John Edwards did two important things last night which scared Right wing.

[AP]

Here's the spin on Edwards's speech, courtesy of Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard:

John Edwards: He is a boffo performer, though it's occasionally clear that what we're hearing is a scripted riff brimming with insincerity. Too bad he flubbed when moderator Brit Hume called him on his explanation of the Defense of Marriage Act. He didn't know how DOMA works. But he ably faked his way through an answer to Peter Jennings's nasty question about the tenets of Islam.

Here's the truth:

(1) On DOMA, Hume wants to spin it as a states rights law. He wants to say that it allows each state not to recognize other states' same-sex marriage if they don't want to. However, Edwards says it interferes with states rights. It forces states to accept a federal definition of "marriage." More significantly, it PREVENTS states from giving full faith and credit to other states' same-sex marriages if they want to.

Also, the right wing wants to drive a wedge between Edwards and gay voters, so they love to characterize him as being bad on this issue. In fact, he's dismantling the right wing frame for this issue.

Rather than engage in a debate about whether gays and lesbians should become incorporated into (along with the army) one of the two most conservative institutions in America, he's separating church from state, and he's saying this is an issue about rights and not about the government accepting a church's definition of who's allowed to enter into spiritual relationships, and he's framing it in terms of enabling people to participate effectively in the economy.

It freaks them out that Edwards is framing this issue in terms of rights in the workplace rather than in terms of "marriage" within a "family."

(2) Edwards's answer to the Islam question was genius. The implication of this question was that American foreign policy operates within the context of Christianity vs Islam, and that understanding religion is the key.

Edwards took that question and ended up telling America that governments should be about helping people the way they do it best: dealing with people's material lives, not their spiritual lives. By the end of the question he said that one of the best things Americans can do for themselves is to build non-religious public schools for Afghans. Did I hear "non-religious" and "public" and "build." Yes. This guy laid out exactly what every Democrat should be fighting for at home and incorporated it into an argument about good foreign policy. It was genius. Fred Barneds knows it.

As an aside, if you want to know Edwards's best qualities, look at the words Barnes uses to describe him: "scripted," "insincerity," "fake." Set aside for the moment that Barnes contradicts himself by acusing Edwards of being both "scripted" and faking his way through an answer. Barnes knows exactly what's powerful about Edwards and that's why he's trying to attach perjoratives to those qualities.

[xultar]

1. Clark/Edwards ticket would be awesome...though, It would never

happen.
2 "newbies" Clark hasn't been to elected office even though he has more experience than all of the other candidates. Edwards only elected once and seems too young though, he is at least 50.

Let us not forget that Edwards hired Shelton.

A Clark Edwards Ticket would be unbeatable.

They are both handsome, both southerners, both good campaigners, Clark military, Edwards Senator, wow, man that would be a good ticket.

[AP]

3. It would be a pretty clean break with the past.

[LuminousX]

2. scripted riff

Not exactly an oxymoron, but damn close. That is how you know they are grasping for straws in an effort to torpedo the candidates. We must always remember, they don't want any of our guys to win and will do whatever underhanded dastardly thing they can to make sure they don't.

[spooky3]

21. That's my opinion too. I believe they are going after not just

Clark, or Dean, but also Kerry, Edwards, Kucinich, and Sharpton, even Lieberman. Their objective appears not to pick our candidate, but to smear all of the candidates, so that whoever is nominated will be viewed more negatively by some of the voters than he otherwise would have.

Bravo (bravi?) to our candidates for fighting this and keeping the attention focused on *'s disasters.

And thanks, AP, for your astute analysis.

[Jerseycoa]

4. Precisely

It is the "reframing" Edwards rightfully does and other candidates do that they can't stand. I despise the media more and more and more every day.

[wtmusic]

5. 'Faked' his way?

Edwards response was flawless, by anyone's standard except a wingnut like Barnes.

He admitted he wasn't an expert on Islam. Not required, in my book.

[AP]

7. Yeah. It was so scripted of him to do that.

The script probably looks something like this:


RIGHT WING
(laying trap for Edwards)
Blah, blah, blah. Right wing bullshit.
Right wing bullshit. Right wing Bullshit.


JOHN EDWARDS
(stepping around trap, re-
framing debate)
Here's what matters: helping ordinary people,
using the government to make a difference
in people's MATERIAL lives, and not to pretend
that religion can or should do this.

CUT TO:

EXT. WASHINGTON, DC - DAY

Senator Edwards puts his left hand on the bible, raises right hand and
is sworn into office by an asshole whose politics' days are numbered.


WILLIAM REHNQUIST
(feebly)
I solemnly swear...

[JohnLocke]

11. AP, you are funny!

[spooky3]

22. LOL!!!

[beaconess]

24. ROFL

As usual, you nailed it!

[AP]

31. That's the first draft of the script.

The blue draft (or is it the pink draft?).

There might be a few rewrites before we get down to the final draft.

[rumguy]

19. yeah "faked" WTF does that mean

I'd like to see Bush try and flub his way through that question.

[ewagner]

6. What I really liked about Edwards last night

was that he took the time to reframe the question and take away the "gotcha" aspect of the question.

He did well.

[spooky3]

23. I liked the look in his eyes when he saw what was happening.

No more Mr. Nice Guy when looking at the questioner--it was as if he was about to begin his cross-examination. His mama didn't raise no fool.

No wonder Hume looked as though he had a bad case of gas most of the evening, and the other two could barely complete a sentence without stumbling.

[AP]

8. And lets not forget the 35 million in poverty (although Freddy Barnes has)

Quoted from the Edwards blog:

Scot Lehigh of the Globe also has good things to say in his column “Edwards Is The Strong Performer”:

How did the top four Democrats do? If I had to pick the strongest performer, it would be US Senator John Edwards. Edwards' best moment came when he deftly fielded a question on whether he believed George W. Bush's threatened efforts to amend the Constitution to block gay marriage was bigotry.

Edwards said he thought the president was wrong -- but then said he also wanted to talk about issues like families who live in poverty. "We should talk about it and do something about it because it is wrong," he said. "We have a responsibility -- I believe a moral responsibility -- to do something about 35 million Americans living in poverty."The rap on the first-term senator is that he is insufficiently experienced in foreign affairs. Yet even while admitting that he was not an expert on Islam, Edwards stressed that he had visited the Middle East and met with leaders there. And he noted that we need a better effort to communicate with the people of the region, rather than dealing only through autocrats.

[Blue_Roses]

9. which way does the weekly standard

lean? I checked it out and not sure.

[AP]

15. It's totally right wing.

You couldn't tell?

[grisvador]

10. I like Edwards but

he did (quite effectively)not answer questions directly and turned them into a preamble to make a passionate response to his own script - just like a good lawyer turning his oppositions argument into an impassioned plea to the jury. If he learns to keep his answers a little more concise (no time limit in the court room)he will come across even better in the debates scripted format and thus have broader appeal.

[AP]

13. You don't understand what I'm saying, do you? There's no obligation

to answer questions which are intended to frame debates in ways that only allow Republicans to win.

Edwards SHOULDN'T be answering those quesitons. He should be reframing the debate.

Read what I wrote above.

They guy's a democrat who's smarter than Republicans. What he did last night was genius.

[spooky3]

26. AP, I read Grisvador's point a little differently.

I think s/he's just saying that some people get irritated if the speaker keeps speaking after the bell rings. If so, it would be better to leave out a couple of sentences, if they are simply repeating a point already made.

I'm not sure if that's true, or if it's better for MOST in the audience to hear the additional info and have your face on the air just a little bit longer. But I think that's all s/he's saying.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

And welcome to DU, Grisvador.

[AP]

28. Oops. You're right. I got that wrong. I was trying to group that argument

with a couple others that I thought were implied, and address them all at once but probably should have just stuck to the issue G. raised.

[theboss]

12. Could anyone answer that question?

I've thrown myself into trying to understand Islam since 9/11. I've read books, talked to Muslims, etc. And I still don't really understand it. I mean, I barely understand Catholicism . . . and my dad's a Catholic.

Basically, his answer is this: "Don't get into Bible-quoting with a Priest." We can't address/critique Islam from the West because we barely understand it and Muslims will resent us. If we address the Muslim World from a sectarian standpoint, at least we are on ground both of us can understand.

[AP]

14. Bascially his answer was we have to address the MATERIAL world and not

the spiritual world if we want to have an America and a globe that works.

[AP]

16. Elswhere, I've heard the islam ans. referred to as a "white man's burden"

answer.

No argument given for why. However, I should note that white man's burden was based partly on the notion that white people could lord over the rest of the world becuase of their moral and spiritual superiority.

When Edwards reframed the question and made this issue NOT about Christianity vs Islam, he was basically doing the opposite of what imperialism has has been founded upon for the last 2 or three centuries.

[rumguy]

17. Edwards knows how to frame an issue to win it

He's even better at that than Clinton was

[AP]

18. Is Edwards's knowledge of frgn policy 'skin deep' becuase of his answer to

this question?

It wasn't really a foreign policy question to begin with. It was a way to say, to understand the way the middle east works, you have to understand Islam. to understand the way America works you have to understand christianity. To understand foreign policy works you have to understand the conflict between the two.

The question was based on a RW fascist presumption.

To answer the question as it was asked would have been to conced this RW-fascist paradigm is appropriate.

Edwards dismantled the paradigm and replaced it with a liberal democratic paradigm: governments need to deal with the MATERIAL reality of people's lives, and NOT the SPIRITUAL reality. Who here honestly does not believe that?

[DjTj]

20. ...and I think that's what voters want to hear.

Nobody wants a stuck-up bureaucrat to tell them that they can't understand foreign policy and that they need to have professionals explain it to them.

The right-wing wants us to rely on "experts" and lobbyists to set all the policy, but Edwards wants to be able to explain policy to regular people.

If we're doing things right, they should make sense to the voters. The government is supposed to be by the people, for the people...

[spooky3]

29. You're too kind. I don't believe for a moment that * or his

advisers have an indepth understanding of the culture or religion of these countries.

[AP]

30. I believe they do understand but they chose to ignore it or try to exploit

it.

[BuelahWitch]

25. I liked that he at one point tried to change the direction of the debate

(paraphrasing) "Why are you talking about us when so many children are going to bed hungry? We should be talking about the ISSUES!" Good for you John Edwards! :bounce:

[spooky3]

27. yes, that was excellent.

Does it bother anyone else that the Democrats are being questioned by Repugs rather than by 2 Repugs and 2 Democrats or some other more "fair and balanced" panel? I cannot IMAGINE a Republican candidate agreeing to be questioned by a predominantly Democratic panel, even though that panel would be far more committed to fairness.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

32. Don't forget, conservatives don't give a damn about "states rights"

First, states don't have rights, they have powers, as any true conservative will tell you. Second, the con cry for "state's right" was NOTHING but a code word for segregation.

The entire Republican party was founded on the principles of a strong federal government that could dominate the states - along with corporate welfare (called "internal improvements" at the time).

Anyway, Go Edwards!

[beaconess]

33. They believe in states rights only when it comes to states' rights to

discriminate. Otherwise, they're as anti-states-rights as they come:

Tort "reform" - the federal government tells juries how to decide state court tort cases

Class action "reform" - the federal government forces plaintiffs to file class action cases in federal court, even when no federal issues are involved.

Ronald Reagan National Propaganda Project - Naming everything on God's Green Earth after Ronald Reagan, over the objection of the people who have to pay for it.

[MiniMoog]

34. Edwards and Islam

a thought.

Although I don’t expect him to quote any of the Hadith’s or name the battles of Salahuddin, an understanding of Islam and to a greater extent the culture, is not only key but an imperative. The West is typically dismissive, uninformed, lazy, often arrogant and sometimes senselessly inflaming. The question was loaded and left begging, as always, within a debate format constructed to rig "misstatements" not quality answers.

But with a world gone mad by the Bush Cabal defining Muslim=Terrorist, the unprecedented violation of civil liberties through blatant racial/cultural profiling and internment of Muslims (enemy combatants), the occupation of Iraq preceded by reckless declarations of a “Crusade”, (since scrubbed), the “their God is a false God” comments of Boykin, and the dispatch of Fundamentalist Christian missionaries to this region ostensibly to convert them, I expected Mr. Edwards, a lawyer and politician who has served on the Intelligence Committee, that his grasp and knowledge of Islam, its different factions, sects, splinter groups, the secularists, the fundamentalists in various regions, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia and the mid-east, to be far above the average layman. If one were to distinguish themselves from a pure foreign policy position, and contrast his position with the Bush Cabal, applying and strutting his knowledge of Islam and its culture is rare, bloody meat served by the brave. Naming heads of state is akin to winning a pop-quiz on who invented the refrigerator that flew over the heads of non-poli junkies.

There is another tact he could have taken.

He could have reached out to the millions of American Muslims right then, a significant voting block that the Republicans all but locked last election. Many who are, now, because of various reasons I stated above, disillusioned, disappointed and pissed. Speaking to secularize schools in Muslim dominated populations abroad while submitting a paucity of understanding of Islam, this, for some American Muslims smacks as cultural imperialism. Even a cursory awareness of the tenants of Islam would have made an indelible mark.

It’s tricky. It’s delicate. Mr. Edwards is a keen speaker with an agile mind. He’s that good. But then, everyone was pretty cautious.

MiniMoog

[AP]

36. I think Edwards did reach out by saying that the government's job

is to engage in things that relate to the material world.

Who doesn't disagree that knowledge is important. But to focus that question on the material, rather than was philosophical-spiritual probably put lots of muslims in the right frame of mind.

Remember the AZ debates. Asked about race, all the candidates tried to talk about having contacts with black people or crossing paths with black people. Edwards's path has definitely crossed the path, and been the same path, as many many black people. But did he tell a story about "knowing" a black person?

No. He told a story about NOT crossing the path of people who were different.

He said that when he grew up, there were NO latino people in his town. Now it's half latino. He said those people are going to that town for the same reasons his father went there: for a better life for their families. He said he's fighting so that those people can have the same opportunities that he had.

So, taking it back to the material, and to what government can do for you, and what we can do together -- it's the same message as the one about Isalm. Edwards doesn't need to know Spanish, and he doesn't need to know a damn thing about Cinqo de Mayo. He needs to know about how people live life. Edwards story about his hometown got the warmest applause of the entire evening from that audience, which was proably largely latino and immigrants or close relatives of immigrants.

[AP]

35. When states are holding on to the past, cons like states rights. When ...

... states are moving into the future, cons want to hold them back with powerful federal government the cons control.

[beaconess]

37. As usual, you're spot on. n/t