Showing posts with label 2008 Presidential debates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 Presidential debates. Show all posts

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Oh, How the Mighty



In 2007, as the Democratic candidates for President went through what Romney and Gingrich are going through these days, I was pretty impressed with John Edwards, champion of the poor and neglected, and with his sweet wife, Elizabeth.
by Charlie Leck

I was really taken by John Edwards in 2007 and how convincingly he talked about his commitment to the poor and ignored people of America. He seemed so genuine and sincere. So did his wife, Elizabeth.

“These are the kind of people,” I thought, “that we need in the White House.” I wrote it proudly, here on this blog!

By the end of the year, I began to see through John Edwards. I had discovered he was a scalawag, worthless piece of shit, and I had figured out that he was a phony and not nearly as bright as I thought he was. A lot of it began with is $400 haircuts. Some things about his wife began to ring untrue as well.

I transitioned over to Barack Obama after a short flirtation (probably not a good word to use here) with Hillary.

Now the John Edwards trial…
We are all finding out just how egocentric and narcissistic John Edwards really was (is) – how vacuous and insincere. He was, as some friends of mine like to say, “just an empty suit – expensive as the suits were!” John Edwards was as phony as a wooden nickel – as phony as a three dollar bill – as phony as a carnival barker.

I don’t like to be fooled. I hate worse to be made a fool of. John Edwards did both to me.

If you want to understand my anger and embarrassment, you only need to read Maureen Dowd’s column in the New York Times: Brutality of Servility. I sat in a Starbucks this morning, with the New York Times spread open before me as I sipped on my morning latté. I seethed as loudly as those espresso machines that the baristas were working.

“What a bum! What a piece of crap,” I thought to myself. “Put him away and the hell with him!”

“In the winter of 2007, as Edwards campaigned for the presidency in Iowa, he still found time to check up on his pregnant girlfriend, Rielle Hunter, who was on the lam and with fall guy Andrew Young and his family, zooming around in private jets to luxe resorts and haciendas in Aspen, Santa Barbara and Florida.”

What a jerk I was! Maureen Dowd crushes the truth about Edwards right over my scalp and describes the major question in the courtroom…

“Everyone’s arguing whether Edwards is a swindler or merely a swine.”

While the world was falling apart all around him – during that campaign – John Edwards was unable to realize it because, as Dowd says, “John, of course, loved John…”

Dowd concludes her column with a slap in the face – my face!

“It’s a trial without heroes, just liars and an abhorrent trio of selfish people trying to spin the story their own way.”

I need to do something to make myself feel better, so I guess I’ll go stick my head in a tub of boiling tar!

Those clear, twinkling eyes and that wide, toothy, confident smile fooled the hell out of me. The poor and neglected in America were his biggest concern, he said. And I believed him.

As an old Hungarian friend used to say of my naiveté: “Sometimes you can be one dumb, some-of-a-bitch!”

Angrily, I pushed the newspaper aside and it tipped over my cup of hot latté – right into my lap.


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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Ramblings


This and that about the national news!
by Charlie Leck

Privatizing Social Security
Anyone notice how this issue is dead? Bush pushed hard for it eight years ago and again four years ago. It was going to be the way the masses could really make money. Can you imagine the condition of the social security system and retirement funds if we had gone down that bumpy road?

Bailing out corporate failure
Fred, from Colorado, writes that he’s decided against:
“NO BAIL OUT... i want a buy out...let the feds buy equity interest in ailing banks and lenders that hold bad mortgages or derivitives... that gives them cash to loan, keeps them in business and gives them time to sell bad investments... years if necessary... they should have more skill to sell them than the feds, and doesn't reward them for stupidity and greed...let them WORK their way out of this mess. there, now i feel better! F”
Corporate Welfare
I call it corporate welfare, of course – this notion of putting up hundreds of billions of dollars to keep corporations afloat. Just let the rich bastards complain about welfare services again for people in need! Then, remind them.

Want to really understand this mess?
I keep telling you. Democracy Now, with Amy Goodman, is one of the best places you'll ever visit on the Internet. Take a look at this broadcast with Juan Gonzalez if you really want to understand this mess we're in. This particular broadcast features the independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, along with Dean Baker, a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Robert Scheer, a journalist with the San Francisco Chronicle. It's good stuff.

Political Fear
The politicians are all running frightened right now! They really haven’t got the slightest idea what to do with this financial crisis from a political point of view. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t – and they’ve got to get back to their home states so they can campaign. Damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Life as a politician is no fun. I do have some sympathy for them and I’m glad someone will do it. Though we often start to think they’re rotten, when people like Senator Stevens from Alaska pops up [see story in Monday's NY Times], most of these legislators are good people who really are committed to serving their constituents.

Polling
The polls appear to be very close between Obama and McCain. Obama loses really big in rural areas and wins in urban areas. Suburbs are interesting. Obama is doing better than one would expect. There is a bit of an uprising by educated, suburban women. The Obama supporters also claim to have a secret weapon they’ll unleash on election day – a whole nation of young people who are not wired into the system and aren’t reached by conventional polls. The campaign organization may be correct. Is there a vast army of first time voters who are fed up with George W. Bush and his uncle, John McCain?

The Debate
The confrontation between Obama and McCain is at hand. It will be interesting. Just watch how tough John McCain will be. He will be nasty tough. The only way he can get elected is to paint Obama as a radical and a dreamer. He’ll do nasty things to accomplish that. The key will be in how Obama handles the attack. My bet is that the Obama organization is preparing him to handle a lot of sleaze. After the first debate, the polls will start to mean something.

Keep your eye on this story
This could end up being a big story because, if true, it contradicts something John McCain recently said about one of his campaign aids. This is breaking news -- only broke last night!