Mr. Positive? ABCNews.com negative story on Edwards

[snyttri]

http://tinyurl.com/3h3xy

Mr. Positive?
Presidential Hopeful Edwards Prides Himself On Not Going Negative — But Document Is Hardly Positive

By Jake Tapper

Jan. 21— On Monday night, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina attributed his second place finish in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses to his positive message and his refusal to engage in negative attacks against his opponents.


"The people of Iowa tonight confirmed that they believe in a positive, uplifting vision to change America," Edwards said to cheers.

But ABCNEWS has obtained an official "John Edwards for President" precinct captain packet that includes myriad personal attacks for Edwards caucus-goers to make against his Democratic opponents, perhaps belying this claim.

The document — marked "CONFIDENTIAL AND PRIVILEDGED" (sic) and "NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION" and signed by the senator — encourages Edwards supporters to tell undecided caucus-attendees that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is a "Park Avenue elitist from New York City" and say Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has "the stale record of a Washington insider" and "has been a part of the failed Washington politics for too long."

<snip>

[One Taste]

1. dupe

[snyttri]

4. Jake Tapper was a columnist for Salon.com and is an anti-war liberal

http://dir.salon.com/topics/jake_tapper/

Ignoring anything negative about Edwards would not necessarily lead to good decisions.

[Frances]

2. I read somewhere that Edwards said he was not aware

of the memo until today but that he took full responsibility for anything his campaign did.

I find it very unlikely that Edwards would have approved of such a document since it goes counter to the campaign tactics he has adopted and benefitted from.

To be honest, this sounds like a Republican trick to me.

Does anyone else notice how the press makes a mountain out of a molehill on anything remotely wrong that the dems do and yet makes molehills out of mountains when the Repubs pass bills that make overtime impossible and cut the gun check time to 24 hours? Not to mention giving Bush a free pass on the fact that his is the first administration to lose jobs since Herbert Hoover.

George Hoover Bush should be his name.

[JaneQPublic]

3. "signed by the senator"?

Earlier, an Edwards supporter said it was dreamed up by a low-level volunteer and Sen. Edwards didn't have anything to do with it. Apparently, that isn't the case, if he signed off on it.

[anti-bush]

5. Yawn...

He signed a thank you note on the first page of the 50 page book.

[AP]

6. I'm not clear on this. Did he "go" negative or not?