How Low Can We Sink? Someone Just Called Elizabeth Edwards "Unstable"

[McCamy Taylor]

I am not going to post a link to it. Lots of people here have been guilty of this kind of behavior. Because someone posted a thread about some political gossip that said that Elizabeth Edwards got in an argument with Obama about health care in which he would not admit that his plan was not universal and because the article said that EE hates Hillary Clinton so now John will not endorse either Obama or Hillary a poster said that "Elizabeth is unstable".

:cry:

In case people have forgotten, in addition to calling Gore a liar, the media whores called him crazy, too, especially Charles Krauthammer, a psychiatrist turned right wing hit writer who has attacked all three major Democratic candidates this time.

Not so long ago, the news media spent three days saying Hillary had multiple personality disorder because she was nice during a debate but then got angry a few days later over something in a news conference. This was a gaslight trick to keep her from doing what Bill does so effectively---calling out the press on their lies.

And now, we are calling Elizabeth Edwards "unstable" because of a rumor.

Something is very, very wrong on this board.

Note: I have corrected this post to include the fact that the original article included material that would cause both self styled Obama and Hillary supporters to lose their cool and post offensive and inflammatory things about her.

[FrenchieCat]

1. Let's just say that it was a Hillary supporter....NOT an Obama supporter.

[apocalypsehow]

16. The more I see from that crowd, the more I begin to understand just how vicious and vile

a good many of the HRC boosters truly are.

edit: grammar & hasty posts no go together.

[McCamy Taylor]

27. It takes two to make a civil war. Blaming one side is a chicken-egg conundrum that does not solve

the problem.

[JI7]

29. you are the one who blamed one side in your OP

[goletian]

53. takes two to battle, but both dont have to be on the right side.

thats no way to rationalize the repuke like behavior ive been seeing from hillary supporters on various forums. even citing repuke sources and getting high fives from repukes themselves (on other forums). its disgusting.

[UALRBSofL]

73. McCamy I remember that thread

I'll say it was an Obama supporter, after they posted Elizabeth hated Clinton44. They were not happy because Edwards felt Obama was acting arrogant and was very vague on his issues to help the poor and needy whereas Clinton44 was very specific.

[JoFerret]

51. And the evidence for that is?

None.

[crankychatter]

57. an anonymous person on a blog said this and it merits a top post?

this spin is way too thin

Nobody on the Obama campaign nor any DUer top posted some crap like this

only YOU, OP

[roguevalley]

75. I hope they were tombstoned for that remark.They certainly aren't a

dem.

[dogday]

81. Can you provide a link please?

would like to read it for myself.. It always helps to see it in print...

[anonymous171]

2. The person who said that was a Hillary supporter.

FYI.

[Shakespeare]

6. Hey, there's sisterhood for ya!

Just unbelievable. :eyes:

[JoFerret]

52. And you know that because?

Based on what?

[chascarrillo]

54. I'm guessing because the person who said that is a Hillary supporter.

[JoFerret]

71. Not accurate and ...Not a good guess

.

[chascarrillo]

78. Hahahaha

:rofl:`:rofl: :rofl:

[JoFerret]

82. Evidence?

.

[chascarrillo]

86. Find out the person who said that. Then, look at their other posts.

[JoFerret]

88. Crikey!

is it worth it?
is there a link?

[chascarrillo]

89. Can't link to someone else's posts to attack them... so sorry.

There's a google search box up in the right hand corner, though. Feel free to use it.

Good grief.

[ProSense]

3. Will you admit that

Hillary told some outrageous and despicable lies?

[madfloridian]

4. There are no rules here anymore.

You just have to "lower your expectations".

Mine hit the ground months ago.

People can post a lie, send their buddies to recommend it and pow it is on the greatest page.

[McCamy Taylor]

35. Thank you for being a voice of reason.

:applause:

[Blue_In_AK]

5. The person who said that

is known for making off-the-wall statements, in my opinion, anyway. Not worth fretting over.

[McCamy Taylor]

37. Thank you for being non-partisan. That is a real accomplishment right now!

:applause:

[tabasco]

7. Then leave.

The internet is a rough place and appointing yourself the politeness monitor is stupid.

Especially after some of the trash that you've posted.

[elleng]

13. To WHOM are you speaking?

McCamy?

Frenchie?

'Politeness monitor?'

Having a bad day?

[merh]

8. Hell, you just broadcasted the comment

and gave it more "press time" than it would have gotten as the lone, looney comment in that thread. What purpose does that serve?

Alert on that comment and write your concerns to the mods and don't give that person or their post more notice than they deserve.

It was an awful thing to write, I just don't think a thread about it does anything more than give it more attention than it deserved. Alerting still works in this forum and the mods do a great job considering all the lunacy found here.

[MADem]

12. Why not address the issue IN THE ORIGINAL THREAD? That seems like the GUTSY thing to do. NT

[merh]

15. what are you yelling at me for?

I don't think this thread is appropriate and I think that post in the other thread should have been alerted on.

[MADem]

19. I am not yelling. Yelling is every word in all caps in an entire post.

The occasional caps on a word is for EMPHASIS, you see.

I am essentially concurring with your ASSESSMENT, as well.

[merh]

22. oh, okay

sorry. :blush:

:hi:

[MADem]

28. Never worry. It's oftimes difficult to detect "tone" in the printed word!

:hi:

[McCamy Taylor]

25. It deserves to be broadcast plus the fact that only 3 people responded to it to defend EE.

[merh]

31. Nope, you just gave that poster air time and repeated the slur

Alert is your friend.

[karynnj]

80. 3 people slamming one post seems reasonable

Many likely thought that others had already made the point that the comment was in bad taste. Look at the words used for HRC or Obama - "unstable" is less bad than some! Every surrogate has been attacked - including Clark when he endorsed HRC and Kerry when he endorsed Obama - in both case endorsing was their right.

I didn't see the post - but if I would have I more likely would have simply alerted - and you have no idea if many people did that.

[dogday]

87. Now that is a freaking shame and a half..

I am amazed and saddened at the venom and spew of some on this forum... I refuse to badmouth another Democrat.. I am so sick of hearing Democrats smearing other Democrats... Grow up People.....

[2rth2pwr]

9. I said Elizabet sounds unstable. "Sounds"

The article in question, in my opinion the way that it is written, makes her sound unstable.


Maybe it's just you.

[stillcool]

10. I think half the problem with the..

condemnation of good people comes from the 'media' talk shows. The way the talking heads go at it is amplified here with added emphasis for nastiness. Not an easy feat in some cases.

[McCamy Taylor]

38. Good point! Thanks!

:applause:

[JI7]

11. it was a Hillary person who called her that , are you still upset ?

[mac2]

14. Americans treat the sick as being unstable.

I like Elizabeth Edwards a lot. She is so down to earth, intelligent, and giving of her time.

Does it matter who said it? It was very wrong and cruel.

Very wrong by who...I don't know? It might even be a Republican mole.

[LakeSamish706]

17. "Does it matter who said it?" Yes it matters who made the statement...

It proves the point that the Hillary supporters will say/do anything at all to win and impossible contest.

[JoFerret]

48. It merely "proves"

one person allegedly did.

[mac2]

58. Yes. One person out of how many on DU?

[JoFerret]

72. We ALL should know better

...and stop using these sweeping generalizations about people and groups of people. We should know better. (Now THERE's a generalization for you!)

[JI7]

18. yes it matters when the OP is pointing fingers at those who DIDN'T say it

[apocalypsehow]

21. "It might even be a Republican mole" - there's more than a few HRC boosters who fit that profile to

a "T".

[McCamy Taylor]

33. Thank you for your compassionate post. I expected a lot more like this!

:applause:

[anonymous171]

20. ~~~It was the rumor that she "hated Hillary's guys" that sparked the comment.

[McCamy Taylor]

23. It doesn't matter if a Hillary or an Obama person said it. It is still not Democratic

to call an important member of our party "Unstable". Or to call Edwards a Phony.

I deliberately did not post the identity of the person who made the remark. It could have been either a Hillary poster---since everyone knows about the long standing rumor that EE is feuding with Hillary---or an Obama poster---because of the context of the story.

Rather than acknowledging that something like this is not productive or nice, people here rushed to point fingers so that they could accelerate the flame war.

It amazes me that people are identified on this board as "pro-Obama" or "pro-Hillary". This is Democratic Underground. Where do I go to sign up as Pro Democratic?

I did respond to the post. I am one of three people who thought it important to correct the record and say something about it.

[anonymous171]

24. It does because you implied they did it b/c of something Elizabeth said about Obama.

You made it seem as though this Obama supporter was sore with her for disagreeing with him.

[JI7]

26. you pointed fingers by claiming it was because Obama was criticized

and by that implying it was an Obama supporter.

when it was a Hillary supporter because of the part in the article about Elizabeth Edwards hating Hillary.

[McCamy Taylor]

30. OK, I have further clarified the original post to make my point which is that EE got called

"unstable" a euphemism for a crazy woman and that was just the same old same old on this board and the only thing anyone objected to was seeing the tit lined up on their column as a tat.

[chascarrillo]

55. You still imply that it was an Obama supporter that said it. Instead, it was a Hillary supporter.

Shame.

[McCamy Taylor]

32. The history of this thread is now more fascinating than the thread itself

and it tells a lot about GDP so I will relate it.

I was reading a thread about a rumor that Obama got into an argument with Elizabeth Edwards over health care and that was why John changed his mind about endorsing him. I noticed that a poster with a 1000 posts said that Elizabeth Edwards sounds unstable. Only two people objected. I posted a response about how the corporate media attacked Gore and Hillary as "crazy" too. Later, I posted this thread about it. In my original post, I summarized the article which was cited, which gave the impression that EE was slurred by an Obama poster. I had not paid any attention to the affiliation of the person making the post. To me, it was unimportant. What mattered was that at DU, this kind of thing has become acceptable and only two people besides me cared to comment in the original thread. I am sorry that I did not anticipate that this would be a problem, but on the other hand I am not sorry, because it revealed that there are some very distorted values operating here at DU at the moment.

The war between the candidates being fought by their surrogates on this boards has taken precedence over basic issues like fairness to other human beings.

In my OP as originally written I decided not to copy the quote. However, because the nature of the article and the way I wrote the post suggested that it was made by an Obama poster, there was general outrage with a flurry of Obama posters showing up to defend their side against attack and to denounce Hillary's side.

I have corrected the OP to make it clear that the article cited contained information that might have offended either an Obama or a Hillary poster,

What still troubles me is that neither side seems to give a damn about Elizabeth Edwards. Primary concern was given to protecting the good name of Obama's camp. Secondary concern was assigning blame to Hillary's camp. Third was a denunciation of me for airing the dirty laundry of GPD where it could be viewed by all.

Elizabeth Edwards does not matter.

This is what is going to kill the Democratic Party. Not Hillary. Not Obama. The infighting. The lack of respect for human dignity.

Each side attacks brave people who have fought the Bush-Cheney injustice machine---Paul Krugman, Joe Wilson, Pat Leahy.

There are obviously RNC agitators here, but we can not all be agitators. Some of us must be Democrats.

In a the normal world, the response would have been 85% "No one should say that about Elizabeth Edwards" with one or two posts explaining that the original post was made by someone who was actually a Hillary supporter upset about the mention of a Hillary-Elizabeth feud. In the real world, compassion is more important and wins more friends that petty games of one-up-manship and name calling.

It is no wonder both Democratic candidate's ratings are dropping. Their "supporters" are not helping them at all.

[blonndee]

40. It's not that Elizabeth Edwards doesn't matter. It's that what some silly freak says about her

doesn't matter. That poster is always making weird statements and is all over the place. I think that explains the lack of outrage in this particular case. JMO, of course.

[McCamy Taylor]

43. Thanks! Good point.

:applause:

[rasputin1952]

34. For the record...Elizabeth Edwards is a warm, intelligent, friendly

individual with an overpowering outlook on life. Her smile could melt ice and she has endeared many.

Regardless of the verbiage, she is far from being unstable. She is facing a new crisis every day, and she is doing it with grace and dignity. The pressure she's had placed upon her would have broken a lesser person years ago...she has shown nothing but class throughout everything she has been through.

[McCamy Taylor]

39. I agree! Thanks for showing what compassion is.

:applause:

[MadBadger]

36. Is Elizabeth immune from the criticisms that everyone else has been given?

[Shakespeare]

41. She was called unstable because she doesn't like Hillary.

That's a completely different animal.

[McCamy Taylor]

44. No it isn't. It doesnt matter whether a socialist bullet or a fascist bullet kills you.

You are still dead.

[Shakespeare]

47. Oh, for cryin' out loud.

Missed my point altogether.

[McCamy Taylor]

42. No one should ever have to be called insane or a euphemism for it .

As I said in my reply in the original thread, this is one of the right wings most hurtful tactics, used against both Gore and Hillary to make them too fearful to speak out against the media conspiracy against them. If they complain, they are called paranoid.

Accusations of insanity have been used against women for hundreds of years and are particularly vicious.

[rasputin1952]

45. You might add that those accusations multiply expotentially

as to the financial worth and power of the woman.

[mac2]

59. The old European church killed many Herbalist women

calling them insane or witches. Their medical cures lost forever.

[Bongo Prophet]

46. Thankfully, I guess, i missed that. (at the SD convention in Texas) ---BUT I must say....

I respect elizabeth edwards greatly. She is a remarkable woman. No. doubt. about . that.

Far too many people here have gone into some pretty dark territory out of hyper partisan escalation. It is like unto a drug addiction, always taking more and more extreme positions and statements to produce the same "thrill" or shock value. Very sad, infuriating and dmaging to the soul and our mutual cause.

[krawhitham]

49. multiple personality disorder??? Are you watching Faux News again?

That would be bipolar anyway

[fujiyama]

50. That kind of thing is uncalled for

While I have criticized and yes, even attacked various aspects of Hillary's campaign, these kind of personal attacks over candidates' spouses is especially awful. The incivility and use of petty name calling (Hill Bots, Hill Shills, Obama cultists, etc) is especially immature.

[cooolandrew]

56. That sounds like no Democrat to me. It sounds like more infiltration. Elizabeth has my

proufound amiration for how strong she is.

[goldcanyonaz]

60. Hillary has been called much worse around here for months.

[greguganus]

61. but there's proof to what she's been called. n/t

[Barack_America]

62. Unfortunately, that's actually an improvement around here.

A while back a post suggested that Edwards drop out of the race so he could take Elizabeth alone to die in peace.

That one blew my mind.

[Penndems]

85. What?! OMG, that is absolutely despicable!

:wtf:

[MethuenProgressive]

63. "We"? The DUbamas are NOT "we" - they aren't even Obama supporters.

The majority of DU members, and the majority of Du's Obama supporters, are decent people.
The DUbamas are *the* rotten apple in DU's barrel.

[GoldieAZ49]

64. the free fall is still in it's early stages

the bottom feeders have yet to get started

[devilindisguise]

65. So much animosity

I believe that many are just jealous of John and Elizabeth and would love to be them. They're both beautiful and they are so happy, it makes me smile with delight. I merely laugh at the media whores. Most of them are uneducated, use bad grammar, and thus it rubs off on us and our children.

Elizabeth is a wonderful person, and I don't know why a difference of opinion would be reason to call a person "unstable".

[Beacool]

66. I posted the article and it's from a reputable source: New York Magazine.

What's wrong with the article? It speaks about both candidates in both negative and positive terms. Personally, I found it very interesting to know what may have transpired between Edwards and the other two candidates during their private meetings. I have now a better understanding of why Edwards has withholden his endorsement for so long.

I have seen on this board some hateful and baseless attacks from both sides about both Hillary and Obama. I have seen people be allowed to bring cartoons right off the Freepers page without much ado, and I'm being criticized for bringing a thought provoking article? We can't engage on the merits of the piece without engaging in insults?

I didn't bring it to cast aspersions on either candidate, but to have some intelligent exchange on its content. Isn't that what this board is about, to talk about politics, or is it just a fan club for each candidate's supporters where no criticism for either one is permitted?

Whatever............

[OzarkDem]

68. John Edwards had the same health care plan as Hillary

Its not surprising that he and Elizabeth would disagree with Obama on this point, not surprising at all. No doubt it has played an important role in their decision not to endorse him.

[OzarkDem]

67. Obama trolls are sick people

Divide and conquer is their primary method of attack.

If we are to save our country we need to discuss issues, not attack fellow Dems, especially women like Elizabeth Edwards who have done so much for health care reform.

Obama's health care plan is bad policy and would harm long term efforts to get universal coverage. Elizabeth is well versed enough on the topic to know this - that's why her husband had mandatory coverage as part of his health care plan. It would not be surprising if this is the reason she and John have not endorsed Obama.

Its really sad that Obama's supporters would attack her for standing on a very important principle.

[writes3000]

74. Since this consensus is that an apparent HILLARY supporter said it

Maybe you should take some responsibility for "your side" instead of recklessly throwing accusations around and fanning the flames.

Oh, that's right. You'd rather fan the flames. Embarassing.

[tammywammy]

79. You should read the thread

A Hillary supporter upthread admitted to it.

[City Lights]

83. Clue

less....

[JI7]

84. it was a scumbag Hillary supporter who said it

[Beacool]

69. I forgot to add,

I don't know who called Elizabeth "unstable". I have nothing but respect for Elizabeth, a strong woman who is going through a terrible personal ordeal that I wouldn't wish on anyone. I have prayed for her many times and sincerely hope that she's able to see her small children grow up.

I'm sorry if bringing a thought provoking article was the cause for some person to insult her. That's the problem with this board, we don't have people discussing civilly the issues, it's all about emotions and not political discourse.

[cooolandrew]

70. The differenc with the healthplan is Baraack has been more honest in his campaign and HRC has been..

lacking. To get anything in life I tend to put my faith in the most honest person.

[LowerManhattanite]

76. It was low-class, disgusting and flat-out offensive.

But for some, the smell of scorched earth is a f*cking aphrodisiac. :(

[Medusa]

77. Use the Alert

that's what it's there for.