John Edwards speaks for Jesus Christ:

Edwards, in an interview with the Web site Beliefnet.com, said Jesus would be most upset with the selfishness of Americans and the country's willingness to go to war "when it's not necessary."

"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs," Edwards told the site. "I think he would be appalled, actually."

Democrats always sound odd when discussing religion and Edwards is no exception. I'm far, far from a theologian and I imagine so is Mr. Edwards. So why would he comment about what Jesus would or would not think?

John Edwards made an unfortunate mention of Israel at a Hollywood reception last month. "Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace," Edwards remarked, "was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran's nuclear facilities," Variety reported. (My colleague Scott has more.)

Not a good move. "(The) data shows clearly that Israel's recent war against Hezbollah improved its standing with the American people and diminished support for the enemies of the Jewish state," wrote Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, last September.

This also shows Edwards' inconsistency on foreign policy. At the 2006 AIPAC Policy Conference, Edwards said "Iran's nuclear ambitions," in his view, represented "the single greatest security threat, not only to Israel, but to the United States."

Then, this January, Edwards gave a satellite speech to the Herzliya Conference in Israel. (I mentioned Republicans who addressed this conference in a previous post.) "To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep ALL options on the table," Edwards said. "Let me reiterate – ALL options must remain on the table."

Alas, the man who gave us "Two Americas" is now pursuing "Two Foreign Policies."

The finely coifed one has hit on a novel idea to stop terrorists from becoming, well, terrorists:

The plan Mr. Edwards presented yesterday - which he dubbed "A Strategy to Shut Down Terrorists and Stop Terrorism Before It Starts" - calls for a 10,000-person "Marshall Corps" to deal with issues ranging from worldwide poverty and economic development to clean drinking water and micro-lending. He said investing in those areas would shore up weak nations and help ensure that terrorism does not take root there. That, he said, would allow the country to stop potential terrorists before they even join the ranks.

Uh, OK, and maybe if we gave them fluorescent bulbs and a subscription to The Nation they'd stop that whole suicide bombing thing. Let's suppose that this idea has one iota of merit. Let's start with the Sudan and Somalia. We can send in a thousand or so do-gooders who can offer micro-lending and clean water. Let's suppose (a huge supposition) that they even are allowed to enter and set up shop, how many days or weeks do you think it would be before the are blown up, beheaded or flee out of fear. The whole idea is based on the misguided liberal belief that terrorists are created because of poverty or other social issues.

That is so flawed a line of thinking as to be laughable. Mohammed Atta and his eighteen buddies were college students who came from a comfortable existence. They did not attack us because they were raised with no food, they atacked us because the brand of Islam they practiced told them not only that it OK to do so, but they encouraged it and promised them a good eternity in Paradise. They attacked us because they hate our liberal ways. They hate that women can marry and divorce whomever they choose, they can drive cars, rights are afforded to gay persons and all religions and we have freedom of speech. That tends to be irksome to the folks living in a 7th century mentality.

This just shows (again) how completely unprepared for leadership Edwards is. If he were to win, the reality of the terror situation would blow his mind.

I don't really like or trust John Edwards, primarily because he is an ambulance chaser. Lawyers (especially trial lawyers) specialize in twisting the meanings of words -- that's probably why many are successful politicians. Bill Clinton's infamous "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" fiasco is a perfect example.

Now we have Kevin Drum, a liberal reporter and blogger for the Washington Monthly, reporting on two recent John Edwards speeches -- one where the presidential candidate was speaking to the Herzliya Conference in Israel about the threat of Iran, and the second where he was speaking to the liberal American Prospect.

In the first, Edwards claims that the American public must be educated about what needs to be done about Iran, specifically referring to military action (Drum says, and I agree, that the public wouldn't have to be educated about any other alternative). In the second, Edwards claims that stating that every option is on the table, which Bush has repeatedly said and which Edwards strongly implied that he agreed with to his Israeli audience, is "dead wrong" because Bush says it "threateningly".

While everyone is focused on the Hillary-Obama standoff, Edwards is taking this whole running for president very, very seriously. Hotline has posted his schedule for the next month and I'm tired just looking at it.

February 1-2, New York City
February 5, Bloomington, IL
February 6, Detroit, MI
February 7, Kansas City, MO
February 7, Oklahoma City, OK
February 8, Charleston, SC
February 9, Chapel Hill, NC
February 9, Mississippi
February 12, Miami, FL
February 13, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
February 14, Tulsa, OK
February 14-15, Los Angeles, CA
February 15, San Francisco, CA
February 16, Las Vegas, NV
February 20, Houston, TX
February 21, Dallas, TX
February 22, Knoxville, TN
February 22, Nashville, TN
February 23, Pittsburgh, PA
February 25, New York City
February 26, New Jersey
February 27, New York City

Keep in mind we have 21 months until the election!

John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee, is increasingly sounding like his primary plank in 2008 will be foreign policy. When he appeared on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday -- previously mentioned by fellow blogger Patrick Casey -- foreign-policy issues dominated the discussion.

Granted, our country is in a War on Terror, and the Iraq war continues to consume our attention. Yet Edwards seems to have re-made himself since 2004.

Back then, he talked about the inequality of "Two Americas." Now, even though times are tough for American car workers and non-wealthy college students, he's shifted his scope.

Edwards shouldn't discard the domestic policy issues he raised in 2004 as he becomes the foreign-policy wonk of 2008.

It is a silly argument, and one that has been repeatedly propagated by right-wing bloggers (some of whom write for this very site). It goes like this: Because John Edwards is wealthy he is being hypocritical in making poverty an issue in the presidential campaign. Well, this weekend ABC ran a story that examined this assumption. It seems that our country tends to be rather delusional if it believes we have elected men who are anything but rich, and, furthermore, that the commander-in-chief's class level has gone on to disqualify them from trying to improve the lives of those less fortunate:

So why do Americans continue to believe that their leaders come from the salt of the earth? At its root, the log-cabin legend expresses a basic myth about America itself: that anyone can make it here. Work hard, and you can become whatever you want. Even president. That's obviously false. But it's equally false to think that the economic status of a leader will determine his or her attitudes toward wealth, poverty, and everything else. Come primary time, then, let's look less at our candidates' homes and haircuts and more at their platforms and policies. And let's beware of confusing one with the other.

Of course, plenty of wealthy presidents have tried to help the poor after attaining office. Just as the chief executive must reach out to the elderly even though he may not yet be among their ranks, being president requires a tremendous amount of empathy for those whose lives may not exactly mirror his own. In fact, you might argue that as the single most powerful representative of the entire country, an empathic ability is among the most important qualities for a chief executive to possess. Why then do so many conservatives treat the poor as nothing more than lepers, and the politicians who actually bring them up on the campaign trail as hypocrites? Is Bill Gates a hypocrite for vaccinating impoverished children? If John Edwards gets an expensive haircut, is he disqualified from expressing compassion for those who are unable to?
.

Well this is interesting.John Edwards is attacking Hillary Clinton for corruption:

"Today's Clinton fundraising event is a 'poster child' for what is wrong with Washington and what should never happen again with a candidate running for the highest office in the land," Edwards' senior adviser Joe Trippi said in a letter to supporters.

Edwards and Barack Obama have declined money from individuals who lobby the federal government and have tried to portray Clinton, who does accept lobbyists' money, as beholden to special interests. Obama and Edwards do accept money from corporate executives whose industries have interests in government policies.

In response, Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said, "Increasingly negative attacks against other Democrats aren't going to end the war, deliver universal health care or turn John Edwards' flagging campaign around."

Boo-yah Mr. Singer! I like the response. But what's interesting here is what John Edwards is not attacking. Hillary Clinton and her campaign has been roiled by the ongoing and seemingly never-ending revelations about Norman Hsu and his money.

When your campaign is trailing in the polls and your ability to raise money is seriously hampered, there are certain things you should do and certain things you should not do.

Of the things you should do, making the following statement at an MTV/Myspace Forum is not one of them:

"...pretty soon we're not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They're all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two."

Who would make such a racially insensitive comment? Of all people, it was Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards and with that statement, there will be serious repercussions and those repercussions will be deserved.

What was Edwards inferring? In all honesty, only Edwards truly knows and more than likely he misspoke. However, he misspoke in an incredibly offensive matter. Consider the following: for a person to be arrested for a crime, they have to commit a crime. Examining the statement on a surface level, it would seem that Edwards' is saying ALL African-American men commit crimes. Regardless of what Edwards meant or did not mean, he needs to apologize for this statement and apologize immediately.

Before getting to the latest, let's trace the history: In January, Edwards hires a, well, let's say extremely feisty lefty blogger with a penchant for vulgarity, prompting this sort of response from the conservative blogosphere.

After joining forces, these right-leaning blogs go through the archives of Amanda's blog, the , staying just ahead of her effort to sanitize everything. Sure enough, they find a lot of vulgar stuff that is aimed directly at Christians.

So last week, the conservative Catholic League asks Edwards for their heads. Edwards hems and haws a little bit which prompts all the lefty blogs to say "You better not give in!" And Edwards doesn't, with a statement that says pretty much that they're sorry they offended people but the bloggers are staying.

The lefty bloggers are happy with this.

John Edwards is the angry man in this campaign. He's angry at Ann Coulter, Karl Rove, God evidently, for not making him black or a woman, and now Hillary:

"The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale. The Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent," Edwards said to applause, referencing a Clinton-era controversy in which high-dollar donors were allowed to stay in the White House's famed bedroom.

He said the past isn't going to solve today's problems or "a corrupt a corroded system."

"Those wed to the policies of the '70s, '80s or the '90s are wedded to the past, ideas and policies that are tired, shopworn and obsolete. We will find no answers there," he said.

Clinton served as first lady during most of the 1990s.

Edwards later said he didn't mean to target Clinton during his new stump speech.

Of course you didn't, John. Let's see, Lincoln bedroom? Check. Policies of 90's while Clinton was in office? Check. Wedded? Check. It sure sounds like he meant Hillary Clinton and everyone knows he meant Hillary Clinton. Of course Edwards weaseled out when he was called on it as is his wont when faced with difficult issues.

One of the most enduring questions of the presidential race on the Democratic side is why did both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards vote to go to war in Iraq. Clinton has handled this question much better than Edwards and it's showing in the polls.

This week the issue that won't go away was revived again. According to the New York Times:

Former Senator John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, told an interviewer on Wednesday that he had read the classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate before voting to authorize force in Iraq, but his campaign retracted the statement yesterday.

A spokesman for Mr. Edwards said the candidate had "simply misunderstood the question" and noted that Mr. Edwards had read only a declassified version of the intelligence report.

I find it hard to believe that a candidate of Edwards experience with a background as a lawyer "misunderstood" the question. It's evident he read the NIE and voted based not on what was contained in the document but for political expediency according to 2004 running-mate John Kerry:

That fall, as a vote loomed on the resolution giving Bush authority to go to war, Edwards convened a circle of advisers in his family room in Washington to discuss his decision. He was skeptical, even exercised about the idea of voting yes. Elizabeth was a forceful no. She didn't trust anything the Bush administration was saying. But the consensus view from both the foreign policy experts and the political operatives was that even though Edwards was on the Intelligence Committee, he was too junior in the Senate; he didn't have the credibility to vote against the resolution. To my continuing regret, I said he had to be for it. As I listened to this, I watched Edward's face; he didn't like where he was being pushed to go.

As I said, he voted not with his heart but with the political portion of his brain. He looked at the blow back and decided to vote for it to increase his chances of becoming vice president.

Political consultant Bob Shrum writes in his new book that he regrets advising John Edwards to vote for the Iraq war resolution:

Democratic strategist Bob Shrum writes in his memoir to be published in June that he regrets advising Edwards to give President Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq. He said if Edwards had followed his instincts instead of the advice of political professionals, he would have been a stronger presidential candidate in 2004.

In what should have been a vote based on one's convictions, Edwards chose to go the politically expedient route (as did Hillary Clinton) and got advice on the most important vote he'd ever make from a guy who has never led a candidate to a major election win.

If Edwards truly felt that he should vote no, why didn't he? Say what you will about President Bush, he makes a decision and stands by it on major issues. He's been unwavering in fighting the Global War on Terror, and has suffered serious political fallout because of it. Bush's stance has caused his party to lose the majority in both the House and Senate but he knows what he is doing is right, consequences be damned.

Marc Cooper writes about a huge miss for the John Edwards camp at the Huffington Post:

The top leadership of the SEIU met all day Monday in Chicago to consider who to back in the Democratic primaries but decided to postpone any formal endorsement. For at least two years Edwards has been laboring to line up union support which his strategists see as crucial to any realistic chance to capture the Democratic nomination. "John had been counting on the unions as a sort of super-charger, an after-burner," said a California operative of the Edwards campaign. "But now we are in danger of a flame-out."

And that this is all a huge bitter blow considering all the work Edwards has done since 2004, when he was the labor nominee:

Since the conclusion of the failed 2004 Democratic campaign, Edwards had been meticulously trying to build a solid, national union base. He walked endless picket lines, attended dozens of labor rallies and built strong personal relationships with top union leaders like Stern. His honed economic populist program was sweet music to union ears and six months ago an SEIU endorsement of Edwards seemed almost a slam dunk.

But that the SEIU is not about to get burned again:

SEIU officials are openly concerned that their once-favored Edwards is running a distant third in most national and state polls (with the exception of Iowa) and may no longer be a viable candidate, no matter how many union resources are poured into his campaign.

So you're John Edwards, and you're in 3rd place in most polls and still reeling a bit from a bad misstep with some lefty bloggers. What do you do when Ann Coulter jokingly calls you a "faggot?"

You milk it like there's no tomorrow!

We must show that inflaming prejudice to attack progressive leaders will only backfire.

Can you help us raise $100,000 in "Coulter Cash" this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry?

There are three links on the homepage and one of them is Elizabeth Edwards joining in.