Flashback - October 15, 2004: An Edwards Outrage

The Washington Post ^ | October 15, 2004 | Charles Krauthammer

[new yorker 77]

After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry.

This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa:
"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.

Where does one begin to deconstruct this outrage?

First, the inability of the human spinal cord to regenerate is one of the great mysteries of biology. The answer is not remotely around the corner. It could take a generation to unravel. To imply, as Edwards did, that it is imminent if only you elect the right politicians is scandalous.

Second, if the cure for spinal cord injury comes, we have no idea where it will come from. There are many lines of inquiry. Stem cell research is just one of many possibilities, and a very speculative one at that. For 30 years I have heard promises of miracle cures for paralysis (including my own, suffered as a medical student). The last fad, fetal tissue transplants, was thought to be a sure thing. Nothing came of it.

[doug from upland]

What a despicable human being plantiff attorney ambulance chasing scum. Hey, nice hair, John.

[new yorker 77]

Agreed.

There are some good lawyers though.

These are the lawyers that protect you against people like Edwards.

[doug from upland]

Yes, and I know several lawyers who are not ambulance chasers. As a class, however, the damage that the attorney class has been doing in the last several decades is outrageous.

[new yorker 77]

True.

[usslsm51]

John Edwards. An Al Gore Clone!

[MHGinTN]

John Edwards is typical of the leadership in the democrap party ... any lie, any pander, any manipulation of the sovereigns will do and is beyond right or wrong so long as it empowers the democrats in their lust to regain control over this nation. The democrat party is far more dangerous to the long term welfare of this Republic than even al qaeda. If one doubts it, just look at the 44 million plus abortion killings in this nation supported and defended for so long by the democrat party and now numbering so many alive babies murdered in partial birth abortion which the democrats defend with such passion, telling you the people that it is 'a woman's right to choose' ... the right to choose a hitman to kill an alive unborn only exists in the democrat mind when it will empower them to more votes of a particular constituency. The same lack of moral compass now drives their seditious and outright treasonous behavior in the war on terror, so focused are they on destroying this administration as their way back into power that they enthusiastically work against our military and our intel communities and thus aid our enemies. Such deceitful bastards are too dangerous to ever hold the reigns of power again.

[janis]

Dr. K has clout. This excoriation is going to find its way to Kerry and Edwards and I hope it hurts.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I remember hearing Edwards say this and later asking a Liberal friend about Edwards' supernatural abilities. He didn't know Edwards had made the remark about Superman...

[xjcsa]

Dr. K has clout. This excoriation is going to find its way to Kerry and Edwards and I hope it hurts.

If it hasn't found its way there in a year and a half, it's moving awfully slowly.