Four Years Ago, The "Liberal Media" Picked On Kerry's Wealth. Now, Edwards' Wealth Is The Story

[JABBS]

Click here to read the whole story.

<snip>

Four years ago, the "liberal media" picked on John Kerry's wealth, trying to suggest that it was a metaphor for someone out of touch with the needs of mainstream America.

Now, if the MSNBC image in the linked story is any indicator, John Edwards will be the candidate picked on for his wealth.

[LeftCoast]

1. Funny that they never mention the Bush billions...

I guess that's just our 'liberal media' again.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Rich Dems are hypocrites because they claim to advocate

for the poor and downtrodden. It's expected for Puggies to be rich, and they can serve the interests of their own class without hypocrisy.

At least that's as close as I can come to figgerin' it out.

[LeftCoast]

6. Considering the legal shit-storm that the repubs will try and unleash

on the next Dem president, s/he better have a lot of money to afford all the lawyers.

[JI7]

9. that makes no sense at all

but i think Dems should use it as an example of how it shows that it's not true that Dems hate the rich or want to "punish" the wealthy.

these dems are rich and wealthy also. it's not about hating anyone but fairness.

[No Exit]

22. If dems ran someone with assets of less than a million, they'd say he was a failure.

This is what comes of letting the repukes lead the debate, or set the terms under which we discuss such things! (I'm not accusing YOU of letting them do that, I was speaking generally.)

So someone worth less than a million is a "failure", and someone worth lots more is a "hypocrite". Pretty neat, huh?

And they can go on being "consistent" by saying THEIR millionaires are okay, but ours aren't, BUT...BUT... each and every repuke that actually SAYS this to my face had DAMN WELL better have a net worth of at least $10,000,000!

Because what's more hypocritical than some pathetic guy, who makes a "mere" 6 figure annual income, advocating for the "rich guys'" republican party when he isn't even a rich guy??

That's what really galls me... needless to say, I have seldom if ever even spoken to someone whose worth is $10,000,000, yet I can't count the number of repukelicans whose finances resemble mine, who seem to think that those millionaires actually give a damn about them. Who are those little-people repukelicans KIDDING? I believe they really do puff out their little sunken chests and stride along, with their little $200,000/yr., thinking, "I'm a rich republican, just like George W. Bush!"

(When I refer to $200,000/yr. as "little", I certainly don't mean that it is "little" from my perspective... but I do mean that it is "little" in the eyes of ANY of the members of our Washington, D.C. governing class--including the media up there.)

[JABBS]

5. my point exactly

four years ago, even when bush's wealth was mentioned, it was couched by the spin that he liked to clear brush and drink non-alcoholic beer at barbecues. and that was in the NY Times!!!

[JI7]

18. they claim his wealth is hard earned from the businesses he managed

of course the truth is that every fucking business he was involved in failed and lost money and pappy had to get friends to bail the fucker out. but the republicans and the whore media claim he was some successful businessman who earned that money.

while Edwards is seen as getting wealthy through being an ambulence chaser

and Kerry going after wealthy women.

[No Exit]

23. Hey! Stealing and dealing big-time drugs is hard work!

Let's not downgrade Poppy Bush's ability to keep Junior in the style to which Junior is accustomed!

[AtomicKitten]

2. Ah, the Media Heathers are at it again.

Selective criticism of Democrats. Feh.

[Clarkie1]

3. Honestly, I wish we had more candidates who were not in the top 1% economically.

I think it makes it hard for them to relate to the rest of us, and it certainly makes it hard for me to feel like they represent me.

[JI7]

7. they did it to Al Gore also

remember how he wasn't really from TEnnessee but grew up in DC and expensive hotels and other crap.

[JABBS]

10. true

I hadn't thought of that. Good point.

[Danieljay]

8. I'm all for wealth! Nothing wrong with getting rich.

On one hand, hypocricy. On the other hand, there are a lot of progressives and Dems I know that seem to have something against being rich or having money. What's up with that?

I can help a hell of a lot more people being wealthy than I can working for a non profit or volunteering for a cause. Look at how many millions that Bill Gates is helping with his foundation, or how bout William Buffet. I'd personally rather be a philanthropist with money than an idealist without.

Now, just how do I get there?

[Erika]

14. Bill gates could lower his cost of products. But we all have egos.

I won't give too many kudoos to Gates. A heck of a lot of microsoft employees were left with out benefits.

[Erika]

11. W was born the son of a poor factory worker, right ?

W was as privileged as you can get.

The right wing in running scared of Edwards. He's articulate, educated, and self-made.

[JABBS]

that's the thing

he's self-made. he's a public school kid, born not of wealth.

if he was a republican, these traits would be his calling card.

[illinoisprogressive]

12. So? They trash all dems

Pelosi is a wild eyed liberal from San fran, Hillary is the devil (though I find it hard to argue with them on thier anti Hillary stuff), Kerry is a joke, Obama has a middle name, ect. ect. ect.
If Edwards runs then he's gonna get looked at and dished. Good and bad.
It goes with running. Don't get alarmed or bent. He is a big boy.

[Erika]

16. And one with class.

Thanks for the post.

[JI7]

20. true, but we need to remember that it's DEMOCRATS

they go after in this way. and often it's based on the RNC talking points.

[JABBS]

21. it's one thing that the republicans go after the democrats

it's another thing when the mainstream media -- the supposedly "liberal media" -- adopts that spin, those talking points, as facts, without context or contrast.

that's what makes this ridiculous. it's not a hannity & colmes image, it's the regular news on MSNBC.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

13. they hate Edwards because he's a plaintiff's lawyer

The court system is the ONLY way an injured party can begin to be compensated for their serious injuries (or death) caused by another's intentional or negligent acts. Caps on damages are pretty ridiculous, when you have a good case and have proved causation and damages.

Many people think that anybody can file a suit, and have the case tried and get damaged, even if they don't deserve them. That is NOT true. I've seen many a crappy case go to trial, that should never have gone to trial, and the jury comes back and awards the plaintiff nothing. Zip Zilch Nada. It's called "being poured out". Sometimes they even award damages TO the defendant. The plaintiff sits there looking like a fish with their mouth open in shock. And they didn't deserve anything. There was a prior injury causing the problem, the problem was not directly linked to the accident, the person did not have enough of a medical record trail, whatever.

The first thing the judge can do to throw out the case, saying it is wholly without merit, is a pretrial motion for summary judgment, meaning there is no issue of law, and the defendant wins.

"Tort reform" is a code word for big corporations getting away with murder and not having to pay for it. Generally, if a jury made an excessively large award at trial, it will probably reduced on appeal, which may turn a good case into a good case with no or not enough damages awarded.

Any good lawyer will NOT file a "dog case" and tell the alleged plaintiff to go away, if he thinks its impossible to prove, fraudulent or whatever.

In fact, I have seen cases where a hospital and personnel were absolved of liability, and the jury gave the plaintiff nothing. What happened? The plaintiff, in one case, was a paraplegic who needed round the clock care, and thus became a burden on us, the taxpayers.

The problem is not gigantic jury awards to undeserving plaintiffs. The problem, at least in malpractice, is that the state boards are NOT disciplining and yanking medical licenses from bad doctors who are hacks. They are only a small percentage of the total doctors. It's not fair that the cost of malpractice insurance is dependent on the doctor's specialty, not his record.

The insurance companies have screwed over the doctors, since they said "tort reform" would lower the doctors' malpractice insurance costs (yeah, suuure...didn't happen).
They're screwing the patients with health insurance and denial of benefits too.

I know whereof I speak, I worked at the courthouse for many years and saw a zillion trials, hearings, and every other form of legal procedure you can think of. Most of them were civil.

The right wingers hate Edwards because he collects awards for people who deserve it, and he gets a third to 40% of the proceeds for his hard work. And deserves it. That just chaps their stingy asses because the corporations don't want any bad publicity.

Ford tried all the Pinto cases, because they were convinced they were right. Chevy settled their crummy exploding gas tank cases. You don't hear about those. Ford got TONS of crappy publicity because they were bullheaded, and had to stop making Pintos, commonly called "Molotovs" amongst my friends in the legal community.

(Rant Off)

[Erika]

15. W loves "his" lawyers

And they are for the big guys.

[AtomicKitten]

19. The wingnuts clamor for tort reform ... unless they have a lawsuit

http://santorumexposed.com/pages/issues/issues-malpract...

[No Exit]

25. Only The Right People may have lawyers!

The Common People may not!

I saw an Edwards interview on C-span, and they asked him about a personal injury case he won. This little girl was at a public pool, and she went to play in the "baby pool". She sat too near a drain and the suction from the drain trapped her as she sat there. Even her father couldn't pull her off the defective drain. The drain ended up sucking her intestines out of her!

It reminded me that some months ago James Baker and his daughter appeared on Larry King. They wanted to tell the public about the dangers of jacuzzis. As most of us have heard, there have been incidents in which children have gotten stuck underwater in jacuzzis because the suction from the drain was too strong and it held them under. Baker's daughter, the mother of a little 8-year-old girl, realized that her daughter was stuck to a drain under the water of the hot tub. She, who was fairly athletic, couldn't pull the little girl free, and the little girl drowned. Tragic.

But OF COURSE I'm SURE the Bakers would NEVER sue the maker of the defective drain! I mean, THEY are The Good (Rich) People--not some scummy PLAINTIFFS!

(I don't know if they sued; it wouldn't bring the little girl back anyway; if I had to lay a bet, I'd bet that they DID sue.)

[TankLV]

17. But they never mention the bush billions or any other repukes.

That's aparently OK by them...

[No Exit]

24. Absolutely right! And another thing that annoys: they talk about "lack of

foreign policy experience", in reference to Edwards.

Edwards was a U.S. Senator for 6 years. Not to denigrate Hillary, but she's been a U.S. Senator for exactly the same length of time--yet the media asses refer to HER as being knowledgeable of foreign policy.

I fail to see the difference. The two persons held exactly the same job.

And of course far more annoying is their failure to recognize that Junior had NO foreign policy experience at all. He was Governor of Texas. Period. Not even a national-level position. (Not to mention that the asshole also can't speak a complete sentence without screwing up. I mean, is that too much to ask?? I mean, doesn't knowin' Big Important Stuff like Furreign Policy come AFTER you've learned to speak the English language??)

[JABBS]

26. right

when bush ran in 2000, the buzz was that he had surrounded himself with foreign policy experts, which made up for his lack of experience.

apparently, the media doesn't think edwards would be capable of doing the same.

[wisteria]

27. he sets himself up for this because he tries to come off like everyone else

when in fact he isn't. He doesn't live life everyday like we do. I don't care how much money he has or even what Kerry has, I just am not found of the Edward's pretending they are just like us.

[beaconess]

28. Case in point:

"John Kerry's multi-million dollar Beacon Hill mansion."

"John Edwards' multi-million dollar Georgetown home."

"The Crawford ranch."

Bush's "ranch" is larger and worth considerably more than either Edwards' or Kerry's homes, but the value of the spread is rarely ever commented on by the MSM. Instead, it's always couched in terms that reinforces the message that Bush intended to send when he bought the place just before running for president - that he's a down-home, unpretentious, ranchin' kind of guy.