John Edwards is in trouble now. On Sunday he began an op-ed with these brave words: “I was wrong.” He had believed there were WMDS, he had argued there were, he had voted in favor of war on that basis. Now he says, “I take responsibility for that mistake.” So what’s a sickly trial lawyer to do? Easy. Sue the daylights out of John Edwards. Just as there are two Americas, two Carolinas, there can be two John Edwards. Plaintiff and defendant. Lawyer for the accuser. Lawyer for the accused. Having already extracted a full confession from the recklessly incompetent Senator Edwards, the heroic Attorney Edwards should make it worth everyone’s while. Just don’t let them settle out of court. Something in the book of dirty deals past makes us suspect they’d end up sharing the spoils.
Edwards speaks for all cut and run Democrats, incidentally. Thanks to the president’s ginned-up entry into Iraq, he says, the country that wasn’t a threat now turns out to be “a haven for terrorists” — which is a signal for Democrats to get the hell out ASAP. Their new credo: The more terrorists in a given place, the greater the need to abandon it. Else how in the world are we to continue “fighting the global war against terrorist organizations”? We shall fight them on the beaches, in the hills, in the fields and streets — wherever they may not be.
If you’re confused, don’t be. Edwards has it all figured out. Let him think for us. For example: “We should bring Iraq’s neighbors and our key European allies into a diplomatic process to get Iraq on its feet. The president needs to create a unified international front.” Last time a Democrat said such things he was being hauled in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Last spring President Bush declined to take former President Carter to Rome with him, causing a breakdown in our unified domestic front. Carter is now paying Bush back in a new book on “Our Endangered Values,” in which Carter denounces Bush efforts “to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.” Sounds to us as if Carter has overdosed on Joseph Wilson, who in early 2003 wrote a quaint op-ed for the left-of-left Nation magazine condemning the Bush administration’s “imperial ambitions” and desire to impose a “Pax Americana” on the Middle East. To be fair, Carter would welcome a Tax Americana domestically, as part of the shared sacrifice all peanut growers like to shell out when their subsidies are under attack from budget-cutting boll weevils.
Bill Clinton remains an impeached former president, with nightmarish consequences. Over the past weekend he took great offense at the comments of Jimmy Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley’s comments on the subject, lashing out at the poor man — a survivor of a campaign relationship with John Kerry, on top of everything else — for daring to suggest that impeachment had kept Clinton from achieving greatness. Not one of the gals he dated had ever told him anything close to that, except maybe his wife, but then that didn’t count because they weren’t dating. Unfortunately, Clinton did let slip that he was behind the smear campaign against his congressional critics, none of whom he had ever tried to impeach. As he put it, “What are you going to do with all those Republican congressmen, you know, that had problems?” What kind of problems, Bill? And no, we didn’t know, so how did you? Who did you use to find out? Are you hoping to be impeached anew?
Mr. Clinton flew off to the Middle East to ponder these life-changing questions. In the process, he was the first former president, along with his wife and daughter, who thus became, respectively, the first future president and first former and future first daughter, to visit the grisly scene at the Radisson hotel hit by terrorists last week in Amman, Jordan. Mrs. Clinton also visited with children injured in the bombings. Earlier in Israel someone had asked her, “Why are you so loved by the Israeli public?” We’re hoping Jackie Mason can at least answer this last question for us.
The rest we handle ourselves. We know who our EOWs are when we see them. No, not the Clintons. There’s no stopping greatness. John Edwards is another matter. Just to be safe, we’re pinning an Enemy pin on both incarnations of the man from South and North Carolina.
