I believe John Edwards does see two Americas - and is damned happy to belong to the affluent one, as evidenced by his lifestyle. I also believe he sees something else, opportunity. Opportunity to enrich his own life immeasurable while "defending" the rights of others. America needs men like John, but not as President.

My wife and I too have looked the worst in the face. We had a stillborn daughter after a completely uncomplicated pregnancy. Am I qualified to be president too? By the way, we didn't go out and get a bunch of personal injury attorneys and try to sue. John Edward's firm wouldn't have even considered a case like ours because there wasn't enough MONEY in it for him. Now there's a guy who really cares.

Oh please. Standing talking in a courtroom and having interns write deposition doesn't fit anyone's definition of "looking the worst in the face."

Ms. Edwards, does your husband actually believe that doing his job, for which he's well-compensated, actually provides evidence of moral fiber?

By that token, I make piles of money for old people's retirements everywhere (by making a ton of money for my firm and Wall Street). Where's my Nobel Peace Prize?

Elizabeth Edwards’ posts have been fantastic. She’s right: Four Trials lays out in moving detail Senator Edwards’ successful fight for people who didn’t have a voice.

What I wrote about in the piece was about what conclusions we were supposed to draw from the ambiguous ad. Perhaps everyone immediately thought of Senator Edwards’s law career when they saw the last line. I didn’t. A lot of other people I showed it too had the identical reaction I did. When I asked the campaign what voters were to conclude I got a laundry list and most of the items didn’t fall anywhere near the category of “the worst.” Proposing a universal healthcare plan and launching a poverty tour don’t fit that description, nor does the Senator admitting he was wrong about Iraq. Tough to do. Sure. Worst? No.

Not distinguishing between those items and his legal career was inartful. Clearly he’s seen trauma, hardship and pain. But compared to what? Compared to most of us he’s seen worse. Compared to himself? I was perhaps blinded by that last line’s reference to “the worst.” Maybe I took it too literally. When I think of “the worst” in Four Trials I think of the part where I read for the first time about Wade, and how the senator said his sorrow afterwards was the undercurrent of his life. I thought about the moving way Elizabeth Edwards talks about the accident on the stump. More recently I watched Senator Edwards speak to the sojourner’s about prayer and how after Wade’s death he was “nonfunctional” and how prayer helped him through that.

Maybe it’s because I have kids, but I can’t imagine anything else that fits into the category of that challenge—in Senator Edwards’ life or anyone else’s. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have my best friend and wife of thirty years fight cancer. Those two seem like the worst to me when making a comparison to his legal career. Why does it matter what I think? Because the ad is ambiguous and political ads ask us to connect to the candidate through images and inference. So I tried to figure out what this ad was asking of us.

I figured it was so clear what was being asked of the audience that a debate would start about whether it was right or wrong to bring up these issues, even obliquely. It was my view, as I wrote, that it’s fine to bring them up and that anyone who has been through those challenges has at least two important qualities we might want in a president: perspective and toughness.

Thank you, Mrs. Edwards. It might help you to know that Mr. Dickerson has made it as Atrios' Wanker of the Day. It does appear that he has read the Big Script for all the Media Big Boys: No Democrat does anything, or experiences anything, sincerely. As for frauds like the entire GOP presidential field -- with the exception of Ron Paul, who's crazy but genuine -- they get a free pass.

I think Mr Dickerson's point is well served. The ad was in-effective because we, the viewers haven't all read Mr. Edwards book. I applaud Mrs Edwards for speaking up (again) but the fact that she has to really shows me that this campaign organization is not really communicating the candidate to the people. I liked Edwards in the last election and I had high hopes for him in this one, but his message isn't getting through...and I live at ground zero - Iowa.....

"Democrats don't vote with their heads, we vote with our hearts." This is exactly what I'm talking about. We need to change the way people look at Liberalism, and, as Liberals, we need to change the way that we see ourselves.

Is real compassion impractical? I thought that modern game theory had disproven that. I believe that the realist approach is exactly the same as the old-school idealist approach, and there never was a better time to prove it.

That being said, understand that I like Edwards. A lot. I like what he stands for, and coming from a family that is entirely made up of doctors, nurses, social workers and teachers, I appreciate his work. All of it. Including the doctor-suing. What I do not appreciate is the idea that we, as a party should be careful about expressing our liberal values lest we be heard. And that is what "electability" is code for.

"Electability" says, "I appeal to the Pubs because I'm Republican-lite."

"Electability" says, "I know what you guys really want--- but 'lets be realistic here.'"

"Electability" is the Goldilocks method of campaigning, and that method simply does not win (Ironic ain't it).

Why have the Republicans been so successful in the last decade? Because they have pushed their own agenda at the expense of reasonable dialogue. And, because the Dems weren't willing to push back with a contrary vision they have just come across as weak... Luke-warm at best. We need to end that image right now. This is the best shot we're going to have, and we only have it because the Repubs have messed up so badly.

I like Mr. Edwards a lot (as I have said), and we're passionate about a lot of the same things, but he needs to stop talking about his across-the-aisle appeal, and emphasize real progressive values now. Worry about the other side during the general election, stop grabbing for the middle.

Right now America is looking to the Left for leadership because the Right has let them down one time too many. Someone needs to step up and show that leadership. Give us FDR, give us Thomas Jefferson... hell, I'd be happy with Teddy Roosevelt or Jimmy Carter. Just give me a real progressive. Give me someone who is not ashamed to be genuine and who actually cares about individuals. Give me back the John Edwards from the 2004 primaries.

Madai, Are you kidding? Have you looked at the great amounts of money John Edwards has given to the help poor? And at the school he set up at the University of North Carolina to tackle this very issue?

He could be spending his time making more money, as he appears to be a brilliant lawyer. But he's using a presidential campaign to make those of us who are fortunate face those who are less fortunate. And for us to see, that a catastrophic illness or accident could end our "good jobs with benefits" and then bankrupt our families.

John Edwards doesn't have to make himself poor in order t help those who are. Look at th greatest philanthropists in our history...they worked, made millions, and made a difference to the lives of those many who needed the strong to stand up for them.

The "worst" is the death of his son, and the cancer of his wife, you idiot.

Crunchy, you are spot-on about everything and I agree with everything you said -- except John Edwards' commitment to progressive ideals. I guess I don't see a big change from the 2004 candidate, except that the message seems, if anything, more fully fleshed-out. His speeches seem more focused, less vague, than -- for example -- Obama's. And more courageous, less careful, than Clinton's.

Let's face it, I'm sold on the guy. And I think that the hour has arrived for a progressive candidate -- which is part of why Edwards IS electable.

And since you have to get elected before you can do anything else, for heaven's sake, shouldn't that be a consideration? Not the only consideration, or the most important consideration. (Kerry -- supposedly "electable" -- was a disaster. If we were going to lose that election anyway, we should have lost it the way the Republicans lost in '64 -- with all our guns blazing and our ideological flags flying!)

"I've tried rich and I've tried poor. I liked rich better."

OK. John Edwards has money. Maybe the real problem here is that he actually earned his money. I mean he is a real, self-made man. I guess we just don't like that in this country. Not like that's the American Dream or anything... Not like that takes hard-work, discipline, and, yes, a little luck. Of course, those aren't qualities that we actually WANT in a president.

Maybe the problem is that he's a rich man advocating for the poor? Hypocrisy never plays well... But then again, I've never heard anyone say that Rockefeller or Carnegie were hypocrites. Is that hypocritical, really? I mean, if I, as a man were to say "How horrid is the plight of women everywhere!" would I be a hypocrite? What if I were actively trying to make the lives of women better?

Sorry I think I have to call BS on this whole "Edwards is bad because rich people can't be rich and advocate for the poor thing." What a load of hog-wash. I suppose that next you'll be trying to tell me that it's possible to be a "compassionate conservative."

From the Washington post:

Peter Gentling, a now-retired Asheville surgeon, vividly remembers a frantic call from his malpractice insurance agent 10 years ago, informing him that Edwards was representing a double-mastectomy patient of Gentling who, it turned out, had not had cancer. Gentling acknowledged that he made a mistake -- he had acted on a test less reliable than a biopsy -- but said he had felt certain that a jury would understand why he did so.

"She [the agent] just said that with this guy on the case and given how smart he is, it would turn out very badly for me and we better settle, and settle right away," Gentling said. He did -- for $850,000.

==============================

A double mastectomy without a biopsy? This guy clearly whould not have been a doctor and ended up retiring because he couldn't afford his malpractice insurance after this error of his had permanently disfigured his patient.

I think that your intern wrote your post, e.g. " having interns write deposition"

I did not know that any Wall street firms hired people from Regent Law School.

Congratulations.

Having come from a background w/so many family members in health care, how do you feel about how Edwards made millions of his dollars which was by suing doctors and the medical establishment. I understand he almost single-handedly eliminated OB/GYNs taking on difficult pregnancies because they are afraid to get sued by the likes of him.

Of course, bad doctors should fear malpractice suits. The problem is that right now ALL doctors fear malpractice suits. At the very least, it's definitely keeping medical students from picking careers in obstetrics, while practicing obstetricians are leaving practice in droves.

Since we're recommending reading material here, may I recommend Atul Gawande's "The Malpractice Mess" which was in the Nov. 14, 2005 issue of the New Yorker? I got the impression that most malpractice suits don't arise from obvious negligence so much as they do a bad outcome that the patient feels they must blame somebody for (whether it really comes down to being the doctor's fault or not.)

My apologies if this is off-topic. As far as Mr. Edwards is concerned, I'm sure he's a good guy who does his job well. I'm just not that excited about him, and I'm having a really hard time getting excited about anybody until it gets much closer to election time.