The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

26 July 2007

John Edwards Campaign, Air America, Politico

DRINK IT DOWN!

Silly Edwards Rhetoric Inspires Libtalk Kool-Aid Consumption







Above and beyond that of other Dem presidential candidates, what is it about John Edwards and his empty rhetoric that inspires so much libtalk Kool- Aid drinking?

For whatever reason, Obama, Hillary and the others just don't seem to command the same level of respect. Mention Edwards, however, and our "progressive" talk friends can't stop gushing, even to the point of embarrassing themselves.

To the Air America crowd, The Breck Girl's bogus "poverty tour" was out of real concern for poor people, rather than a cheap campaign gimmick. Nor will Elizabeth's weird boycott of tangerines generate on-air scrutiny.

From Rachel Maddow's Tuesday program, here's but one recent example:


RACHEL MADDOW: “I felt like the really good thing about Edwards last night was the fact that he did seem really genuinely outraged when he was talking about injustices and the plight of powerless people in America against interests like insurance companies and big business. He seemed like a real fighter, he seemed like really genuinely outraged and mad. I thought that made him seem more heavyweight than usual. I know you’ve been traveling with the Edwards campaign, how would you describe the level of optimism and how they feel about last night?

BEN SMITH, THE POLITICO.COM: Well I think you’re right, and I think you know what they think is that you know he wasn’t talking to the pundit class, he wasn’t trying to score through abstract points about foreign policy, that he was trying to present himself as an outsider, really.

[…]

MADDOW: And interestingly, it wasn’t that he was expressing so much anger or outrage with the Republicans so much and he did show a little bit of that, he said you have to keep the heat on Bush, certainly he said that with a lot of fire in his voice when he said it, but most of his people you have to stand up for in the Edwards worldview that was presented last night, the people you have to stand up to are business interests and lobbyists and big business, big corporations. And I think that’s a populist and although we brand that as “lefty”, it’s a populist message that could be bipartisan, could actually reach a lot of independents too.

SMITH: Yeah I think that’s right, and it’s also really (unclear) of who he’s been in his career and the way he’s cast his work as a trial lawyer suing big corporations and that has really become part of his message.


Yes, the only thing missing from that segment was "my name is John Edwards and I approved this message" added to the end. How much sucking- up can be crammed into one broadcast?

Note how Smith extends the Edwards campaign spin, recreating him as a heroic crusader against evil corporations, rather than a sleazy and greedy trial lawyer.

For the real truth about Edwards, take a look at this recent piece by Charles Hurt in the New York Post:


EDWARDS GOT RICH HURTING THE POOR


July 20, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Trailing in the polls, John Edwards spent the past week telling the poor and downtrodden how much he cares about them.

He even insisted that his Kennedy-esque "poverty tour" was not part of his campaign to capture the White House.

Yeah, just like all those years he spent latched to the back bumper of an ambulance were all out of the goodness of his heart.

That and the $38 million fortune he amassed as the most successful personal-injury lawyer in North Carolina history.

What made Edwards such a brilliant attorney - and a pretty good politician - is his ability to look you in the eye while picking your pocket and convince you that's really not his hand on your wallet.

And so he stopped in the hinterlands of Wise, Va., to commiserate with the poor there who can't afford health care. Even if they could, they'd have to drive a hundred miles to find a doctor.

"We're here to help," Edwards assured them.

There are plenty of causes for this sad heath-care situation. But Edwards wasn't talking about one of the biggest causes - the cause he is among the most responsible for.

"The primary factor is liability insurance," said Dr. Stuart Weinstein, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Iowa. "It's either too expensive in areas like that or simply not available anymore."

Virginia's medical-liability insurance rates - driven largely by the very types of lawsuits that made Edwards a multimillionaire many times over - have more than doubled in three years, according to the nonpartisan Medical Liability Monitor.

In Edwards' home state, those premiums quadrupled. As a result, doctors have fled rural areas or quit practicing altogether.


After years of accusing conservative talk radio hosts of merely parroting partisan talking points, why haven't "progressives" provided a better example?


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20 Comments:

  • The politico is part of the liberal media??????

    By Blogger Unknown, at 26 July, 2007 19:09  

  • It would be so incredibly easy to discredit Edwards, but no one seems up to the task. Just go to his public appearances, ask him questions that reveal the flaws in his policies, and publicize his no doubt incredibly weak responses.

    By Blogger LonewackoDotCom, at 26 July, 2007 20:06  

  • when the GOp knows they have weak candidates, the only thing to do it attack, attack, attack

    Guiliani will NEVER be president

    now that is an embarasment.
    HE HAS NO IDEAs

    better to have an imperfect idea, than NO IDEA


    grasping at straws the 21% is hopeless

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 27 July, 2007 09:24  

  • I've heard that some dirt on Giuliani and "lifestyle choices" made decades ago will soon hit the fan. To me, I think the ones he's made recently are bad enough, much less his corruption and utter mishandling of 9/11, but it will be entertaining to watch the neocons respond to it, particularly with the next flavor of the month waiting in the wings.

    "...HE HAS NO IDEAS..."

    Never expect more than a grunt from a pig.

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 27 July, 2007 10:56  

  • MOP said:
    when the GOp knows they have weak candidates, the only thing to do it attack, attack, attack

    Jeeze, Louise! What do you think the wacko left has been doing for years? AAR, Daily Kos, HuffPo, MOP, etc.



    MOP said:
    better to have an imperfect idea, than NO IDEA

    Is the Democrat imperfect idea to retreat from Iraq and not be concerned about the results?

    By Blogger The Benson Report, at 27 July, 2007 11:45  

  • Is the Democrat imperfect idea to retreat from Iraq and not be concerned about the results?


    Yawn.... Why do you care about Muslims people anyway? I thought the right wing stance was "let them kill each other", thats what O'riley said! How many more billions do you want wasted on the same people you call "ragheads"?

    How many more American lives? And how many more Al queda members do we have to recruit?

    Why Benson do you hate our freedoms?

    Why Benson do you hate the troops?

    Why Benson do you want to breed more terrorists?

    why are you an enemy of your own nation?

    and I was talking about Edwards "poverty campaign".

    and maloney posted a NY post, propganda hit piece to make me fall over laughing!!!
    A lawyer who helped people who lost their children due to cheap products is the problem? He created poverty? cons are mentslly sick, I really do advocate thrashing right wingers over the head with heavy and sharp objects.

    how much longer do they have to ruin our future?

    Cons once more are taking Iraq over America, party over country, Iraq over america, they are loathsome traitors. you benson are one of the biggest traitors in America.

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 27 July, 2007 11:57  

  • Drink it down?

    mmmmm.. Saddam and Al Queda were connected

    drink it down... yummm

    oceans no longer protect us (wow really)

    drink it down yummm

    America has the greatest healthcare system in the world

    drink it down....

    we will be greeted as liberators!!

    drink it down...

    No such thing as global Warming

    drink it down....

    America is a conservative nation!

    drink it down....

    We are fighing the war for civilization!!!

    drink it down

    fight them over here , so they dont fight us over here!!!!

    drink it down...

    Tax cuts for billionaires helpd the poor

    drink it down

    Plame was not covert!!!!

    drink it down....

    gonzales is being attacked in a witch hunt, he did nothing wrong


    why should I worry about warrentless wiretapping, i did nothing wrong, I have nothing to hide!!!
    DRINK IT DOWN

    drink it down
    drink it down cons


    only people drinking Kool Aide are the 21%ers

    look at what they bought.
    look at what you did to America, party over country cons

    thanks for drinking kool aide, you knuckle dragging freaks

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 27 July, 2007 13:26  

  • The biggest traitors are lawyers like Edwards who pack their pockets with money from ridiculous lawsuits. How much did the lawyer pocket on the McDonald's spilled coffee lawsuit?


    Let's take a look at Edward's dirty legal career.

    The trial lawyer accomplishments of John Edwards, which allowed him to amass a personal fortune, finance his successful U.S. Senate run in 1998 and catapult himself into the 2004 race for president, was built on "junk science," according to legal and medical experts.

    Edwards would always help the little guy as long as he got a million dollars out of it.

    Edwards continues to cite one of his most lucrative legal victories as an example of how he would stand up for "the little guy" if elected president.

    Edwards became one of America's wealthiest trial lawyers by winning record jury verdicts in cases alleging that the botched treatment of women in labor and their deliveries caused infants to develop cerebral palsy.

    The cause of cerebral palsy has been debated since the 19th century. Some medical studies dating back to at least the 1980s asserted that doctors could do very little to cause cerebral palsy during the birthing process. Two new studies further undermine the scientific premise of the high profile court cases that helped Edwards become a multi-millionaire and finance his own successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.

    The studies concludes the cause of cerebral palsy is genetic. A great many of these cases are due to subtle infections of the child before birth. That is the cause of the premature labor and the cause of the brain damage.

    "Edwards was clearly very good at managing the emotional tenor of a trial and that turns out to be at least as important as any particular skill in the sense of researching the fine points of law and science," said Walter Olson, legal expert and senior fellow at Manhattan Institute.

    "Trial lawyers have been cashing in on cases where the doctor's conduct did not make any difference at all -- cases where the child was doomed to this condition based on things that happened before they ever got to the delivery room," Olson said.

    Despite the almost complete absence of scientific basis for these medical malpractice claims, cerebral palsy cases remain enormously attractive to lawyers.

    The judgments or settlements related to medical malpractice lawsuits that focused on brain-damaged infants with cerebral palsy helped Edwards amass a personal fortune estimated at between $12.8 and $60 million. He and his wife own three homes, each worth more than $1 million, according to Edwards' Senate financial disclosure forms. Edwards' law firm reportedly kept up to 40 percent of the jury awards.


    John Edwards' spin is always -- I am helping the little guy. But he screened his cases to the point that he only helped people that were going to make him richer.

    Edwards tailored the evidence in his court cases for maximum impact and he bent the available evidence to fit what he wanted to say.

    The recent scientific studies make those lawsuits blaming obstetricians for cerebral palsy "scientifically unfounded.

    A few years ago every neurosurgeon in Washington D.C., had been sued, and it can't be because the nation's capital gets only bad neurosurgeons. It's because it's too tempting to file against the competent ones.

    Edwards, who opposes tort reform and legislation that would cap damages in liability lawsuits, would not respond to repeated requests through his campaign offices for comment.

    And who are the biggest supporters of these ambulance chasers? Why, none other than the wacko left liberals.

    Fortunately, he does not have a chance in hell of becoming the President. His recent "Poverty Tour" bombed.

    According to Newsweek, "Edwards's call of conscience has not resonated. By all rights, Edwards, the son of a millworker, should have an easier time talking about poverty than did [Bobby] Kennedy, the son of a millionaire. His difficulty speaks to the candidate's inability to connect."

    Liberal Time Magazine lamely tries to blame Edward's downturn on the media with the following comment: "Edwards says his notorious $400 haircut and his 28,000-square-foot house are the obsessions of the media, not normal voters."

    At least he will have three nice big homes to spend his next 6 years until he attempts another miserable run at the White House.

    By Blogger The Benson Report, at 27 July, 2007 13:44  

  • Benson-hoist, what do you have to offer on your side?

    A mentally deficient Hollywood whoremonger who was a paid lobbyist for special interests in Washington for over eighteen years?

    Are.You.KIDDING??

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 27 July, 2007 14:02  

  • So now Benson is saying lawyers usually work for free and do not expect payments when they win!

    Yes, Edwards made money by defending families. Jealous? At least he defended families, who were justly compensated, as he was as well.

    I bet you love lawyers that defend huge multi-nationals? Right? I bet we will never hear a peep out of you regarding corperate lawyers? Ohhh thats right, you hate families and love filthy Corporations. The GOP is filled with Corporate attorneys and lobbiests.
    You can only attack a lawyer which serves the better interests of the public???? Why do you hate American families?

    Benson now all of a sudden is a communist!! How dare Edwards make a lot of money!!!!! Benson Edwards is the kind of person who reaped great rewards from the GOP's tax cuts! I thought you loved rich guys?

    ohhhhhhhh I get it now. Edwards is rich and became rich from helping others!! That makes him EVIL!! The only way o become rich is to rape the American people, find tax loop holes in Bermuda and hire cheap labor! If you get rich that way, Benson supports it. If you get wealthy helping the less fortunate.... DIE!!!!!


    Benson than goes on a rant about cerbral palsey!! Claiming there is no such thing as this severe handicap can possibly occuring from malpractice!!! I love how CONS all of a sudden become doctors.


    Benson, we are not stupid, we understand your source comes from medical lobbiests, not the scientific community. Take the propaganda from your lobbiest buddies, shove it ! Just because you believe anything some hack conservative journal tells you, does not mean the rest of us care nor are listening...

    There is one thing I learned, not a single right winger EVER has a genuine argument. All of theur arguments are based on "facts" created by special interest groups and lobbiests. Whatever you have to say is a LIE, put into your head by big special interest.

    So according to Benson's logic, you can only get rich if you are only helping yourself, not others. If you help others somehow your a bad person, Edwards is a demon because he helped families. 90% of America would laugh in your face
    Lastly:

    How much did the lawyer pocket on the McDonald's spilled coffee lawsuit?


    NOTE the case never went anywhere. By the way, how long are you going to recycle the same f*cking 20 year old talking point. And while your still recycling the same sh*t, you might want to know tat the individual only got coverage to pay for her severe second degree burns, not the millions she sued for. Instead of dweling on a few bad apples, understand the COURTS MUST REMAIN A PLACE WHERE EVERYBODY CAN HAVE THEIR CASE MADE. That Benson is DEMOCRACY .know you want to shut out 99% of us from access to the courts and only permit lawsuts by corperatations against individuals. you simply loathe that 99% of us Americans who take home a paycheck, pay taxes and bills. You look at us as the peoblem. You want a utopian society for the rich by the rich, with the rest of us, having no access to a court room, no rights at the workplace, no clean water and air, no healthcare, NOTHING.

    Conservatism in it's very nature is Leon Struss philosophy, the people are stupid, not smart enough to have Democracy and deserve to be controlled by the elite few. Strauss is the heart of conservatism.. An Anti-people, Anti-populist, pro-aristrocracy and elitist philosophy. THAT IS WHAT CONSERVSTISM REALLY IS.

    Biggest difference between Liberals and CONS. Cons think people are stupid, evil and worthless, and need to be controlled by the elite. liberals believe in people and the common good.

    Simple as that
    conservartism is the exaxct opposite of everything democracy is about. It is a cancer on America, I'm dedicated to exposing the flawed ideology that it really is, and so are millions of others. THE PEOPLE WILL WIN, ALL OF US, not just the RICH. Deal with it Benson, your ideology suits NOBODY but people like Edwards, Rupert Murdoch, Trump, Warren Buffett. The richest of the rich.......

    Im 34 years old, I will continue to fight against conservatism until the day I die. I'm a proud patriot and your ideology is a cancer on our great nation

    If we can eliminate conservatism from the American lexicon forever,
    we will once more be the greatest nation in the world.
    FIGHT CONSERVATISM!
    MAKE AMERICA THE GREATEST IN THE WORLD. REVERSE EVERYTHING RONALD REAGAN STARTED AND RETURN AMERICA TO IT'S GLORY!

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 27 July, 2007 14:25  

  • Since we are on the topic of lawsuits, here is a frivilious lawsuit
    Pharmacists have sued Washington state over a new regulation that requires them to sell emergency contraception, also known as the "morning-after pill."

    In a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into choosing between "their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs




    This is a frivilious lawsuit, who is forcing these pharmacists to remain pharmacists, they can always find a different job, if they can't do their job properly. If their job is to fill perscriptions, FILL THEM, or find another job.

    THIS is a worthless lawsuit, not the lawsuits invloving death and serious injury. Benson? what is your opinion on this case?

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 27 July, 2007 14:54  

  • MOP:

    Just as Flight Attendants are trained to do more than pour sodas and pass out chips, registered Pharmacists have bachelor degrees at a minumum and are supposed to be doing far more than simply passing out pills.

    Pharmacists are supposed to know about drug interactions and are not supposed to give any of their customers medications that they have reason to believe will cause them harm.

    While you personally may not believe in the Right to Life, others, including some Pharmacists, do. Those who do, believe that causing a fetus to be aborted by chemical means is causing the death of a defined human being, a baby-to-be.

    Washington state appears to be requiring that a Pharmacist with moral convictions only to dispense medications that improve life, instead to dispense medications whose sole intent is to cause the death of a fellow human being.

    Of course, a degreed registered Pharmacist can throw his/her training away and accept a lower-paying job, move to another state or country, etc. I do not see these as reasonable choices to force these people to make, and I do not see the lawsuit as frivolous.

    By Blogger Chromium, at 27 July, 2007 18:15  

  • "Of course, a degreed registered Pharmacist can throw his/her training away and accept a lower-paying job, move to another state or country, etc. I do not see these as reasonable choices to force these people to make, and I do not see the lawsuit as frivolous."

    I do.

    If they can't provide ALL the store's customers with the services they were trained to administer, they need to shape up and give up their jobs.

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 27 July, 2007 19:56  

  • Hash,

    Pharmacists can be any age from 20's to senior citizens.

    Many surely entered the field never thinking they would be ever asked to provide do-it-yourself kits to kill humans in development.

    By Blogger Chromium, at 28 July, 2007 14:36  

  • They have nothing to say about the matter. Their job is to dispense medication, and nothing else.

    Kindly keep your fundamentalist, fanatical judgements to yourself.

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 28 July, 2007 18:15  

  • Attn Pharmacists:

    Give me the fraken legal drugs prescribed by my doctor and keep your self-righteous noses out of my personal business.

    If that isn't clear, find your sorry fraken asses another profession.

    By Blogger elmonica, at 28 July, 2007 20:12  

  • Hash: Their job is to dispense medication, and nothing else.

    The average annual base salary of all 910 respondents to our on-line survey was $94,927. Retail pharmacists averaged $92,291, while their institutional brethren pulled down an average of $97,545. Pharmacists in retail earned $47 per hour, compared with the $49 per hour institutional pharmacists were paid.

    Pharmacists in our survey worked an average of 40.94 hours per week, down just a tick from 41 hours in 2004...


    Source: http://www.drugtopics.com/drugtopics/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=408159

    It would seem to me that either:

    These "dispensers" are wildly overpaid or that you are ignorant of the responsibilites pharmacists have.

    By Blogger Chromium, at 30 July, 2007 09:42  

  • Benson:While you personally may not believe in the Right to Life, others, including some Pharmacists, do


    I personally do not believe in the Death penalty, so I'm not an executioner.

    A Pharmacists main job indeed is to dispense DRUGS as in filling perscriptions. I worked for a pharmacy in High School for 3 years, this is what HE DID. Nothing else(well he paid me and managed the store too) I'm sure he understood , different interactions between drugs etc. etc.

    but his main job 99...99.99% of it, was filling scripts..

    You guys prove once more how inconsistant the conservative view point is, and how they take fetus over child.

    Edwards is a DEMON because he defended families who's children DIED from a dangerous product, DEMON, FRIVILIOUS LAWSUIT!!!!!!!!
    Benson is turning Edwards into P.T Barnum, claiming all of Edwards work is fraud Edwards never did anything good for society
    defending a dead child, is nothing good, in the mind of these warped wack jobs1111

    but in the warped, insane world of a conservative, someone who DOES not have to be a PHARMASIST, objects to something that is part of his job, is suing!!!! and your o.k with it, suing over perscribing a birth control pill!!!!

    see, they take fetus over child

    Credit to Benson, how actually ansering my question! Good for you , even though your reasoning is wack-a-doooo

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 30 July, 2007 10:26  

  • My Bad, Benson, didged the question, Missouri jumped in. Thanks for answering, even though the reasoning is flawed.

    a pharmasist can make big money depeneding on the kind of pharmasist. The guys filing these lawsuits ,are indeed pill dispensers, nothing else.
    There are pharmasists more involved with research etc... not the individulas sueing over morning after. They are script fillers

    They have to have knowledge on the drugs
    but most of their job is counting pills, putting them in a bottle, and making a label. I worked for a pharmasist. All those little pills everywhere........ xanax, vicodin, oxycotiun, a whole basement, Limbaugh would have freaked out!

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 30 July, 2007 10:32  

  • MOP:

    Edwards is a DEMON because he defended families who's children DIED from a dangerous product

    Well, not quite...He is a demon because he used junk science and essentially a seance in the courtroom, and IT WORKED!

    Hash:

    THIS is a worthless lawsuit, not the lawsuits invloving death and serious injury. Benson? what is your opinion on this case?

    Kindly keep your fundamentalist, fanatical judgements to yourself.


    While I admit I am not Benson, the person you directed your question toward, I think it is fair in a forum for other participants to respond, especially when the chosen one does not.

    And, for the record, I am NOT a fundamentalist, but I do in a general way understand their points of view, just as I understand the points of view of those on the progressive/liberal side. In other forums, I have framed the discussions on the equivalent of a theatrical follow spot, which is one spotlight constantly on a major character in the play. In the abortion area, the fundamentalists have their "follow spots" trained on the fetus, while the progressives have their "follow spots" trained on the pregnant person. I understand both points of view, and see merits in both argument series.

    By Blogger Chromium, at 30 July, 2007 14:07  

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