“Will the real John Edwards please stand up?” Kucinich said.

MANCHESTER, NH — Revelations in today’s New York Times regarding John Edwards’ staunch pro-war stance as a Vice Presidential candidate in 2004 “raise serious questions about the credibility of his positions on every issue being debated in this Presidential campaign,” Ohio Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said today.“Voters have every right to ask, ‘Were you telling the truth then, John, or are you telling the truth now?’ And Senator Edwards has a responsibility to answer,” Kucinich said.

In a major story today about the relationship between Edwards and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 campaign, the Times reported, “Mr. Kerry had increasing doubts about the war. But Mr. Edwards argued that they should not renounce their votes — they had to show conviction and consistency.” Edwards was a co-sponsor of the 2002 war authorization resolution, along with Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

“Mr. Kerry yielded to his running mate,” according to the Times story, and told reporters early in the 2004 campaign that he would still have voted for the 2002 war authorization even knowing that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. Six weeks later, in a speech at New York University, he reversed himself, over the objections of Edwards, the Times reported. A year later, in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post, Edwards reversed his own position, a move that some Kerry aides described as “politically expedient” in the planned run-up to the 2008 Presidential campaign.

“John Kerry was hammered by the Republicans and by many in the media for changing his positions on the war and other issues in the 2004 campaign,” Kucinich noted. “The fact of the matter is that he wanted to come out against the war in 2004, and John Edwards argued against it.”

“Now,” Kucinich continued, “we have a candidate who voted for the war and voted to fund the war, but says he against it. He voted for the Patriot Act, and now he complains about its abuses. He voted for China Trade in 2000 knowing that Americans would be hurt, and now he’s decrying the unsafe products pouring into this nation from China. He supported nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, now he’s against it.” “Will the real John Edwards please stand up?” Kucinich said.

Dennis 4 President 11/21/07
http://www.dennis4president.com/go/newsroom/edwards%92-pro%11war-posture-in-%9204-raises-serious-credibility-questions/

“Product Liability”

(CNN) — “Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio took a direct shot at fellow White House hopeful former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at Thursday’s CNN Democratic presidential debate.

“In the last debate, Hillary Clinton was criticized by John Edwards for some trade-related issue,” said Kucinich. “But the fact of the matter is, John, you voted for China trade understanding that workers were going to be hurt. Now, you’re a trial lawyer, you knew better.”

When given the chance to respond, Edwards said, “I’m not sure what being a trial lawyer has to do with it.”

Kucinich quickly shot back “product liability.”

CNN Political Ticker 11/15/07
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/15/kucinich-and-edwards-spar/

Unions balk at Edwards track record

In 1998, while running for the Senate, Edwards did not come out in favor of repealing right-to-work laws in North Carolina, and he has only opposed a national right-to-work law. While North Carolina is hardly considered to be a labor stronghold, the former senator’s record and his relationship with some unions in the state were used by some unions to judge him as unworthy of an endorsement.

The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), which endorsed Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.), said Edwards’s unwillingness to advocate a repeal of the right-to-work measure was a sticking point for the membership when it was seriously considering supporting the former senator’s bid.

“How do you walk picket lines and be for right-to-work?” Jeffrey Zack, an IAFF official, said. “It’s surprising that it wasn’t disconcerting to more people.

“Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s results. It’s not what you say. It’s results.”

Edwards has also come under fire for his support for normalizing trade relations with China after he was elected to the Senate and for voting for fast-track authority for the president. Edwards has said since that he regrets both votes, and Wednesday he told the UAW in Iowa that he would reverse trade policies.

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) were clearly impressed with Edwards when he addressed the group this summer, but members from North Carolina and his past positions on trade and right-to-work were ultimately what led them to endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) instead, officials said.

“He walked out of there completely convinced he had our endorsement,” IAM official Rick Sloan said. “What he failed to realize was the jury was still out.

“I think he makes an exceptional closing argument. If that was all the jury ever heard, he’d win every time. But it’s not.”

Sloan said Edwards appeared to be “the natural for us,” but the former senator made some missteps with the North Carolina IAM members who worked to elect him, and his support for normalizing trade with China and right-to-work in his home state cost him.

“These days he’s sounding like Johnny Tremain helping a modern-day Paul Revere going around saying, ‘The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming,’ ” Sloan said. “Well, they are — by his gold-plated invitation.”

Sloan added that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, IAM members who worked for U.S. Air in Charlotte, N.C., were losing their jobs in the wake of lost revenues and corporate cutbacks.

“When our guys were getting laid off after 9/11, he came down and met with the company” instead of the workers, Sloan said.

“Our guys in North Carolina worked really hard to get him there and then didn’t see much of him,” Sloan said, adding that the right-to-work issue is “the highest priority for the labor movement.”

The Hill 11/15/07
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/unions-balk–at-edwards-track-record-2007-11-15.html

Kucinich calls out Edwards on China Trade

WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Made in China” has become a health and safety warning label for American consumers following the recalls of tens of millions of Chinese-made toys, but the “real warning label should say ‘Made in Washington, D.C. by corporate lobbyists’ because the life-threatening hazards of these products were either ignored or brushed off by members of the Congress seven yeas ago,” Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said today.

And, at least one then-member of the Senate, John Edwards, who has been railing lately in favor of higher safety standards for Chinese-made products, defended his 2000 vote supporting expanded China trade with the famously reported comment, “it does us no good to pretend that these remedies are perfect and that people will not be hurt.”

“Senator Edwards knew seven years ago that people would be hurt, so why did he vote for China trade?” Kucinich asked. “How credible is his newfound consumer protectionism and his campaign advocacy for trade reform to save American jobs?”

Kucinich, D-OH, noted that Edwards, who became a millionaire as a trial lawyer with considerable expertise in product liability matters, “knew better than any other member of the Senate what the risks were in sending U.S. manufacturing jobs to a country with almost no labor standards, no health and safety standards, and no environmental standards.”Beyond that, Kucinich pointed out, Edwards’vote in favor of the 2000 China trade agreement has resulted in the loss of more than 973,00 manufacturing jobs and more than 1.2 million jobs total, according to studies released by the AFL-CIO.

“If he knew then that this trade agreement would hurt people and put Americans out of work, he had a moral responsibility to vote against it,” said Kucinich, who has a perfect record in his votes against unfair trade agreements. “Like his now-regretted vote in favor of the resolution that led to the Iraq war, his votes on trade issues raise questions of judgment.” “When candidates stand in front of a union audience or in front of the cameras, they bemoan the three millions jobs that have been lost because of ‘free trade’ agreements,” Kucinich noted. “When they had a chance to vote as a member of Congress, they strongly supported those agreements. That means they voted against American workers, and, as recent events have shown, against American consumers.”

http://www.dennis4president.com/go/newsroom/%91made-in-china%92-hazards-began-with-%91made-in-washington,-d.c.%92/

Edwards’ Campaign Requests a Grade Change

Yesterday I ranked the intelligence reform plans of six presidential candidates (3 Dems, 3 Republicans) based on their essays in Foreign Affairs. John Edwards didn’t do so well.

This morning, I got a phone call and email from the Edwards campaign asking me to take a look at a recent speech and a newly unveiled counterterrorism plan. At first, I thought I wouldn’t, since it would screw up my nice, fair, apples-to-apples comparison (if the counterterrorism plan were so important, why weren’t any seeds of it planted in Edwards’ Foreign Affairs piece?) Considering extra campaign material for only one candidate would give Edwards an unfair advantage. Kind of like allowing extensions for some students but not others.

But then I figured that any campaign that scanned blogs that closely and cared that much about how they stood on intelligence reform should get a second look.

So I’m changing his ranking from a distant and poor 4th to a much more respectable 2nd place, just behind John McCain.

Here’s why:
Edwards proposes a bold and novel idea: a new Counterterrorism and Intelligence Treaty Organization, which he describes as the “modern-day equivalent of NATO for terrorism.” CITO would more systematically engage and coordinate political, diplomatic, law enforcement, and intelligence efforts across the world. He also advocates improving human intelligence by spending more money on foreign language scholarships (good idea), doing more outreach with Muslim communities (good idea) and holding the Director of National Intelligence more accountable for reform (also good).

2 Biggest weaknesses:

1. Edwards focuses most on the one area of intelligence that may be working best: foreign cooperation. Many intel officials — not the spinning kind, the ones who actually complain about the slow pace of reform — tell me that foreign liaison was pretty darn good before 9/11, and even better today.

The people who really need a cooperation treaty don’t live in Cairo or Berlin or Paris. They live right here at home. Today, 16 federal agencies, 40+ regional “fusion centers,” and thousands of state, local, and private sector leaders are involved in counterterrorism intelligence. Coordination is often poor, and that’s to say nothing of the uneven quality of collection and analysis tradecraft (a CRS report on fusion centers recently found that these centers don’t even use a standard form or standard terminology for reporting vital information to other officials.) Edwards, to his credit, suggests creating a new Deputy Director of National Intelligence for coordinating the feds with state and local efforts. Good start, but one appointment is no silver bullet.

2. Holding the DNI accountable for intelligence reform sounds good, but it’s waaaay easier said than done. No president since Harry Truman has succeeded on this one because it’s boring for voters and politically costly for presidents. Unless candidate Edwards starts talking about intelligence reform with the same zeal he talks about mill workers, I doubt that President Edwards will give this the attention that it requires.

TPM

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/tableforone/2007/nov/08/edwards_campaign_requests_a_grade_change

Edwards advocates combat ‘expeditions’

Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, who has stepped up attacks on rival Hillary Clinton for her plans to continue combat missions against Al Qaeda in Iraq, said yesterday that he would also carry out “expeditions” against that insurgent group – but from bases outside the country.

Edwards told Boston Globe editors that in case of civil war and to battle Al Qaeda, he would keep a quick reaction force of 4,000 to 5,000 troops in Kuwait and station others around the Middle East, including in Afghanistan and possibly Jordan.

He said, however, that ending the permanent military presence in Iraq – what he calls an occupation – is a significant distinction between him and Clinton. Keeping troops in Iraq is “like putting a target on the foreheads of American combat troops who stay there,” Edwards said.

We’re battling Al Qaeda all over the world right now and we don’t occupy countries to do it,” he said. “We don’t have to occupy Iraq.”

But a Clinton spokesman, Phil Singer, said Edwards’s comments contradicted statements he made at debates and on the campaign trail.

“You can’t end combat missions and go after Al Qaeda. That’s a combat mission,” Singer said.

snip: During the interview, he criticized Washington lobbyists, including their role in derailing congressional efforts to close a loophole that allows executives of hedge funds and buyout firms to pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries and janitors. “It’s a complete embarrassment,” said Edwards, who until last year was an adviser for a New York hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group.

Edwards, a former trial lawyer who made millions representing poor, injured people, acknowledged that he has raised significant funds from Wall Street and special interest groups, including lawyers.

“I’m not claiming purity or holier-than-thou. . . . I don’t claim to be the perfect messenger,” Edwards said. “I do believe that all of us have gotten so accustomed to this that it feels okay. . . . We need to recognize that it’s not right and actually make a serious effort to do something about it.”

Boston.com

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/11/08/edwards_advocates_combat_expeditions/

The High Standard of Single Talk

Former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, launched a web ad so aggressive towards Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, upon first viewing I thought it was put together by the Republican National Committee. (WATCH IT HERE).

And today Edwards will continue making his case against the former First Lady in such a fashion, saying in Iowa City, per remarks released by his campaign, that “Senator Clinton is voting like a hawk in Washington, while talking like a dove in Iowa and New Hampshire. We have seen this movie before. And it doesn’t end well — in fact, as we all know too well, in Iraq, it hasn’t ended at all.”

I agree that Clinton’s debate performance exposed her to several charges of not presenting a clear opinion — what Edwards calls “double-speaking.”

But has Edwards exposed himself to that charge as well?

ABC Political Punch 11/5/07
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/11/the-high-standa.html

Edwards at it again

Since September, and as White House hints of military action against Iran intensify, the Edwards campaign has changed a key passage in its website’s discussion of Iran.

As of September 7, the passage read:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will soon be deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. As president, Edwards will ensure that such steps are not just more rhetoric, but actually lead to results.

The passage now reads:

Congress recently passed a bill to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. We saw in Iraq where such steps by Congress can lead President Bush. Edwards has announced his opposition to this bill.

The rest of the text of the 2,000-word foreign policy page is unchanged. And while this is obviously an update to keep pace with the news, the first version lacks any condemnation of the planned terrorist designation.

The Politico 11/5/07
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1107/A_change_on_Iran.html

Edwards called on China trade vote

Imports from Peru last year amounted to $5 billion, only 0.03 percent of all U.S. imports. In comparison, China accounts for 16 percent of U.S. imports — nearly $288 billion worth of goods last year. China is running neck and neck with Canada as the top source of U.S. imports.While Edwards talked about what he sees as excessive CEO pay in his Des Moines speech, he did not mention China at all, alluding only to “ensuing the safety of imported food and drugs” without mentioning any specific country.

Later Thursday, in a meeting with 200 voters in Boone, Iowa, he said, “We’ve got these trade deals that cost Americans millions of jobs, and what do we get in return? Millions of dangerous Chinese toys.”

That line got a good reaction from the crowd.

Edwards didn’t tell them what he himself had said seven years ago when he voted for the China trade deal.

snip

While the China trade legislation included an “anti-surge” proviso designed to stem a flood of imports, Edwards was quite candid in 2000 in acknowledging that “it does us no good to pretend that these remedies are perfect and that people will not be hurt.”

He touched on a classic problem of international trade policy: the hurt is highly concentrated among some workers in higher-wage countries — while the benefits of trade (lower prices, greater variety of goods) are broadly diffused over many millions of consumers.

snip

As he explained his vote on Sept. 19, 2000, Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina, told the Senate, “Trade between U.S. companies and the Chinese will likely explode in the coming years, generating jobs and revenues in this country. It could easily be the keystone in the continuing prosperity of this nation.”

snip

The 2002 vote to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq has become a mea culpa moment for Democratic presidential contenders. Edwards has ostentatiously confessed what he now sees as his error in that vote.

But the 2000 China vote hasn’t become a cause for repentance and confession.

MSNBC 10/30/07
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21536832/

“Instantly” Edwards to end war, enact universal health care, and overhaul energy system

It’s a bird, it’s a plane …

Like other Democrats, Edwards named his top three priorities as ending the war in Iraq, enacting universal health care and overhauling the American energy system. “Those are three things instantly I would do,” he said.

Edwards also ripped fellow Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton, who leads most polls nationally and in New Hampshire by a wide margin, for taking campaign contributions from federal lobbyists and for her recent vote in favor of naming Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group. Edwards barely mentioned Sen. Barack Obama.

Both Edwards and Clinton have proposed universal health care plans that mandate insurance for everyone, while Obama has proposed a plan that requires coverage only for children. Edwards, who was first to propose a plan, called Clinton’s a “carbon copy” of his but said he is better positioned to negotiate because he has the “clean hands of not taking money from lobbyists.”

“Senator Clinton has over the years has taken millions of dollars from lobbyists and defends the status quo system,” he said. “She just basically says the system works and her argument is, ‘I’m experienced, I can operate within the system.’ “

Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand questioned the line Edwards has drawn. He takes money from state lobbyists and from a variety of industry groups; according to a Washington Post roundup, he’s taken more than $8 million this year from lawyers and law firms, including some that also employ lobbyists.

“It is disappointing that instead of taking the opportunity to lay out his ideas to New Hampshire voters, John Edwards is consistently choosing to engage in misleading, desperate attacks against Senator Clinton,” Strand said.

Concord Monitor 10/26/07
http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071026/FRONTPAGE/710260384