Edwards: 'Where is America?'

[struggle4progress]

Ben Schreckinger
Issue date: 3/11/09 Section: Campus News

... last night his focus was global poverty, he said, calling domestic and foreign problems "completely intertwined."

"Over the long term, what happens in the rest of the world has such an enormous impact on what's happening to us that you can't really separate the two," Edwards said.

Edwards told the story of a woman who could not afford to heat the home she shared with her four children. He said the woman told her children each day, "Please don't tell anybody at school about what's happening here because they will take you away from me" ...

Global poverty is also a matter of national interest for the U.S., Edwards said. "What we do cooperatively with the rest of the world - that will decide what happens to us, what happens to the planet" ... http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2009/03/11/CampusNews/Edwards.where.Is.America-3667842.shtml



Q&A with John Edwards
Jenna Stark
Issue date: 3/11/09 Section: Campus News

... Going forward, do you see a return to electoral politics or issue advocacy? Where do you see yourself?

I want to spend my life working on the core issue that I'm most passionate about, which is helping the poor, and that means both dealing with poverty in America and addressing the issue worldwide.

In December I spent some time in Haiti working in the slums outside of Port-au-Prince, or in Port-au-Prince actually. Cities like Cite Soleil. These are the kinds of things I care the most about and I want to focus on ...

It's hard for me to see me doing electoral politics. What I want to do is - I want to help the poor in whatever way I can have the most positive effect. If that means working in poor communities in America, then it will be that. If it means working with organizations that help the poor globally, it will be that. Whatever, working in the government, it will be that. It doesn't matter to me. For example, I think Vice President Gore - who I'm not comparing myself to - Vice President Gore has shown very clearly what is possible for somebody to accomplish outside of government in the area that he cared deeply about, which was the environment ...

http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2009/03/11/CampusNews/Qa.With.John.Edwards-3667848.shtml



March 11, 2009 12:50 PM
John Edwards Speaks On Poverty And Moral Standards

(CBS) ... Edwards also talked about the American health care system, which he called "completely dysfunctional," and the country's reliance on foreign oil. Of the current fuel situation, Edwards said, “it is not just an environmental nightmare, but something that has a stranglehold on the U.S. economy” ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/03/11/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry4859393.shtml



Former presidential candidate John Edwards speaks at Brown
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, March 11, 2009
By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Staff Writer

... Last night he addressed the infidelity issue only obliquely when a student who said she had been one of his campus organizers asked if it was “just or fair” for candidates to be held to a “higher” moral standard.

“Here is what I believe,” he answered. “It is not for a candidate to decide what is appropriate and what’s not appropriate. That’s something every single American has a right to decide for themselves. We live in a free country where people have a right to voice their views and have a right to form their views without limitation…

“It is not for me to impose on anybody what they can observe and can’t observe. I have my own view, which I will keep to myself. But I believe it is enormously important to have the best thinkers and the best visionary people to lead our country where it needs to go” ... http://www.projo.com/news/politics/content/edwards_speaks_at_Brown_03-11-09_56DK9CE_v5.3e67a98.html



John Edwards speaks about poverty, dodges morals question
By Barbara Barrett • McClatchy Newspapers • March 11, 2009

... Elizabeth Edwards, who is undergoing treatment for cancer, has a book coming out this spring entitled “Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities.” The publisher, Random House, has described it as a “short, powerful, pocket-sized inspirational book,” but has not indicated whether it will address the affair ...

http://www.freep.com/article/20090311/NEWS15/90311012

[rurallib]

1. I still love these two

too damn bad he screwed up. I would have loved to see this dynamic duo in HHS driving the health care change.

[tonysam]

2. John Edwards Messed Up, but the Media

made sure he would be driven out of politics forever. He was the one who really challenged the status quo, and he had to go.

[rurallib]

6. there was no doubt the way he was shut out by the media a year ago

that they were going after him. I bet the day he confessed Murdoch and his lieutenants all the way down to Billo and Sean the dickhead just pissed all over themselves.

[tblue37]

9. And yet David Vitter is not only still an elected official, he is

parading around in front of cameras criticizing Obama as he tries to clean up the mess CheneyBushCo and their Republican enablers left.

[earth mom]

10. Make that-Edwards was the only one that the public loved that challenged the status quo.

Kucinich is also working hard to challenge the powers that be, but he is not beloved the way John & Elizabeth Edwards are.

I am convinced that Edwards would have won if the powers that be hadn't pushed him out.

[struggle4progress]

3. He shot himself in the knee politically, but he may still make an important contribution

on poverty issues

He's motivated, and he's trying to understand real connections

[Myrina]

4. but we need to feel sorry for the billionaires who're just millionaires ...

... that woman who can't afford to heat her house? That's a personal responsibility problem. She's just lazy & probably doesn't really care about her kids.

Let's instead tell sob stories about the uber-wealthy who have one less zero in their fiefdoms.

:sarcasm:

[Deja Q]

5. Human beings are a complex species, regardless of what the media sells politicians as being.

Mr Edwards still raises good points, even if he's morally ambiguous. Some won't care what he does, and for those who do care half will think he's bad and the others will support him blindly. Keeping at the topic afoot, fighting global poverty, is the discussion and on that he is moral and right.


K&R

[rurallib]

7. Okay - Edwards made some personal mistakes but on public policy

I believe he was the only one who was hitting the right notes. Had it not been for him, health care would not have been a major issue in 2008. He made Clinton and Obama talk about that as well as poverty. He was the first to line up behind unions. I could go on. I certainly wish he and/or Elizabeth were in the administration helping shape policy. If he were i don't believe we would have had a health care conference where single payer had to beg for a spot at the table.
We are the only dumb fucking country in the world where we insist our candidates be near virgins. Sarkozy was shacking up with his model girlfriend when he was elected. A Greek president had his wife and mistress living in the government palace. On and on
I would surely rather see John Edwards helping shape policy than Larry Summers.

[Triana]

8. what rurallib said exactly. n/t

[question everything]

12. We could have lost the White House, and perhaps the House and Senate

had his affair been discovered after he got the nomination, or selected to be V.P.

Our attitude toward affairs is not the issue. When you are running for office you have to know your audience. To think that he could pull that off cast a bad shadow on him of being either arrogant or dense.

I have been his supporter in 2004 and in 2008, even got to shake his hand after braving a -20 degree weather when he came to town. But the way he thought that it would not matter, or that it would not be found discredited not only him personally, but the issues that he advocates.

[struggle4progress]

13. Yeah, that would have been a train-wreck -- and I say that as a person

who strongly supported him

[Stevepol]

14. He should have come clean at the moment he threw his hat in the ring.

The affair happened before he started on the campaign. I think if he'd had a press conference with his wife and explained that they had gone thru a personal crisis due to his own bad judgment and come out the stronger for it, the American people would have forgiven him.

I could be wrong, but I think the real problem was his continued attempt to hide the affair. The Clintons didn't directly deny some of the extra-marital accusations, but they stood together and answered questions about it. If some reporter had found out the details of Edwards' affair, which of course would have happened, he would have had a much stronger case for his own honesty and integrity. Who hasn't stumbled? The American people are very forgiving of missteps, but dishonesty and trying to hide things always has a bad effect.

Glad to see Edwards engaged in the field he cares most about.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. I was an Edwards supporter

I even went so far as to extend to him my continued support after his statments agaist GLBT equality. But, after it became known that he was having an affair while he stood on multiple stages and declared that his Southern Baptist traditional view of marriage was so much a part of him that he just could not support same sex people getting married, he said 'that's one man and one woman'. And the whole thing. He was stinking of his mistress while he claime to be too moral to support marriage equality. Too traditional in his view of marriage, he said 'that's just part of me'.
I understand people still want to like him, but chew on the fact that he slandered good Demcoratic couples as a method of distracting from his own lack of ethics, and that he risked the election, not just for himself, but for all of us. He thought he could get by with the lies, with parading around talking about "one man and one woman" while having at least two women. At least.
He had no reason to say those anti-equality things. He knew his 'sanctity of marriage' line was bullshit. But he said it all, more than once.

People as rich as the Edwards could do much to help the poor, without any attention being drawn to the Edwards. But will they do those things that do not come with a grandstand? We shall see, all of us shall see.

[question everything]

17. I wonder. Has he ver served food for the poor

the way Michelle has done recently?

I think you are right. He can really go around and helping the poor in actions and money, without necessarily give a speech (and get paid for it?) to remind people of his hypocrisy.

No one would attack him if he is someplace building a home or serving food the way he did in New Orleans several times. Or were these actions only for the benefit of TV audience?

One thing about the affair. He said that it ended before he announced his running, yet, there were many videos showing her after that. And it is not even certain when he told Elizabeth. One would think that at least she would have managed it better - if she were not too sick for that.

Some of her appearances after he dropped from the race I thought that her voice was hoarse and wondered about it.

[DavidDvorkin]

18. He mistook another woman's vagina for his wife's?

Yeah, that's such an easy mistake to make.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

11. In our Democratic tent

there's certainly room for John Edwards' voice.

K&R

[acmavm]

15. There sure is. But like someone upthread pointed out, we're too busy

bailing out criminal millionaires/billionaires to worry about a family that can't afford heat.

Heat, that's one of those things like a home, or food. Only the uber-rice have a right to those things. We just have the right to guarantee they stay uber-rich.