The guys at Overlawyered do not appear to be on the John Edwards bandwagon: 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, I've never been on the Edwards' train. It's nice to know that not everyone can be snowed by the ex-Senator from North Carolina.
Regretably, I missed the "showdown" between Ann and Elizabeth Edwards on Hardball, but I caught it on You-Tube. In what Ann alludes was probably a ratings stunt, Hardball and Edwards apparently planned a bit of an "ambush" on Coulter . . . Hardball only cluing Ann in on the phone call minutes before airtime.
Here's the thing about Ann (who is quite capable of defending herself). She is a political talking head who makes her living talking and selling books (five best-sellers at last count). She's fairly up front about that. Controversy increases sales. She speaks her mind (free speech being something we supposedly value in this country), her wit is sharp and her pen sharper. Much more often than not she has a good point to make. She has landed a number of good punches when it comes to Edwards . . . especially as it pertains to political hypocrisy.
Ann has also bombed on some attempted sucker-punches. Not sure what she was thinking there.
As an aside, I do remember saying "Amen" to myself after reading Ann's commentary on the death of Jerry Falwell . . . when some of the speech coming from the "left side of the road" was beyond despicable.
Here's the thing about Edwards. She is the opinionated and self-righteous (pots know kettles) wife of a presidential candidate who "has four days to raise 9 million dollars". She apparently didn't get enough mileage out of the public "disagreement" with her husband over gay marriage vs. civil unions (BTW Team Edwards, way to talk out of both sides of your mouth and insult the general intelligence of us all). If you're Elizabeth, what do you do? Why you conspire with a network "news" show to stage a cat-fight with Ann Coulter (someone who is not running for President) . . . where you're not on-camera and can misquote your prey out-of-context (pretty much uninterrupted by the TV "moderator") to suit your purposes . . . which is painting yourself and your perpetual-Presidential-candidate-of-a-husband as the victims of "hate speech".
In the ugly game of politics (which both she and her husband made an informed decision to keep playing even after her diagnosis), did Ms. Edwards not realize that some people would not just give up the love?
This is the entire interview on "Good Morning America" which set Elizabeth off (which the Edwards campaign conveniently edited to solicit funds).
Context is an interesting thing. Ann actually made a very good point about the double standard in our current political/media discourse: "But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack . . . so I've learned my lesson: If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
Still cramming the victim thing down viewers' throats, Elizabeth also brought up a column Ann wrote four years ago. But again, she was taking Ann's words (in this case, sarcasm) out of context.
In her commentary today, Ann expounded on that: As a commentator, I bring facts like these to the attention of the American people in a lively way. Thus, for example, in a column about the Democratic candidates for president written in 2003, I pointed out that the Democrats refused to discuss the economy or the war, but had recently "discovered a surprise campaign issue: It turns out that several of them have had a death in the family . . .
. . . Manifestly, I was not making fun of their son's death; I was making fun of John Edwards' incredibly creepy habit of invoking his son's tragic death to advance his political career . . . a practice so repellant, it even made John Kerry queasy.
Questions? Read Bob Shrum's book (that Ann references in her commentary today), "No Excuses".
I'm all for civil discourse. But apparently in the land of Edwards (where the man of the house gets $400 haircuts, and the house itself is the size of several football fields), it is very apparent that no one should dare question Elizabeth or her husband's motives on anything . . . especially the way they have used personal tragedy (a son's death, her recurrence of breast cancer) . . . not to mention a publicly-funded poverty center . . . to political advantage.
I decided long ago that I was not going to "chase" the Edwards campaign with this blog. There are lots of political pundits out there (including Ann Coulter) who do it much better, and John Edwards simply is not worth the effort. But "Ann vs. Liz" woke me up, so I thought I'd briefly come out of hibernation to state what I believe to be the obvious.
Edwards, with his "success" as a pretty-boy, theatrical, dead-baby-channeling-trial-lawyer, had a profoundly negative effect on my profession. He was perhaps the worst (self-absorbed/uninvolved) US Senator that North Carolina has ever produced . . . a candidate who could not even secure his home state when he was on a Presidential ticket.
Edwards' "dedication" to eliminating poverty (as exemplified by his brief association with a publicly-funded-university-based-think-tank . . . fairly obviously developed by North Carolina's Democratic elite to keep him in the public spotlight . . . since he didn't hold a political office anymore) runs a distant second place to his political ambitions.
Pssst, Mr. Edwards. Those long-suffering Smithfield workers have been begging for help for literally YEARS. Where were you when you were their Senator?
This is a candidate for President of the United States who does not believe that we're waging a global war on terror. I am sure all the military personnel and their families at the various bases in North Carolina (the state that our Governor likes to bill as the most "military-friendly" in the nation) appreciate a potential Commander-In-Chief minimizing their work and sacrifice. Not a war on terror? I cannot fathom why anyone takes Edwards seriously.
Moreover (on a personal note, and since this blog is all about meMeME) this so-called "champion" of the ordinary man (the kind who aren't major shareholders in companies staking claims to pirate booty) . . . this uber-rich lawyer who speaks of his passion to encourage public service and eliminate poverty, has never had the time . . . as a Senator or private citizen . . . to talk to this doctor who got royally screwed by the legal system, after doing the right thing "serving the medically under-served" (i.e. the poor) in her own hometown . . . a mill town just miles from where Edwards himself grew up.
So (and I think I speak for a lot of doctors), screw him.
If I'm not careful, Elizabeth will be calling me.
As for who "won" the "smack-down", I thought the heckler had the best observation in the whole Hardball cat-fight: "Why isn't John Edwards making this call?" .
