In a reprise of his own stump speeches, John Edwards simply switched pronouns and endorsed Barack Obama tonight, positioning himself as the leading candidate for Attorney General in the new Administration.
In doing so, he was backing the clear winner of the nomination, preceding it with a eulogy for Hillary Clinton's campaign.
“It is very, very hard to get up every day and do what she’s done,” Edwards said. “It is hard to go out there and fight and speak up when the odds turn against you. What she has shown is strength and character.”
He said Mrs. Clinton is a “woman who is made of steel. She is a leader in this country not because of her husband but because of what she has done."
So Edwards, as usual, has it both ways, backing the winner and praising the loser as a champion of party unity.
If he does get to be Attorney General, his experience in negligence law will come in handy to investigate and clean up eight years of abuses by the Bush-Cheney-Rove cartel.
The Edwards campaign forced Clinton and Obama to take stronger positions on healthcare and the economy, and to elucidate their previously vague statements on those issues. His legacy in this election is a more progressive Democratic Party, for which I am thankful.
ReplyDeleteAnd talk about having it both ways: First you sneer at Edwards for not endorsing someone sooner, and now you snipe at him for praising the loser and endorsing the wrong candidate. As a Democrat who is hoping for success in November and a start toward cleaning up the current mess in government, I would rather have him offer praise to Clinton than alienate her and her considerable following.
His "pitch" for Attorney General? Really, you disappoint me.
Edwards did indeed little more than switch pronouns, particularly in his statements about working to cut poverty in the US in half. If he's got Obama signed on to a real attempt to reduce the economic gap and the poverty level, then he's influenced the final result to the nation once again.
ReplyDeletePersonally I'd love to see Edwards as Attorney General. If that came to pass, the most interesting job in DC for a while would be liason between Edwards and John Conyers. A certain amount of investigating of recent crimes might actually happen. And I don't know if our republic can survive without that. We can't let the Bush people get away with what they've done/