I'm Really Starting to Like John Edwards

The lastest issue of Newsweek has an interesting article on Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards. Here's some more enlightening quotes:

In the fall of 2005, John Edwards sat down with a pad and pen and scrawled out three simple words: "I was wrong." It was nearly three years after he'd joined a Senate majority in voting to authorize war in Iraq. After an unsuccessful run as John Kerry's vice presidential candidate in the 2004 election, Edwards had returned home to North Carolina and watched as the war descended into chaos. Increasingly filled with regret, he concluded that the three-word confession would be the right way to start a Washington Post op-ed admitting his vote was a mistake. But when a draft came back from his aides in Washington, Edwards's admission was gone. Determined, the senator reinserted the sentence. Again a draft came back from Washington; again the sentence had been taken out. "We went back and forth, back and forth," Edwards tells NEWSWEEK. "They didn't want me to say it. They were saying I should stress that I'd been misled." The opening sentence remained. "That was the single most important thing for me to say," Edwards recalls. "I had to show how I really feel."

On Feb. 4, in an appearance on "Meet the Press," he broke the cardinal rule of presidential politics and admitted that his proposal for universal health care would require raising taxes. Then, last week, he refused to fire two campaign employees who'd criticized Roman Catholics and religious conservatives on their personal blogs, despite pressure from conservative leaders.

If John Edwards is actually this committed to honesty, then this is exactly what we need in a President to fix the problems of the current one. Here we have a man who seems unafraid of speaking the truth and will stand by his principles. Furthermore, it's nice to see a candidate who refuses to pander to the Religious Right. Only time will tell if he maintains this promising stance, but so far, Edwards has my vote.

Addendum: DavidGX also has a post expressing similar sentiment.