Bush's lead has evaporated,

[MaroonOut2005]

What do you mean?

Yes, I am bias. We were not even talking about politics, and you brought in Bush. Wow, this brings new meaning to the word "hypocrite."

I didn't bother reading much of this thread. I am just amused that MaroonOut is the incarnation of bias itself

[egg]

Any predictions about Edwards and Cheney?

Cheney: Kerry never told you what happened to your father.
Edwards: He told me enough! He told me you killed him!
Cheney: No... I AM your father!
Edwards: NOOOOooooooo!

[Tobias Beecher]

Any predictions about Edwards and Cheney?

Cheney is the antichrist. Even people who like Bush generally do not like Cheney. Cheney tells senators to go @#!* themselves on the Senate floor. He is a corrupt a-hole. He has sex with midget prostitutes in the Oval Office. Nobody like this fat @#!*. I don't know the stats now but earlier this year, around the time Edwards was selected as Kerry's running mate, Cheney's popularity with conservatives was 30%. Nobody likes him, except Shrub.

Cheney is also a decorated war hero who risked his life to make sacrifices for his country.

[TrojanChispas]

that is a total joke.  cheney is a career politician and about to meet his intelectual master on tuesday

[M2]

that is a total joke.  cheney is a career politician and about to meet his intelectual master on tuesday

My thoughts exactly.

This should be very interesting, and I will be sadly dissapointed if Edwards doesn't mop the floor with Cheney

[The ZAPINATOR]

On the topic of Edwards, I gotta say I actually disagree here with the people I usually agree with.

First, Biscuit asked how we know that most of Edwards' cases were legit (excluding, of course, the ones that are considered ambulance chasing, like the cerebal palsy cases).  My response is that the Republican attack machine, like the Democratic attack machine, is looking for every opportunity to tar and feather the opposition.  If he had a ridiculous track record of bad-lawyering much more extensive, trust me, we'd have heard about it by now.  All of the GOP attacks against Edwards as an ambulance chaser seem to me to come from one or two single cases.  So what.  Any personal injury lawyer, over time, will take at least a few cases that can be portrayed in a negative fashion.

What we've got to remember, with his cerebal palsy cases, is that hindsight, with science, is 20/20.  Whether or not science bears out Edwards' position in the long term isn't the issue.  The issue is that he obviously believed the explanation that layed fault at the feet the doctors for it.  And he stood up for people that he thought were victims of malpractice.  If you're acting in good faith to help people who you think have been victimized and are in need of reparation, you have nothing to be ashamed of at the time.  In retrospect, as science is not bearing out his explanation, he may feel bad about that, but is says NOTHING about his character.  Only that he accepted the wrong explanation for a phenomenon, believed in it enough to go to court, and was making a good-faith effort to see to it that the medical community wasn't screwing people.

I know of nothing in Edwards' past that would call into question his character.  He seems to be a principled man.  He's obviously a heck of a lawyer, and a very gifted orator (which becomes a lawyer, by the way).  I think that the ability to appeal to emotion as well as logic is necessary when you're trying to communicate effectively with people.  No one likes a long, boring statement they can't understand.  I think Edwards has a plainspoken way of bringing things down to the level the common man can identify with, and I don't see anything wrong with that.  As for his thing with that dead woman whose spirit he "felt there with him", I tend to view that in terms of rhetorical.  Obviously it was effective rhetoric, and it did appeal to emotion; but if that was the only thing that won that case, the opposition must have been pretty pitiful.  

ZAP  

[absy]

There you go, trying to regain your position as longest poster

[The ZAPINATOR]

There you go, trying to regain your position as longest poster

Nah, that other dude has me whipped.  I'm happy just to come in a distant second.

ZAP

[buster]

Nice post, ZAP. However, assuming MaroonOut is right that there was no scientific basis for the case(s), that is indicative of a problem with the system, isn't it?

From researching my past argument with him on this same topic, though, it's my recollection that there was conflicting scientific information, which is a whole different ballgame.

What we've got to remember, with his cerebal palsy cases, is that hindsight, with science, is 20/20.  Whether or not science bears out Edwards' position in the long term isn't the issue.  The issue is that he obviously believed the explanation that layed fault at the feet the doctors for it.  And he stood up for people that he thought were victims of malpractice.  If you're acting in good faith to help people who you think have been victimized and are in need of reparation, you have nothing to be ashamed of at the time.  In retrospect, as science is not bearing out his explanation, he may feel bad about that, but is says NOTHING about his character.  Only that he accepted the wrong explanation for a phenomenon, believed in it enough to go to court, and was making a good-faith effort to see to it that the medical community wasn't screwing people.

[The ZAPINATOR]

Yeah, I think there was conflicting scientific information.  A couple different things that could lead one of two different directions.  Haven't followed it closely enough to say that conclusively, but that's the impression I had. 

ZAP

Nice post, ZAP. However, assuming MaroonOut is right that there was no scientific basis for the case(s), that is indicative of a problem with the system, isn't it?

From researching my past argument with him on this same topic, though, it's my recollection that there was conflicting scientific information, which is a whole different ballgame.

What we've got to remember, with his cerebal palsy cases, is that hindsight, with science, is 20/20.  Whether or not science bears out Edwards' position in the long term isn't the issue.  The issue is that he obviously believed the explanation that layed fault at the feet the doctors for it.  And he stood up for people that he thought were victims of malpractice.  If you're acting in good faith to help people who you think have been victimized and are in need of reparation, you have nothing to be ashamed of at the time.  In retrospect, as science is not bearing out his explanation, he may feel bad about that, but is says NOTHING about his character.  Only that he accepted the wrong explanation for a phenomenon, believed in it enough to go to court, and was making a good-faith effort to see to it that the medical community wasn't screwing people.