004, they’ll choose anger and confrontation."

The more relevant question is this: Why is the media so angry at John Edwards?