[MadIvan]

I think we're making a mistake saying Edwards is anything in particular, liberal or conservative - he is a huckster, a cheap populist, and thoroughly vapid.

It would be the height of irresponsibility to place him a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Regards, Ivan

[Mike Bates]

. . .he is a huckster, a cheap populist, and thoroughly vapid.

What's the use of going to law school if you can't benefit from the training? :)

[Quilla]

Huckster! No truer words, Ivan.

In 1985, a 31-year-old North Carolina lawyer named John Edwards stood before a jury and channeled the words of an unborn baby girl.

Referring to an hour-by-hour record of a fetal heartbeat monitor, Mr. Edwards told the jury: "She said at 3, `I'm fine.' She said at 4, `I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing O.K.' Five, she said, `I'm having problems.' At 5:30, she said, `I need out.' "

But the obstetrician, he argued in an artful blend of science and passion, failed to heed the call. By waiting 90 more minutes to perform a breech delivery, rather than immediately performing a Caesarean section, Mr. Edwards said, the doctor permanently damaged the girl's brain.

"She speaks to you through me," the lawyer went on in his closing argument. "And I have to tell you right now — I didn't plan to talk about this — right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you."

The jury came back with a $6.5 million verdict in the cerebral palsy case, and Mr. Edwards established his reputation as the state's most feared plaintiff's lawyer.

Source: In Trial Work, Edwards Left a Trademark