So John and Elizabeth Edwards have endorsed… nobody. Except themselves, perhaps. Again.

Johnny-boy says Hillary “shows a lot of strength”, then adds disparagingly that she represents a “lot of the old politics”. He praises Obama for trying to “bring about serious change and a different way of doing things”. But there’s another but: “Sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric”.

Edwards: “I think it’s a great symbolic thing to have an African-American who could be president.”

At that, Mrs. Edwards rolled her eyes and, gripping the arms of her kitchen chair with some exaggeration, seemed about to lunge from her seat. “What about the great symbolic thing about a woman …”

“It’s important. It’s important,” her husband said. “I know it.”

Bottom line: the couple said they will not endorse either remaining candidate, saving their political capital for their own causes – his, fighting poverty; hers, fighting for universal health care.

This is about the cheesiest, most PR-sodden journalism I have ever read. What’s the point in all this absurdly neutral piffle? Might it be to hint to Democrats that they could have avoided the divisive and exhausting nomination battle by plumping for a strong, reliable old Dem, like, say, John Edwards?