For those who question the background of John Edwards ..........

[Tennessee Gal]

I have read a lot of attacks on the background of John Edwards here on DU. Most of them are uninformed and not backed up by facts. They are empty rhetoric.

I first read this article I am about to post in 2003. It impressed me then and it still does. It was written in 2001. It is long and very informative. I invite everyone here to read this.

This is how it begins.

JOHN EDWARDS, ESQ.

On August 5th, NBC's Meet the Press featured someone and something we're likely to see much more of in years to come: Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) squaring off against a nervous representative of the Bush administration.

The issue in this case was the so-called patients' bill of rights, and Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-G.A.) the Bush surrogate. Days earlier, the president had sweet-talked Norwood into a midnight deal that sharply restricted patients' right to sue their HMOs. Norwood, who for many years had advocated a much tougher bill, had essentially been suckered, and appeared acutely aware of this as he sat alongside Edwards, glumly resigned to defending a bad deal.

Tim Russert was on the attack, pressing Norwood about his recent yielding on patients' rights to sue in state courts: "Why did you abandon those views?" Norwood hemmed and hawed and finally was reduced to parroting the administration's line: "It is potentially possible that could ruin the employer-based health-care system in the country." Russert pressed him harder. "Do you believe that?" It turned out Norwood did not.

Russert then turned to Edwards, a trial lawyer by profession, who neatly summarized the deal's shortcomings. "Number one, this deal---which was written in the middle of the night, by the way---takes away rights that patients already have across the country," he explained. "Number two, it maintains the privileged special status that HMOs enjoy today. And, number three, it stacks the deck against patients when they're trying to hold HMOs accountable for what they do." Edwards also pointed out that a seemingly minor change in the bill's language had shifted accountability away from HMOs---something Norwood had failed to recognize and meekly agreed was "a mistake."

The discussion turned to caps on the amount of damages that negligent HMOs would face. Norwood had previously fought such caps and again stumbled in rationalizing his reversal. Edwards, who flat-out opposes capping damages, summed up his case in one line: "A right that's not enforceable doesn't mean anything." By the time Russert broke for commercial, Norwood had pretty much thrown in the towel.

Much, much more: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.green.html

[Catchawave]

1. Always one of my favorite articles about JE....

I post it on DU often, since it pretty much debunks the "phoney" charges that pop up frequently here.

Thanks for posting it again :hi:

[Tennessee Gal]

2. I just hope people will take the time to read it.

[Catchawave]

7. True Democrats will :)

One day I just posted the link to this article in response to the silly "attack" stuff. I was surprised how many "thank yous" that generated :D

[surfermaw]

22. This article should lead people to know why corporate have given him so little coverage

[DaLittle Kitty]

11. Do WE or Do WE NOT Want The MASTER Working on Our Behalf? Yes or No?

John Edwards is the ONLY Candidate who will work ... FOR US nad NOT Big Business... i.e., John is not a Corporatist... John Edwards is a POPULIST, the sworn adversary of... the Corporatists! :patriot:

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. Since corporations rule the U.S., and the media is corporations....

... and there are no *real* watchdog agencies to protect ordinary folks from corporations, the ONLY recourse ordinary people have, *is* TRIAL LAWYERS.

Thank God for trial lawyers. I would vote for a trial lawyer for president before any other professional.

[Tennessee Gal]

4. One correction.

I think you should say plaintiff trial lawyers.

John Edwards fought corporate defendent trial lawyers.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. Damn! You're absolutely right. My bad. PLAINTIFF TRIAL LAWYERS.

Plaintiff trial lawyers are the ONLY recourse we have. To show you how STUPID Americans can get with the brainwashing they're given, I know people who bash trial lawyers because they've heard right wingers and fascists bash them, but when they've been done wrong, they practically TRIP over themselves trying to right what has been done them. Case in point. A woman whose little tiny house was built on the wrong lot by a HUGE, very wealthy corporation. She attacks plaintiff lawyers left and right. But when they screwed with her tiny life savings, did she sit on her hands? Did she defend herself? Hell no. She went to the ONLY recourse we have in this country, PLAINTIFF TRIAL LAWYERS.

People just piss me off when they're so stupid that they run their mouth like parrots. :(

[havocmom]

5. Thanks for posting. Great read.

[Tennessee Gal]

6. Pass the article around ............

to those you know who question John Edwards' sincerity.

[havocmom]

20. You bet! I have a special file in my bookmarks:

'Info to use to refute foolishness' :thumbsup:

[Triana]

9. THANK YOU! (n/t)

[MadBadger]

10. I Only attack one part of his Background.....his Senate Record.

[Catchawave]

12. Dem Senator from a red state who defeated

a popular GOP incumbent. According to exit polls in 2004, would have easily kept his Senate seat, but chose not to run and fully put his energy into more progressive issues.

Nitpicking anyone's Senate "record", you're bound to find something you don't like or agree with. Move forward before I start on Obama's :silly:

[surfermaw]

35. He would have kelp his senate seat

adn by the way if he hadn't it would be becaue of the old Helm machine still in place. North Carolina is a Republican state and are more so since Nixon... Look at what the 10th dist. elected to know how much republicans know about what to elect...Mc Henry is the example of North Carolina savy a in electing any thing.

[sojourner]

13. and this article is about one important piece of that record. do you only focus on the "negatives"

or does he get props for getting it right and for saying then what he still says today?

[Tennessee Gal]

14. That is the point! He said it then and he says it now!

[OzarkDem]

23. Then you need to read the article, son

That's what its about.

[Armstead]

15. Kick

[Ninga]

16. Amen !

[Catchawave]

17. I liked this part:

Remembering this was written in 2001....


<snip> (my emphasis)

Afterward, Edwards explained that his proclivity for talking to constituents stems naturally from his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer. He came of age at a time when many lawyers were rightly viewed as heroes. They included people like Thurgood Marshall, who used the law to bring down the system of legal segregation in the South, and Ralph Nader, whose lawsuits forced an arrogant auto industry to install seatbelts and airbags, thereby saving thousands of lives. "My idealistic view of lawyers was that they could help people who couldn't help themselves, and couldn't fight for themselves," Edwards says. "Since childhood, I thought that's what being a lawyer was all about. I still think that, by the way. In that sense, the transition to the Senate was a very natural one."

Some time soon, John Edwards must decide whether he wants to continue that transition to the presidency. He has already acquired the bug for travel, endemic in future presidential candidates, which has taken him to Illinois, Florida, and California. In March, he made his first trip to Iowa, site of the first presidential test in 2004. The factors conventionally deemed attractive about his candidacy are easy to list: He is young (47), charismatic, and telegenic, hard-working and exceedingly bright. His flair for politics has enabled him, as a first-term senator, to take so successful a lead on the patients' bill that his party put him out front on several other issues. As a popular Southern Democrat, Edwards has the potential to break the Republican lock on the South that cost Al Gore every Southern state, despite his being a Southerner himself. And Democrats worried that Gore presents the party with a Bob Dole problem in 2004---unbeatable in the primary, ineffectual in the general election---find Edwards an attractive alternative. Even opponents are impressed with him: Charles Black, a GOP consultant with North Carolina ties, readily concedes that "Edwards has got a lot of Bill Clinton in him---without the ethical or moral problems."

<snip>

[stravu9]

18. Go John

.

[midnight]

19. This is all good stuff. Thanks for sharing

Edwards is uniquely situated to refute Bush's attacks on trial lawyers and tort reform because he's the living embodiment of how a trial lawyer can serve a regulatory function in the face of misbehaving corporations, cities, and professionals. Indeed, attacking him is one of the surest ways for Bush to inadvertently highlight his own greatest vulnerability: the perception among voters that he's a shill for corporate America. As Carlton Carl, the trial lawyers association spokesman, is quick to point out, "People hate insurance companies more than they hate lawyers." By reprising the '98 Senate race at the national level, Republicans play to Edwards' greatest strength. Yet according to Luntz and others, the conventional wisdom in Republican circles on how to beat Edwards can be summed up in one word: "occupation." Most people can distinguish between a good trial lawyer and a bad trial lawyer. Most people, but not, apparently, Republican strategists


"People hate insurance companies more than they hate lawyers." http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0110.gre...

[cynthia]

21. Excellent article

I have seen this one before, but I think it is worth reading again. It helps to get some background on your candidate.

[Tennessee Gal]

24. Kicking this for the goodness of John Edwards.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

25. K&R Hey Obama fans ,check this out!

:dem: :patriot: Thank You! Tennessee Gal, Highly Recommended, SAVED! KICKED! :pals: :kick:

[Tennessee Gal]

26. Kick for the truth about John.

[OzarkDem]

27. This is when bipartisanship in Congress died

Charlie Norwood worked hard to develop a good Patients Bill of Rights bill and brought together a real bipartisan coalition of co-sponsors. Then Bush and behind the scenes lobbyists (one prominent one was the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation founder and Bush Pioneer Nancy Brinker) worked behind the scenes to kill the bills in Conference.

Bush knee-capped Norwood in a late night session w/ Rove in the WH, then handed him a pre-written amendment of the PBR to be passed in Conference, riddled with poison pills that took away patients' rights to sue.

It was also a watershed moment for me when I came to loathe the Komen Foundation and the Race for the Cure - when I learned they were nothing more than a front organization to stop breast cancer survivors from passing health care reform legislation.

PBR was all about protecting the rights of patients, including their right to private action. Edwards did a good job on this, but I suspect it was one of the incidents that led him to become frustrated with the Senate.

[Catchawave]

28. The American Red Cross is another org I'll never, ever

support again.

Didn't they raise a billion dollars after 9-11, then remodeled their offices? And another gazillion after Katrina, most that hasn't been accounted for?

You know, if we ever find the cure for cancer, poverty, world hunger, diasters (!?), most "humanitarian" orgs will go out of business! Vote Republican! :sarcasm:

[unapatriciated]

37. don't forget the donated blood they poured down the drain...

after 9/11 that they could have sent to Doctors Without Borders or similar organizations. In 1960 many of my dads fellow union members donated blood for my sister (leukemia) because it was not designated to my sister, our family received a big bill from the red cross, it took my parents ten years to pay of my sisters medical bills and that was with insurance. She passed away and didn't need all of the blood donated so that sold it to others in need. So if you donate blood designate or do it through a childrens hospital.



edited for spelling and typing too fast and dropping words.

[Tennessee Gal]

29. Thank you. I did not know that about Komen.

[OzarkDem]

30. They are a very bad organization

and unfortunately are trying to get in on the health care reform debate and the elections right now.

DO NOT TRUST THEM! They are funded and controlled by corporations who oppose health care reform.

[Turner Ashby]

31. The Sta Rite case (where the little girl was disemboweled)

is interesting for another reason. Edwards was chosen because no other lawyer would reduce their standard fee. The standard contingency fee for a lawyer is 33 1/3 if settled before trial, and 50% if it goes to trial. Edwards agreed to reduce his fee unless it was an exorbitant result. He did receive the standard fee because, after all, it turned out to be the highest amount ever awarded in North Carolina. I saw this on Wikipedia, and then double checked it with a personal friend who was the President of the American Trial Lawyers Association. He said that was his understanding. I didn't see that information in the article. (I was skimming, so I might have missed it). I personally think that is great information because not many attorneys will reduce their fees, especially not the highly successful ones.

[blondie58]

32. thanks for posting this

I just don't understand why more people aren't voting for him. I plan to next month.

[beezlebum]

34. count me in!

i have been a DK supporter for months now, but started questioning his agenda after his request that his supporters gobama should he not meet iowa benchmarks.

obviously, many DKers questioned an "endorsement" of 'corporatist' obama over 'populist' edwards. his response was that he was "concerned" about edwards' involvement w/ fortress investment groups, and that we should form a bloc around he who was more likely to win (obama). this made me suspicious.

the last few days i've been reading up on edwards, his voting record etc., particularly here on DU, and i'm glad i have- this one pretty much seals the deal. after several nearly sleepless nights and days of research, i'm *PROUDLY* voting edwards.

[redqueen]

33. Thank you.

He's the only candidate I fully support.

:kick:

[Dystopian]

36. Thank you, and a kick

I have never questioned John's background when reading negative stories about him.
He is what he is.
He's a man of honor.
I can see it in his eyes.
I hear it in his words.
It's written in his record.

I'm a dreamer, an idealist.
Our country needs John Edwards!
peace~

[unapatriciated]

38. I read up on this last night when on another thread

when a posted on another thread suggested the endorsements Edwards received in GA were gop enablers and coke heads. I recently moved to GA and thought I should educate myself on their political history. I could find nothing to verify his statements. Thanks for the post and other comments pointing out the truth regarding Edwards.