Ok, go get your espresso and take a break while you catch up:
The Exile of Elizabeth Edwards has begun. As you all may have read by now, Elizabeth Edwards has been getting in Dean and Brazile’s face today. Yup. First, she said that she thought Hillary’s universal health care proposal is preferable because it would lead to greater cost savings (this does not amount to an endorsement, of course. We respect the Edwards’ right to remain officially neutral.) Then, she had the nerve to say there was no great hurry to pick the nominee before the convention. AND she thinks that Clinton and Obama sharing a ticket would be a good thing, remarking on John’s experience with Kerry that “it was difficult for a onetime adversary to switch tacks and automatically accept another person’s positions on everything”. Woooo! Considering that she thinks Hillary’s healthcare plan is better, I am assuming she wouldn’t think it too burdensome for Obama to adopt that position. That sounds like Hillary should top a unity ticket.
Of course it didn’t take long for the Big Orange Sippy Cup to pile on. I count at least 2 recommended diaries in the Rec List Hostage Crisis:
Why Elizabeth Edwards is Wrong by Eugene
(Updated) Ms Edwards: I Mandate You Read This by epic
This one didn’t get recc’d but it is indicative of a certain bitterness:
Elizabeth Edwards Joins Think Tank and Attacks Obama by Engine 08
Hmmm, sounds like she’s out. Ohh, they’re nice and polite now because after all, she has a potentially terminal disease. In fact, some of the comments are quite favorable but then there are one’s like this:
I think this shows (0+ / 0-)
a lack of integrity on Elizabeth’s part. I really liked her very much.. But to me she could have worked with Obama. It feels and smells like that Edwards have really sold their souls to the devil in working for any part of the Clinton machine….
Perhaps John and Elizabeth really dont have any true convictions and it was all hot air out on the campaign trail…It make my stomach turn, especially when I supported them both monetarily as well as time and effort. In fact I am pissed, they can both go to hell…phonies.
by tiredofcrap on Thu Apr 10, 2008 at 10:34:53 AM PDT
Expect to see more like this if Obama starts to see a hit to his numbers. Then the knives will come out and Edwards will be toast, cut free of her lifeline to the most prestigious and influential blog on the web /snark.
Welcome to the dark side, Elizabeth. Bwahahahahaahaaaaa!
Sugar ‘n Spice lays it on the line about Obama’s lack of commitment to the African-American community in her critique of Tavis Smiley’s scolding of Obama for skipping last week’s MLK commemoration in Memphis. Here’s the money quotes:
I’ve listed a number of instances here at Sugar N Spice in which Obama, when he should have been the one, if anybody, standing up for the issues of minorities, was tucking his tail and running. Back in 2005, in a statement on his U.S. Senate webpage, he states that the “ineptitude was colorblind” in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Obviously in an attempt to not seem too concerned with pointing out blatant racism–hoping to keep his white supporters happy. I’m sorry. I know that there were a lot of poor white folks left out there. Bless them, I know they were there, but the majority of the faces we saw festering in their own waste and stink were people of color, and as much as I’m glad I live in this country as opposed to someplace in the Third World, if the racial makeup of those stranded out there when the storm ended was different, they wouldn’t have been left out there for so long. That’s a tough pill to swallow for some, but it’s the reality. Hillary even offered an apology stating:
“I’ve said it publicly, and I say it privately: I apologize, and I am embarrassed that our government so mistreated our fellow citizens … It was a national disgrace,” she said.
But, Obama said the ineptitude was colorblind. He failed to show up to Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union event, but Hillary was there–despite the fact that so many of my people have turned their backs on her–and yet. And, yet…African-Americans keep on making excuses for him. I’m disappointed that Dr. Cornel West is supporting him, but I am glad that he was at least man enough to publicly scold him and not offer some hat in hand excuse for his failure to show up.
I’m with Sugar on this one. One of the things I like best about Hillary is that she never seems to feel the need to exclude a group of voters simply because they aren’t sexy, young, well-to-do, supereducated or members of an embarrassing underclass, like the cousins from the wrong side of the tracks. In this country, you never know who the next heros are going to be, or the good Samaritans or leaders or scientists who will cure disease or free us from foreign oil. Obama has behaved abysmally towards many groups of people: women, the working class and African-Americans. Perhaps this is because he doesn’t really feel like he’s part of the African-American community. Unfortunately, many African-Americans are so invested in electing a person of color, and who can blame them, that they are not examining carefully whether that person is actually committed to helping them in any substantive way. There are many ways in which this primary season has become a real set back for the advancement of social justice and African-Americans may find themselves similarly disenfranchised.
Filed under: Blogosphere, Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: Elizabeth Edward's, health care | 39 Comments »