The ugly truth about John Edwards

[marlowe]

Shyster lawyer gets rich making the world a worse place (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39310)

Excerpts:

CNSNews.com first reported in January how Edwards won record jury
verdicts and settlements in cases alleging that the botched treatment
of women in labor and their deliveries caused infants to develop the
brain disorder cerebral palsy.

Edwards specialized in these cases, which he characterized in his
presidential campaign as battles on behalf of the common man against
insurance companies.

But the cause of cerebral palsy long has been debated, and two new
studies in 2003 further undermined the scientific premise of Edwards'
cases, CNSNews.com reported...

Medical science increasingly is exonerating doctors in cases of labor
and delivery where cerebral palsy resulted, medical and legal experts
told CNSNews.com...

Nevertheless, some of Edwards' critics say his extraordinary oratorical
skills overcame the latest science, enabling him to persuade juries that
doctors were at fault for the cerebral palsy in infants.

In an analysis last year of Edwards' legal career, the Boston Globe
wrote that his trial summations "routinely went beyond a recitation of
his case to a heart-wrenching plea to jurors to listen to the unspoken
voices of injured children."


I say:

Won't someone please think of the children?


More excerpts:

From judgments or settlements related to medical malpractice,
Edwards built a personal fortune estimated at between $12.8 and $60
million. His former law firm, Edwards & Kirby of Raleigh, N.C.,
reportedly kept between 25 and 40 percent of the jury awards and
settlements during the time he worked there, CNSNews.com said...

As a result, he told CNSNews.com, medical specialities such as
obstetrics, emergency room medicine and neurosurgery have become
crippled.

"A few years ago every neurosurgeon in Washington D.C., had been sued,
and it can't be because the nation's capital gets only bad
neurosurgeons," Olson said. "It's because it's too tempting to file
against the competent ones because so many terrible things go wrong
with their patients."

Mark Steyn on the "two Americas" rhetoric (http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/07/11/do1109.xml)

Excerpt:


Even if you have never heard it, you know how it goes: there's one
America where Dick Cheney's oil buddies are swigging down Martinis and
toasting their war profits; but there's another America where "tonight
a 10-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that
tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat
to keep her warm".

You would have to have a heart of stone not to be weeping with laughter
at that line. But Democratic primary voters are not that rude. So they
looked thoughtful and engaged, and they nodded and they applauded. And
then they went out and voted for somebody else. After you've heard the
speech a couple of times, you realise that John Edwards is perhaps the
most condescending candidate in America. But the voters condescended
right back, smiling politely at the clean-cut charmer, and then going
away and forgetting about him.

In New Hampshire, he came a poor fourth. Likewise, New Mexico and North
Dakota. In Delaware, he came third, with 11 per cent of the vote. In
Oklahoma, he came second, managing to lose to loopy General Wesley
Clark. The only place he won was the state of his birth, South Carolina.
In Florida, he pulled 10 per cent of the vote; Maine, 8 per cent;
Mississippi, Arizona, 7 per cent.

Edwards is a lawyer, and supposedly his great strength is his ability to
make an argument and sell it to a jury. But the more the primary jurors
heard his argument, the less they were sold on it. "There are two
Americas," said Conan O'Brien on CBS. "Unfortunately for Edwards,
neither one voted for him."

Comment at zIWETHEY (http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=163866)

Home link (http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/kerry.html#20040711)

[ninjalooter1701]

YOu never had much to say about lawyers before.

[Atenhotep]

Abraham Lincoln was a Trial Lawyer.

Yeah .. gee ... those darn Trial Lawyers ...

[thaanatos]

how many ambulances did Lincoln chase?

[Zan de Man]

He chased trains

[sinterest]

I think Edwards has his heart in the right place and is his own man. Couple this with a convincing orator and he makes a good president, especially when compared to George Bush.
We need a man who can talk with foreign leaders and empress them that he is sincere and knowledgeable.
Bush was a colossal failure at business (needs Cheney badly) while Edwards is top in his field.

[Atenhotep]

how many ambulances did Lincoln chase?

I don't know. Do you?

Somebody sure assassinated his ass so he must of had a few enemies.

The point is all this fucking shit you're complaining about, guess what:

OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS YOU LOST YOUR privileges TO SAY SHIT ABOUT ANYONE forever.

Do you understand?

Let me repeat.

You sat back and watched our country go to shit while you masturabate to images of that scum sucking little troll in the White House who stole the election in 2000 and as a result .. YOUR VOICE means NOTHING.

NOTHING.

You are of less than ZERO consequence.

You have proven you cannot be trusted.

You are a traitor by every set of standards your bullshit politics have painted others with and YOU THAANATOS have been denied all future credibility to say shit.

When Kerry is elected .. YES, ELECTED in 2004 you are mute.

YOUR VOICE means absolute shit.

[goddesscon]

America Votes | 'Kill all the lawyers' talk might not stick against Edwards

Foes paint Kerry's choice as an "ambulance chaser," but a Gallup poll says 67% see his career as a plus.

Shakespeare did it. Ben Franklin did it. These days, President Bush's fans are doing it.

Lawyer-bashing is an ancient sport, and John Edwards, erstwhile trial lawyer and current vice-presidential candidate, is the latest bashee.

Bush partisans haven't been as outspoken as the Shakespeare character who suggested," "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Nor have they been as witty as Franklin, who said that "a countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats." But ever since Edwards joined the Democratic ticket, they've been dissing "ambulance-chasers" and "Learjet lawyers."

Their political intent is clear: If they can tap into the public's general antipathy toward lawyers, maybe they can dent Edwards' halo. If they can link Edwards - a renowned personal-injury lawyer until he ran for the Senate in 1998 - to those unsavory members of the bar who file "junk and frivolous lawsuits" (Bush's words), maybe they can undercut his charisma.

Will voters go along? Maybe not; even some Bush allies are skeptical. But they fear that if they don't act now, the North Carolinian might sell himself as one of those John Grisham lawyers who skewers the establishment and wins big bucks for the average Joe. (Edwards did win $152 million in 63 cases). Republicans would prefer he be painted as a captive of what they call "the litigation industry."

As Jim Copland, an ex-law clerk now working at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, remarked the other day: "His entire political career has been financed almost exclusively by trial lawyers. He's been flown around in private jets by trial lawyers. So any time you have one candidate supported so exclusively by one special-interest group, you've got to be concerned."Like Bush and Ken Lay's Jet?

The bar essentially has bankrolled Edwards' political career; of his 25 most generous patrons, 22 are personal-injury lawyers and law firms. Critics call him a phony populist. As GOP strategist Frank Donatelli said, "Does a 'son of a millworker' adequately describe a multimillion-dollar trial lawyer?"

But the big question is whether most voters will hold Edwards' career against him.

"I've asked a lot of questions about lawyers," said independent pollster John Zogby, "and the people who insist that 'we don't trust lawyers,' are the same people who want a real barracuda if they get into trouble. Then, all of a sudden, it's, 'Hey, what's the guy's number?' "

And even though the lawyers feel burdened by their bad image - in a recent Gallup poll, they were ranked 18th of 23 professions in terms of honesty and ethics - they are openly ecstatic about Edwards' ascendance. On Tuesday morning, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America was meeting in Boston; when members got the word about Edwards, they stomped their feet and cheered. Now they're pumping fresh money into Democratic coffers.

Edwards also has been a major topic of conversation at the five-day meeting of Pennsylvania trial lawyers that ends today. Politics aside, they view him as their savior.

Philadelphia attorney Ken Rothweiler, an Edwards fund-raiser who is attending the meeting, said: "The business community has done a good job painting us as bad guys who drive up insurance rates. I'm sure there are some lawyers taking crappy cases and doing things they shouldn't do, but that's not any of the people I know. I know gutsy lawyers who take injured people into court, and bust their ass trying to win a case, often against all odds.

"The only way you can repair a tarnished image is to have a shining example of what you do. There's no better person than John Edwards, and now he has the biggest stage. In the meeting, I made an impassioned plea about that."

But Edwards' ascendance has also stirred passions in the business community, and that means money and mobilization for the GOP. As political analyst Larry Sabato observed: "Business has instantly gone nuts, and that's a surprise. Usually they move so slowly that, by the time they're geared up, the election is almost over. But now they're motivated, big time. It's like, 'Who cares about Iraq?' "

Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said trial lawyers are scarier "than terrorists, China, or higher energy prices." The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which says trial lawyers drive companies out of business, may decide to shelve its traditional neutrality and campaign against Edwards. And the medical establishment, which blames the lawyers for driving up premiums and hurting doctors, will run TV "issue" spots this summer - in Pennsylvania, among other states.

The sponsoring group, Doctors for Medical Liability Reform, won't poke Edwards directly. Rather, spokesman Jason Kemp said, it will air 30-minute "newsmagazine programming" that calls for capping damage awards (a proposal Edwards and other Democrats oppose). That's a hot issue in Pennsylvania, where the lawyers essentially thwarted the doctors a little over a week ago, defeating legislative efforts to cap awards.

But Edwards can defend his career with anecdotes about his clients (among them a girl whose intestines were sucked out by a faulty pool drain, manufactured by a company whose drains had injured 12 other children), and in political argument, fairly or not, anecdotes often trump abstractions. As Copland, an Edwards critic, freely conceded, "His people are always going to be sympathetic figures."

Ferrell Guillory, a North Carolina political analyst who has long tracked Edwards' career, said: "He represented easily recognizable, middle-class people - like the parents with a swimming pool - who still felt beaten down by powerful forces. You can feel generally grumpy about lawyers, but when there's a specific problem, you'll want a good lawyer to assert your rights."

The same dichotomy exists in popular culture. For every movie lawyer who looks sleazy (John Travolta in the early scenes of A Civil Action, suing for a big settlement), there's a crusader battling injustice (Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird).

Republican pollster Frank Luntz once insisted in a memo to GOP candidates that "it's almost impossible to go too far when it comes to demonizing lawyers. Make the lawyer your villain." This was in 1998, and they tried the tactic against lawyer Edwards, the rookie Senate candidate. He won handily, beating an incumbent.

And Edwards seems safe at the moment; in a new Gallup poll, 67 percent of respondents said his law career was a strength, not a weakness. So it may be tough for the Bush-friendly medical establishment to taint Edwards with its argument that lawyers are driving up premiums and forcing doctors to flee their states - particularly when those claims are disputed anyway. (The nonpartisan General Accounting Office concluded last fall that, despite claims about doctors leaving Pennsylvania, the number of doctors per capita had actually risen during the last six years.)

John Samples, an Edwards critic at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington, doubts the guy can be tainted at all: "He's beholden to one narrow constituency that wins massive jury awards. Then the lawyers send some of that money to the Democrats, who then fight all the reforms that are designed to curb those awards.

"But for most [voters], this is wonkish stuff. Edwards plays the 'people vs. the powerful' card, and it's all a wash. That's all he needs is a wash."

Political analyst Sabato said: "There are bumper stickers that say, 'I won't brake for lawyers.' But so what? This is a presidential campaign, and by late October, running mates don't dominate the coverage anyway. Nobody will be talking about trial lawyers. Edwards will probably be back on Page 10."

(7/12/2004)
- By Dick Polman, The State - SC

Copyright 2004 by Zogby International.


http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=8638


:bleh

[tolivr]

But Edwards can defend his career with anecdotes about his clients (among them a girl whose intestines were sucked out by a faulty pool drain, manufactured by a company whose drains had injured 12 other children)...

This is exactly what Edwards will do...and it will work.

Last week, while on vacation, I watched Oprah one afternoon because she had victims of medical malpractice on the show. There was a 21 year old lady whose ovaries and uterus were removed for cancer--tests later showed she had NO cancer; a man whose penis was amputated due to prostate cancer, yet NO cancer was later found in his penis; the family of a girl who died when she was given the wrong blood type in a routine blood transfusion; a women whose healthy breasts were both amputated for cancer when the hospital lab mistakenly confused her test results with those of another patient. And there were other stories of people dying due to having the wrong kidney removed, even the wrong leg amputated.

People can moan all they wish about medical malpractice rates, but what is it worth to have your healthy leg or lung or kidney or ovaries removed by mistake? What is a young girl's life worth when she is needlessly killed due to a doctor's negligence in giving her the wrong blood type in a routine transfusion?

When it is your healthy kidney or lung being negligently removed, when it is your daughter being negligently killed because someone did not check the blood type during the transfusion, there is not enough money in the world to fairly compensate you. All Edwards has to do is tell these stories, and most everyone will understand.

That's how I see it...but then, I am a trial lawyer.

Oh, and Honest Abe? He was a corporate trial lawyer who represented railroads. His suffered a decrease in income upon being elected President.

[thaanatos]

YOUR VOICE means absolute shit.
thank you, Aten, coming from you that means........absolutely nothing.... :rollin

[sinterest]

That's how I see it...but then, I am a trial lawyer.

Do you think that there should be caps on punitive amounts?

[sinterest]

Quote:
YOUR VOICE means absolute shit.

thank you, Aten, coming from you that means........absolutely nothing....

:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl
You two rpove that "opposites attract" :yay

[tolivr]

Do you think that there should be caps on punitive amounts?


From my point of view, there should not be caps. When a verdict is excessive, the trial judge should remit it to a reasonable and fair sum. If the trial judge fails to exercise his remittitur power, then the appellate judges should do so. With excessive verdicts in many states and federal courts, this routinely happens.

[toolman846]

"I think Edwards has his heart in the right place ....."

Yeah - firmly entrenched in his wallet! It's genetic. :lol

[GeneralPatton]

I think Edwards has his heart in the right place and is his own man. Couple this with a convincing orator and he makes a good president


Not running for president.

From my point of view, there should not be caps

Well then, I wonder why health insurance costs so much?

[Thornton]

It's Edwards lack of experience in politics that worries me. Seems like a big jump from trial lawyer to Vice President. What we have to remember is if Kerry is elected then something happens to him, well then Edwards steps up to the plate.

Mostly all VP elects have experience in politics. He doesn't.