Why I Love John Edwards

I have told this story a million times to a million people, and here it is again: I met John Edwards after a US Airways flight to New York from Washington in January of 2005. I spent the whole flight glancing back at him and his wife, wondering if i should speak to them. I decided not to given the folks already asking for autographs during the whole flight. So when we finally got to the baggage claim at La Guardia, I saw him standing alone, so I went right up, shook his hand and said "Hello, Mr. Edwards. I just wanted to thank you for running in this past election. You gave us hope." He was just about the nicest man ever, with that Southern accent that I love, and said "Well, thank you for that. That makes my day."

One of the perks of being at the UN is that I get a Counter-terrorism newsletter, with articles from all around the world that concern C-T. I've technically left the realm of C-T, but I met the guy in DPI who circulates it and convinced him to keep me on the mailing list. This morning, I read a great Reuters article about Edwards' foreign policy plans. Check it out. Of course, the White House has immediately set to whining, accusing and other forms of bellyaching.

I am officially torn. First, we have Edwards, who tells it like it is. We have Obama, who knows what it is but plays the diplomatic game very well and ends up clouding the message. Then we have Hilary, who is not really sure yet what it is, and is waiting for guidance from her husband (which is not such a bad thing, since things can only go uphill from here).

Right this second, I will say that I love John Edwards with all my liberal heart. I would love to see a man in office who sees things for what they are and expresses his opinions with little to no censorship. I know America is not ready for it, though, and that's really sad. All we can do is hope for redemption. At least Edwards is a sign of intelligence, and I appreciate him for that.

Failure

Once again, Bush has stepped in the way of progress. Within hours of getting the Iraq timetable bill from Congress, he vetoed it. In the NY Times article, Bush actually said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.” Don’t they do that already? Wasn’t it those very politicians who made the troops go over there to fight in the first place? His pathetically stupid commentary at every turn takes any logic or reason he may have used to make his decision right out of the equation.

On the BBC website, it makes light of the fact that he has only used two vetoes in his 7 years of presidency. This could be for two reasons: Republicans had the biggest piece of the Washington pie until just recently, so he never had to, and/or, he just recently found out what a veto is for. I think it’s the latter, but I don’t want to seem too pessimistic.

As usual, Bush says that failure is not an option. Of course it isn’t an option, and I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks it is an option for anything. But it happens, and in the case of the war, it is just fact. He needs to stop talking about his obvious fear of embarrassment and accept that both he, as president, and the war are probably the biggest failures this country has ever suffered, at least in the past 100 years or so. I say that because we, as a country, have already suffered a lot of failures, but the failure to learn from any of that is by far the biggest one.