| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
John Edwards, You're No Bobby Kennedy
"Edwards to announce poverty tour," read the headline to an
article which announced to the nation that Democratic
presidential candidate John Edwards would soon be embarking
on a "Road to One America" tour aimed at calling attention to
poverty around the country.
Well, hallelujah! With the “Breck girl” on the case there just
might be some hope that the nation can be brought back from
its Dickensian nightmare of 4.5% unemployment, record home
ownership and a stock market at all-time highs.
Does anybody see the absurdity of a rich lawyer going on a
poverty tour as a presidential campaign strategy during a time
of such abundant prosperity? Okay, sure, there are still some
people who live in poverty. But the figures just cited are
indicative of an economic state of well-being that when
measured against man's long, upward climb from a state of
savagery, represents a historic pinnacle. In other words, what
more could anyone reasonably ask for from an economy?
As Ronald Reagan once said, facts are stubborn things. But
that won't stop Edwards from exploiting a few pockets of
persistent poverty for his own personal aggrandizement and
presidential aspirations.
The poverty sojourn is slated to begin Sunday, July 15, in -- can
you guess where? -- drum roll, please . . . The Lower Ninth
Ward of the Katrina-battered and wretchedly-governed city of
New Orleans. There, the slick-talking lawyer will walk around
like a reincarnated Bobby Kennedy, unctuously viewing the
poverty and blaming it all on Bush, heartless conservatives and
racism (oops, sorry if that's a triple redundancy).
From there he’ll head to Mississippi Delta country, a couple of
locations in the nation’s Rust Belt and finally end up in
Kentucky coal-mining country in the town of Prestonsburg,
which was also the final stop of Bobby Kennedy’s poverty tour
during his 1968 presidential run. How wonderfully inspiring!
But because John Edwards is no Bobby Kennedy, it might be
more inspiring for the tour to end instead at the site of
Edwards’ own sprawling estate where he could make his final
“Road to One America” speech from the steps of his 28,000-
square-foot mansion. Because what could be more inspiring
than the story of the son of a poor ol’ mill worker who struggles
through childhood, graduates law school, becomes filthy rich
by suing doctors and goes on to run for president?
Wait a minute. Son of a mill worker . . . law school . . . gets rich
. . . runs for president . . . Isn’t that a classic rags-to-riches
American success story? But according to his “two Americas”
schtick, the deck is permanently stacked against the poor and
the only thing that can possibly free them from their poverty is
an Edwardian government program.
As I said in a column when Edwards was only running for vice
president back in ‘04, “the problem isn’t that there are two
Americas. The problem is that within this one America there
are multitudes of people with bad attitudes who, for whatever
psychopathological reasons, don’t step up to the plate to take
advantage of the boundless opportunities offered in this
country, but instead vote for people like Edwards who promise
that the government will fix everything for them.”
So, you want a poverty program? I've got a poverty program
right here. It's called "get off your lazy ass and do something."
The United States is the most efficient engine for economic
prosperity in the history of civilization and it’s open to
everyone. If all kinds of refugees and émigrés from the world‘s
poorest and most miserable backwaters can come here with
nothing and achieve economic success, then no American with
half a brain and the slightest bit of gumption should ever spend
his life mired in poverty.
If you live in a blighted area, you might have to move. But the
last thing you should do is sit around and wait for a shyster like
Edwards to come around and tell you how he’s going to fix
everything if you’ll just put him in office. It's as fraudulent as
anything ever peddled out of a snake oil salesman's wagon.
And it's as deceitful as one of Edwards' medical malpractice
courtroom summations in which he spoke to the jury as if he
were an unborn baby in a womb, begging for justice against the
doctor who supposedly caused the child's cerebral palsy.
Yecch! The sleaze almost literally drips off of this guy.
Fortunately, if the polls are any indication, Edwards doesn’t
have a prayer of holding the highest office in the land. But his
cock-and-bull tour will help perpetuate the myth held by some
that powerful forces are keeping them down and the only way
out is through a government program.
They say there’s a sucker born every minute. There’ll be hordes
of ‘em whooping it up over Edwards “Road to One America”
tour. The rest of us have already written him off for the
charlatan that he is.
"Edwards to announce poverty tour," read the headline to an
article which announced to the nation that Democratic
presidential candidate John Edwards would soon be embarking
on a "Road to One America" tour aimed at calling attention to
poverty around the country.
Well, hallelujah! With the “Breck girl” on the case there just
might be some hope that the nation can be brought back from
its Dickensian nightmare of 4.5% unemployment, record home
ownership and a stock market at all-time highs.
Does anybody see the absurdity of a rich lawyer going on a
poverty tour as a presidential campaign strategy during a time
of such abundant prosperity? Okay, sure, there are still some
people who live in poverty. But the figures just cited are
indicative of an economic state of well-being that when
measured against man's long, upward climb from a state of
savagery, represents a historic pinnacle. In other words, what
more could anyone reasonably ask for from an economy?
As Ronald Reagan once said, facts are stubborn things. But
that won't stop Edwards from exploiting a few pockets of
persistent poverty for his own personal aggrandizement and
presidential aspirations.
The poverty sojourn is slated to begin Sunday, July 15, in -- can
you guess where? -- drum roll, please . . . The Lower Ninth
Ward of the Katrina-battered and wretchedly-governed city of
New Orleans. There, the slick-talking lawyer will walk around
like a reincarnated Bobby Kennedy, unctuously viewing the
poverty and blaming it all on Bush, heartless conservatives and
racism (oops, sorry if that's a triple redundancy).
From there he’ll head to Mississippi Delta country, a couple of
locations in the nation’s Rust Belt and finally end up in
Kentucky coal-mining country in the town of Prestonsburg,
which was also the final stop of Bobby Kennedy’s poverty tour
during his 1968 presidential run. How wonderfully inspiring!
But because John Edwards is no Bobby Kennedy, it might be
more inspiring for the tour to end instead at the site of
Edwards’ own sprawling estate where he could make his final
“Road to One America” speech from the steps of his 28,000-
square-foot mansion. Because what could be more inspiring
than the story of the son of a poor ol’ mill worker who struggles
through childhood, graduates law school, becomes filthy rich
by suing doctors and goes on to run for president?
Wait a minute. Son of a mill worker . . . law school . . . gets rich
. . . runs for president . . . Isn’t that a classic rags-to-riches
American success story? But according to his “two Americas”
schtick, the deck is permanently stacked against the poor and
the only thing that can possibly free them from their poverty is
an Edwardian government program.
As I said in a column when Edwards was only running for vice
president back in ‘04, “the problem isn’t that there are two
Americas. The problem is that within this one America there
are multitudes of people with bad attitudes who, for whatever
psychopathological reasons, don’t step up to the plate to take
advantage of the boundless opportunities offered in this
country, but instead vote for people like Edwards who promise
that the government will fix everything for them.”
So, you want a poverty program? I've got a poverty program
right here. It's called "get off your lazy ass and do something."
The United States is the most efficient engine for economic
prosperity in the history of civilization and it’s open to
everyone. If all kinds of refugees and émigrés from the world‘s
poorest and most miserable backwaters can come here with
nothing and achieve economic success, then no American with
half a brain and the slightest bit of gumption should ever spend
his life mired in poverty.
If you live in a blighted area, you might have to move. But the
last thing you should do is sit around and wait for a shyster like
Edwards to come around and tell you how he’s going to fix
everything if you’ll just put him in office. It's as fraudulent as
anything ever peddled out of a snake oil salesman's wagon.
And it's as deceitful as one of Edwards' medical malpractice
courtroom summations in which he spoke to the jury as if he
were an unborn baby in a womb, begging for justice against the
doctor who supposedly caused the child's cerebral palsy.
Yecch! The sleaze almost literally drips off of this guy.
Fortunately, if the polls are any indication, Edwards doesn’t
have a prayer of holding the highest office in the land. But his
cock-and-bull tour will help perpetuate the myth held by some
that powerful forces are keeping them down and the only way
out is through a government program.
They say there’s a sucker born every minute. There’ll be hordes
of ‘em whooping it up over Edwards “Road to One America”
tour. The rest of us have already written him off for the
charlatan that he is.