Madai, I think you're overlooking the fact that most tort lawyers (such as Edwards) only receive (at most) 30% of any given case settlement, the rest going to help out the people whose lives were either lost or destroyed by whatever negligent doctor, faulty machine, etc. Given the amount of work and skill required to win such a high-profile case (example: Edwards had to learn a good deal about internal medicine to competently cross-examine the doctor-expert witnesses in the pool pump case), it's hardly an unwarranted fee. Edwards worked hard throughout his career, was a real wonk when it came to knowing his profession, and doesn't deserve to be penalized for simply being good at what he did--regardless of how you feel about civil lawsuit settlements.

Your analysis of Orwell's 1984 is oversimplified to a fault. The outer party was far from a middle-class. Further, given that the book portrayed a dystopia in which the controlling powers-that-be wouldn't even have conceded the NEED for change, the analogy doesn't carry over to the typical presidential election, in which the powers-that-would-be talk of nothing else BUT the need for change. To quote you, "It's a gross oversimplification."

Further, I'd invite you to actually mount a challenge to Edward's argument that there are two Americas. The middle class is rapidly eroding, the poor of America are becoming poorer, and it's not stretch to find an economist who will tell you an increasing amount of America's wealth is in a decreasing number of hands. He's calling out the elephant in the room, and God bless him for it.

And I write all of this as an Obama supporter...