Meanwhile, John Edwards is on Trial

12 people down in North Carolina are being asked to judge whether, in the course of being both a public scumbag and being a public idiot, [ex-presidential primary candidate John] Edwards also violated some arcane provisions of the campaign finance laws regarding $1 million that was used to keep the public from knowing exactly how much of a public scumbag and a public idiot he had been.

[...]

There are maybe 100 people in the country who really know the arcane provisions of campaign finance laws, and about 87 of them know those arcane provisions only for the purposes of evading the campaign finance laws entirely. So, down in Greensboro, all the jurors order up another basket of chicken and pretend to know what's going on.

[...]

Former Edwards aide Andrew Young, the world's most opulently cosseted and well-travelled beard, was a hoot on the stand. There was one golden moment when Edwards's lawyer simply banged his head on the defense table in frustration, and everyone went briefly agog when it appeared that one of the alternates was flirting with the defendant who, in a perfect example of why being a horndog has such a high rate of recidivism, seemed to be responding in kind. As circuses go, this really had a lot to recommend it. As a trial, it has been a profound waste of time and money.

[...]

Not that the trial hasn't been entertaining. The alternate jurors seem to be developing a cabaret act that they can take on the road when the trial's done:

[Federal Judge Catherine] Eagles did not mention jurors' sartorial selections, but plenty of reporters and spectators who have spent weeks riding the courtroom's hard wooden benches have paid close attention. They noticed that the four alternate jurors all wore yellow on Thursday and red on Friday. For those keeping track, the alternates' color scheme for Tuesday was gray and black. What it means, if anything, is anyone's guess.

  Charlie Pierce

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.