Longtime readers know that I was a critic of John Edwards for essentially stealing his millions from innocent defendants; I was even ahead of the game on the Bunny Mellon connection, which, as that post documents, was part of a long line of Edwards campaign financing going close to or over the line. But as abhorrent as John Edwards's conduct was, and as questionable as his financial dealings were, the federal indictment shows more problems with the incoherent nature of campaign finance law than with anything Edwards did criminally. Alternate-Universe Attorney General Edwards would have had no compunction about avoiding this sort of prosecutorial abuse, so, like Eliot Spitzer before him, there is a certain schadenfreude, but I still have to be on record opposing at least parts of this indictment. [Taylor; Kirkendall; WSJ; NYT; WRAL]