For all his newfound capitalist prowess, it seems Sen. John Edwards still isn’t familiar with some fairly basic geopolitical facts on the ground:
“I’m going to be honest with you — I don’t know a lot about Cuba’s healthcare system,” Edwards, D-N.C., said at an event in Oskaloosa, Iowa. “Is it a government-run system?”
(ABCNews.com “Political Radar”, Aug. 17)(via Weigel)(disclaimer).
I don’t think it would much matter if Democrats were to live in The World According to Edwards, who has never taken lobbyist money. Nice symbolism, perhaps, but how does it make candidates any purer to disdain checks from lobbyists while avidly vacuuming up contributions from the various industries they represent?
Edwards is no less tainted by the trial-lawyer money he scoops up by the bucketful than he would be by lobbyist contributions.
A look at the largest donors for Obama and especially Edwards shows a disproportionate number of active members of (the trial lawyers’) lobbying group. Indeed, John Edwards’s finance chairman is Fred Baron, the former president of ATLA. If Obama and Edwards want voters to believe that Clinton is influenced by lobbyist money, what should we think about these two candidates’ debts to trial lawyers? Are we to believe that the critical difference is the lobbyist registration papers, at which point money becomes tainted and dirty?
August 7 AFL-CIO Democratic debate:
OLBERMANN: Senator Edwards, I have a question for you. You made your substantial fortune as a trial lawyer. Trial lawyers are now contributing significantly to your campaign. How is that any better than lobbyists?
Alas, Edwards dodged the question, but it has perhaps contributed to the recent NY Times press coverage.
At YearlyKos, John Edwards and Barack Obama sought to distinguish themselves from Hillary Clinton by saying they didn’t take money from registered lobbyists, and Clinton was booed for defending herself. (Also: Franke-Ruta.)
I found this curious: after all, Obama and Edwards showed up at the national convention of the lobbying group for the trial lawyers, the former Association of Trial Lawyers of America (who now call themselves the American Association of Justice). There, they gave speeches (as did Clinton, Biden, and Richardson). A look at the largest donors for Obama and especially Edwards shows a disproportionate number of active members of that lobbying group. Indeed, John Edwards’s finance chairman is Fred Baron, the former president of ATLA. If Obama and Edwards want voters to believe that Clinton is influenced by lobbyist money, what should we think about these two candidates’ debts to trial lawyers? Are we to believe that the critical difference is the lobbyist registration papers, at which point money becomes tainted and dirty? Are any reporters going to ask that hard question, or will they let the two candidates demagogue from the high ground as they take millions from the most pernicious special interest group in America?
Isn’t it a tad ironic for the woman who hired Amanda Marcotte to be complaining about Ann Coulter’s level of discourse?
Of course, there’s a difference: Ann Coulter is to politics what pro wrestling is to sports, and intentionally acts the part of a clown. (It wasn’t always so: at her best as an attorney for the Center for Individual Rights in the 1990s, Coulter successfully litigated against a whites-only scholarship in Alabama on behalf of an African-American, Jessie Thompkins, who was ineligible for the scholarship because of his race.) In contrast, Marcotte was explicitly chosen by the Edwards campaign to speak for it and the level of political discourse it wanted to produce.
And then there’s John Edwards himself, and his level of discourse in the courtroom, where attorneys are ostensibly officers of the court with an obligation to be truthful. Of course, truth and fairness wouldn’t have made John Edwards millions.
Update: my cousin Garance Franke-Ruta has a different take at the Guardian website that takes two Coulter attacks on Edwards out of context, and I’m not sure where “look like a cross between a Robert Palmer back-up dancer and an Edward Gorey drawing” fits on the Edwardsian scale of political discourse.
If you’re not reading our sister site, you’re missing posts about federal indictments in the Ky. fen-phen scandal; great moments in labor arbitration; a big embarrassment (and maybe even liability?) for Yale Law School; more cosmetics from John Edwards on med-mal; New Jersey and Missouri high courts rule against lead-paint nuisance suits; federal judge refers for possible prosecution criminal contempt charges against Pascagoula potentate Dickie Scruggs; lots of Stoneridge coverage; and much more.
Strong fund-raising helps keep the North Carolinian a credible Democratic alternative; AP cites in particular the generosity of the lawyers at Lerach Coughlin (Jim Kuhnhenn, “Clinton reports $24 mil in the bank, trails Obama in primary donations”, AP/DeKalb, Ill., Daily Chronicle, Apr. 16).
John Edward is the quack who made a television career claiming to channel the dead. John Edwards is the trial lawyer presidential candidate who didn’t go quite that far when delivering a closing argument, restricting himself merely to a channeling a mute victim of cerebral palsy that he successfully blamed on a doctor. As the New York Times reported:
“She speaks to you through me,” the lawyer went on in his closing argument. “And I have to tell you right now — I didn’t plan to talk about this — right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She’s inside me, and she’s talking to you.”
In other jurisdictions, such unfairly prejudicial theatrics asking the jury to decide on passion are grounds for mistrial. (Well, they’re supposed to be, anyway.)
We’ve had lots of coverage of Edwards’s trial career: Jan. 12; Oct. 20, 2005; Aug. 17, 2004; Jul. 28, 2004; Feb. 2, 2004. And we’ve noted others’ comments, too: Jan. 5; Jul. 16, 2004; Feb. 26, 2004; Jan. 31, 2004; Sep. 16, 2003.