Appropriate, non-fatal punishment

Would you deem this cruel and unusual? John Edwards, Bernie Madoff, Charlie Rangel and Barney Frank should be locked up together in a small, maximum security cell and be forced to listen 24/7 to each other's lies. If they fall asleep, Nancy Pelosi has to waterboard them, but then deny she knew what she was doing. Works for me.

Sordid, tacky, publicity hound--and that's just the mistress!

John Edwards. Wow. I'm so glad he didn't go any further in his quest for the White House. I'm not thrilled with the current occupant, but he's head and shoulders above this mess of dandruff.

'Johnny' to testify in Hunter trial | Washington Examiner

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster

I started to read the bizarre account in New York Magazine of John Edwards and his wife, and what was really going on during the last presidential campaign, but finally just had to stop. Whether it is gossip, sleaze or half-truths, it was too sick. You can almost see how a candidate can become a megalomaniac, and his wife might be a shrew-- "abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending, crazywoman"--considering what she'd been through (although it appears she was that way before), but I kept wondering, "Why do the staff put up with it? Why would they want people like this running a hot dog stand, let alone our country?" So I gave up, not on the Edwards, who seem to deserve each other, but on their campaign staff. It would seem megalomania is contagious.

Did Edwards want the Veep spot with Barack?

Democrats are arguing amongst themselves over this at Politico, but I thought this was a good explanation by a reader at Ben Smith: "Edwards was a stalking horse to draw votes from Hillary. He is a two faced lowlife and had no business running when he KNEW he was already busted with a pregnant mistress and cheated on his cancer stricken wife. As for Elizabeth she is an enabler and should not have helped him run. Obama used Edwards to siphon votes from HRC and now we have months with no decision for the troops and record unemployment. Thanks Johnny! Thanks Barack!"

Tell us how you really feel!

It's called adultery, Mr. Edwards

Ring around the rosy. Ashes. Ashes. A lot of words when we already have one that does the job.

"In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake, and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public."

I always thought it was odd he would go through the stress of the campaign and subject his family to it all for his personal aggrandizement and glory when he was needed at home to support his ill wife and frightened children. Now we know. Stress has a serious impact on health--what about the effect of his personal behavior on his wife's health! What a crumb bum. Now he's added even more pain to their lives and to his disappointed, loyal supporters who contributed many hours and hard earned money to his campaign.

The biggest hypocrite

It's a tough one--who's the bigger hypocrite, John Edwards who claims to be looking out for the little guy, or Hillary Clinton who thinks 30 years "behind the throne" supporting Bill and supporting highly suspect candidates when she was a youngster qualifies as "experience" because she's been thoroughly vetted by the press. But, I choose John.

John Edwards, Democratic candidate for President 2008, and Vice Presidential candidate in 2004, has assets of nearly $30 million. Normally, I don’t begrudge anyone his wealth--if he’s earned it honestly. Before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998, Edwards had a very successful career as a personal-injury lawyer in North Carolina. He ran for President in 2003 and was selected as Kerry's V.P. running mate, resigning from the Senate to do so. If you want to talk about experience, he probably falls behind Obama who at least was in the Illinois legislature. What I don’t like about him is his dishonesty. Readers in today’s WSJ (and I can’t find the article to which they are referring) suggest that the 25-33% contingency fee trial lawyers get in law suits is much more excessive than the greed of which he accuses corporations‘ officers. Since he wants to limit the income of CEOs (who actually are contributing something to the economy), a reader suggests that he help stop “legal abuse” and limit lawyers to $300/hour, with an income not to exceed $750,000 a year. This would help reduce the inequity he sees among the high income earners. Others suggest why stop at corporate CEOs? Why not limit entertainers, sports figures, writers, etc.? This, of course, is a straw man--people who suggest this don’t really believe in limiting anyone’s income, but they do it to point out his hypocrisy. But just tort reform would reduce our health care costs without jeopardizing our health (the way dumbing down with universal health care would). Step up to the plate, John Boy. Put on those blue jeans and come out for the little guy and the pensioner like me.

Four years ago, gearing up for the 2004 campaign

Four years ago about this time I was complaining about our President:

But I do wish George Bush would stop spending money like a drunken Democrat (no name, but you know who I mean). In fact, his spending increases are far greater than Clinton’s on domestic programs for the same time period in office. This makes it difficult for Democrats to criticize him on domestic policy, since those are their pet programs, resulting in a fractured and lack luster campaign. Also, it is hard for Republicans to rein him in, since he is their guy. A responder to a Cato Institute paper says he “has become the "Mother of All Big Spenders."

Nothing's changed. He's a Republican, but not a Conservative. No one will soak the rich the way GWB has--the tax coffers are now around 60% supplied by the richest, compared to about 54% under Clinton. The Democrats' tax increases will be to punish success, not to grease any economic squeaky wheels. And they'll hit all of us who live on investments in our retirement. So where does that leave Edwards and his "two Americas" theme--the man who made his fortune suing the very companies we need we for surgeries and cancers, driving up the insurance costs of doctors, all the while promoting universal health care to dumb down the whole system. Want universal health care in a disaster like an epidemic or terrorist attack? Look to FEMA and Katrina for results. Want cheaper health care? You won't find it in Washington. In addition to what I pay for Medicare coverage (a lot), I'm paying $132 a month for Medi-gap.

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Usually this is called homophobia

observes James Taranto, on the "proof" provided by the Idaho Statesman on Larry Craig. I wonder what is the point? Can closet gays not be good Senators? I admit they probably don't make the best husbands, but that's between him and Mrs. Craig. To look at the roster the Democrats have put forward for president, a Senator's qualifications aren't all that important. They're deciding among the wife of a philanderer (he kept her busy trying to take over health care in the 90s), a lawyer with good hair who's made his fortune suing American businesses and now has a huge carbon footprint to show for it, and a guy who was writing essays about becoming the president while in kindergarten in Indonesia. Maybe it's time they took another look at Bill Richardson or Al Gore.

[Tom] Russell, 48, a Nampa native who lives in Utah, was among three men who contacted the Statesman about what they described as unusually attentive behavior on Craig's part. . . .

Russell worked as a food service manager at Bogus Basin ski resort and said his encounter probably occurred in the 1983-84 ski season, soon after Craig had married following the 1982 page scandal. Russell had taken a food class from Suzanne Craig [the senator's better half] and had heard the rumors that Craig was gay.

Russell, openly gay at the time, said he set out to engage Craig "and attempted to show a personal interest--not in a suggestive way--but a personal interest to see if he would respond."

"I recall that he was very delighted to talk to me--smiling, happy, very delighted--and that he had suggested that we could get together sometime," he said. "Why would he have a personal interest in meeting me elsewhere?"

Russell said he became convinced Craig was gay because he used subtle signals consistent with communication between gay men in public places.

"You've heard the term, 'gaydar'? OK, it's there. You know it. You know when somebody is raising an eyebrow at you because it's their gesture when they say 'hello' or when they are subtly trying to send you a message that they recognize you as being a gay person."

Nothing came of the meeting, Russell said. But he came forward now because he is offended by Craig's denials.

"I'm disgusted because it's hypocritical, and he's lying. He's lying through his teeth. Heterosexual men do not behave like that."

Why John Edwards shouldn't be President of the United States

"Edwards became wealthy as a trial lawyer. His craft was therefore derivative: When something happened to someone else, Edwards filed a lawsuit. He then told his client's tale. He made millions doing so. If I were seriously injured as a result of someone else's carelessness, I would consider hiring John Edwards. These are impressive verdicts and settlements.

But I will not vote for him as president. I simply don't trust him. When his lips are moving, I am never quite sure what comes out. It often sounds like callow hyperbole, as in the stumping in New Hampshire.

Edwards' skill is attracting seriously injured clients and then forcing large cash payments from those who caused their injury. That doesn't make him a pioneer in social justice. He's just a very good lawyer who made enough money to cash out and try his hand at being a master of the universe." Norm Pattis

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Attention John Edwards' supporters

RealClearPolitics provides a lesson in economics.

"Of the charter members of the first Forbes 400 in 1982, only 32 remain today. Far from a country where only the rich get richer, the wealthy in the US are very much a moving target. While there are 74 Forbes 400 members who inherited their entire fortune, 270 members are entirely self-made. Though many attended Harvard, Yale and Princeton, there are countless stories within of high school and college dropouts, not to mention others who grew up extremely poor. Politicians who regularly engage in class warfare would do well to keep the Forbes 400 out of the hands of their constituents, because it makes a mockery of the kind “Two Americas” rhetoric suggesting the existence of a glass ceiling that keeps hard workers at the bottom of the economic ladder. To read the Forbes 400 is to know with surety that the U.S. is still very much the land of opportunity. . .

For the hard of hearing, Advanced Bionics founder Alfred Mann (#204) developed cochlear implants, and for those who are immobile, Stryker Corp. CEO John Brown (#380) makes artificial hips and limbs to help the bedridden stand. With cancer still a tragic fact of life for many, Abraxis CEO Patrick Soon-Shiong (#117) presently has the patents for 30 different treatments that will hopefully over time help to make cancer go the way of polio." [unless crafty politicians can tax or sue them out of creativity and existence]

HT HP

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What are the Democrats up to now?

Politics would be my guess. They probably prolonged the war by at least two years by giving the terrorists encouragement and comfort (as in Vietnam), now with the taste of the presidency on their tongues, they're bleating a new baaa baaack off. Not a single one of the front runners would promise to have brought the troops home by the END of their first term as President. "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," said Hillary Rodham Clinton. "I think it's hard to project four years from now," said Barack Obama. "I cannot make that commitment," said John Edwards.

"Iraq is getting better, and the opposition to the war is, in the current campaign cycle, is starting to shift away from the "war is lost" to something more like "stabilizing the government over time would not be worth the cumulative cost in American lives and treasure."

All sober Democrats realize not only that the Moveon.org ad was a political disaster, but more importantly, that the Moveon.org/Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan/Hollywood ticking bombs actually scare off Americans, even as they demand more influence among the candidates." Victor Davis Hanson

Still, I don't trust them not to flip again. Hillary's sneaking in her health care all dressed up like it's the early 90s while we catch our breath about Iraq. She talks tough on national security. Now. Wasn't it just a few weeks ago . . . Politics.