Why do people get so worked up by two sentences by Edwards...

[PeaceProgProsp]

...that are spun and respun by the media and by other DUers, when you can go straight to the source and hear what Edwards is saying about the issues and about Republicans at his blog...

http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/

or his videoblog...

http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/index.pl?section=videoblog%94

or at the book club blog (where he's discussing The Working Poor, and will have the author answer questions posted on the blog in a special podcast at the end of the month)...

http://blog.oneamericacommittee.com/index.pl?section=bookclub%94

or on one of his three podcasts...

http://ga3.org/podcast/archive.html

or at the TPM cafe where he took questions all week...

http://www.tpmcafe.com/

or in his speech in London last week...

http://www.oneamericacommittee.com/london.asp

?

Edwards is doing everything he can to communicate directly with the public (he's encouraging people to email mp3s and videos of their questions directly to him, which he'll incorporate into his podcasts and videoblogs). The point of this is to circumvent the spin. Yet, today at DU shows that people would rather get spun.

Hopefully, when it matters, before the elections in 06 and 08, DUers will lose the proclivity for knee jerking, and will give more weight to the broad array of direct evidence that Democratic candidates will certainly be providing outside of MSM channels, as Edwards is doing today.

It amazes me that of all the material Edwards has put out there in the last few weeks, the only thing anyone has gotten worked up about is minimally contextualized, heavily interpreted and reinterpreted spin -- much of which is contradicted by all the evidence you can get from all the other more direct, broad and in-depth sources.

Can we assume that the people so deeply offeneded by the two-sentence quote have no problem with the 1000s of other words Edwards has stated recently?

[ultraist]

1. A voice of reason and sanity!

:toast:

[silverweb]

2. Thanks for the links!

:hi:

[tavalon]

3. He went to the AP

He fucked up. I'm not throwing him out with the bath water but neither am I going to white wash what he did.

The AP is not the public. They are the enemy. Do not cooperate with the enemy. Is that so hard to understand?

[PeaceProgProsp]

7. He answered a question at a public event. It was two sentences.

The criticisms at DU are completely without context, yet full of conjecture.

Meanwhile, Edwards is providing a great deal of context, and in-depth ideas and strategy that you can get straight from him, yet I haven't heard a single criticism of it at DU -- and there seems to be a great appetite for criticizing Edwards here, so you think people would go for the context-heavy information, rather than the context-lite information if they really want to come down hard on Edwards.

[AmericanDream]

19. He was asked about it at a DEM fundraiser.. not the AP HQs!

[saltpoint]

4. I would like to see people -- especially the craven MEDIA --

-- get worked up over the 16 (?) words in Bush's State-of-the-Union address which reported a lie as fact about the Niegerian-Iraq nuclear connection.

A president standing on the floor of the U.S. Congress lying through his goddamend teeth is something to get worked up over.

[JHBowden]

5. If we want to win elections,

we should not speak ill of each other. In Illinois we are a fucking machine and I wish Democrats in the rest of the country would get with the program.

[PeaceProgProsp]

9. Funny that you mention IL

I've seen Obama attacked here at DU with the same sort of passion directed at Edwards today.

[Carolab]

6. Yes, but he doesn't need to diss Dean. n/t

[PeaceProgProsp]

8. "Diss" is the spin. Where's the context that supports this claim?

[Carolab]

10. Was the quote printed wrong?

He said Dean is not the spokesman for the party. Yes, he is, it's his job.

[PeaceProgProsp]

11. It'd be nice not to get the MSM version.

It wouldn't be the first time the MSM left out a few key words, or intentionally misrepresented tone in order to hurt Democrats or flame the embers of controversy that would otherwise never catch fire.

I bet you wouldn't have to look to far back in the archives to find 100s of well-argued claims of the Associated Press doing just that.

Meanwhile, we have a great deal of non-hearsay, straight-from-the-horse's mouth media from Edwards in the last two months, and nobody is complainingl about any of it.

[smartvoter]

18. I created my first in-your-face post ever because of this quote. It is

absolutely ludicrous to say he doesn't speak for the party.

Right here is the exact quote:

"The chairman of the DNC is not the spokesman for the party," Edwards said, according to the Associated Press.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/05/AR2005060500932.html

I got made more than a few around here unhappy with my post, but this kind of statement is inexcusable. Why would you rip the rug out from under him publicly like that?

[Mitt Chovick]

29. No, but Biden did on MTP

One is a fluke, Two is a conicidence, if we see three maybe there is real in-fighting.

In-fighting would be foolish. Dean was elected by the committee. The committee people were elected by the grass roots activists. The one with this support wins.

[RealDems]

12. Two sentences that sum up everything that's wrong with the Party

It isn't just about Edwards, and it certainly isn't just a blind defense of Dean. The problem I have with Edwards' "two sentences" is that he distanced himself from tough anti-Republican rhetoric. Personally, I don't feel that my Party has to coddle Republicans, and I have a hard time defending milquetoast Democrats who claim to be "populists" and then back off Dean's old-fashioned populist rallying cry. The Republicans have no problem getting tough with us. They paint us as godless unpatriotic cowards. What's wrong with a Democrat (and yes, a SPOKESMAN for the Party) attacking Republicans for their elitism, greed, selfishness, and insensitivity to working people? Hasn't our Party learned anything?

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Republicans know they're right. I'm tired of pretending that Republicans are just as good and just as honest as Democrats. I'm tired of pretending that we share a set of values, if not a shared idea of how to achieve those values. I want a leader to take a stand and go after the Right with the same zeal that they have gone after us. I cannot understand why a major figure within the Party (or two including Biden) would have a problem with that.

[PeaceProgProsp]

14. I think it's ridiculous to read that much meaning into those two sentences

They're totally out of context and brought to you by an organization that probably doesn't want Democrats to succeed.

Meanwhile, Democrats -- like Edwards -- are trying to circumvent tight control of the message by the MSM, but DUers seem like they'd prefer to suck from the teet of the MSM instead.

If you think Edwards is milquetoast, you have much more material, not presented by the MSM, with which you can try building your case. So go for it. Give it a shot. The links are above. I challenge you to support the argument you made above (which you have based on two sentences) with the full texts Edwards provides at his website.

And if you can't, you really have to ask yourself how you let yourself get suckered into believing in a reality created by people who don't have the Democratic Party's or your best interests at heart.

[WyLoochka]

22. This is a classic example

of what has been happening with Democrats for thirty years. They always always always fall into the trap of bashing their own - always.

Yes, Edwards is doing fine work. Yes, the links lead to the evidence of that. But one has to specifically look for that information about what he is up to. None of what he is doing is known to the general public, but what will be widely known is his ill-advised criticism of his own party Chairman.

His comments on Dr Dean bolstered Repubs and depressed Dems. How will that help what he is trying to accomplish?

Sheez - I am so sick and tired of Dems piling on Dems. Why can't they recognize the bait after all these years? Why do so many fall into the trap? Why can't they stick up for each other?

It's a simple matter of being prepared. They should know by now to have their antenna up ready for the bait to be cast and absolutely refuse to bite. How can so many fairly intelligent people be played the same way over and over and over again?

How do we re-pavlovtize these guys so that they attack the oppostion in such circumstances and don't instantly cave and start bashing their own?

[PeaceProgProsp]

24. The bashing their own part -- that's what DUers are doing, not Edwards

My point is that the meaning that people are imputing on that statement is a self-hating fantasy that is contradicted by the evidence.

As I said elsewhere, Edwards has consistently manifested the message contained in those two sentences: Democrats need to offer message around which all working people can rally.

Dean has consistently gotten in the face of Republicans, which is fine.

Edwards also talks about the problem of the Democratic candidates not being percieved as having a voice until after the nominating convention. What he said is consistent with the idea that people should listen to all the voices of the party, and listen early.

There is a context for that statement -- supported by a lot of other evidence DUers don't seem to care about -- that isn't "bashing their own." Yet DUers seem to prefer to bash their own.

Would you rather these two people be inconsistent in their individual messages for the sake of uniformity? Is it supposed to help Dean to suddenly abandon the firebrand style that got him where he is? Is it supposed to help Democrats for Edwards to contradict himself and not deliver a message that works for all working people? Should they do this just so that everyone can be on the same page (especially after prractically proving beyond a doubt that Edwards has a brilliant strategy for building appeal that could translate into a 50-state campaign for president)? What if that page you want Dean and Edwards to be on isn't the right page?

[Erika]

16. Republicans know they are right?

Please post your logic on that statement.

[PeaceProgProsp]

17. And also, curious about the logic of polarization being a good strategy.

If people really think it's going to work, they should ask themselves, "then why is MSM so eager to polarize America?"

It's obviously no a winning strategy.

[sendero]

21. Well said...

... and so true.

Edwards has merely shown that he is another pink-tutu Dem, afraid he might piss off the Republican attack machine, willing to appease in return for some token shot at relevance.

He's permanently off my A list.

[PeaceProgProsp]

25. If it is so easy to manipulate your opinions to such extremes...

...then it's hard to believe that Edwards was ever on your A list.

How did you resist all the other efforst to spin Edwards?

[sendero]

27. Good point..

... you are absolutely correct, he was not ever on my A list. But then he was never precluded from getting there either :)

Fact is, he's just getting the same fallout Dean gets day in and day out for saying something with rough edges. He could have said "Dean is only one spokesman for the Dem party, and on this point we disagree" - and that would have been fine. He had to go and make absolute statements against someone who has already done more for hte party than he will ever do.

Sorry, it pissed me off. It might not be fair, and it might be two stupid sentences in a sea of great ideas. That really doesn't help much. It's bad enough that the media won't give Dean a fair break ever. He doesn't need it from his own team.

[icehenge]

13. Because it makes the Democrat party look bad when there

is public disagreement (Edward, against Dean) WITHIN the Democratic party stances. Regardless if we agree or disagree I think Dean's talking points should be discussed behind the scenes with the Dem leaders so to try and prevent this if possible.

[PeaceProgProsp]

15. See post 14.

Also, what did you want Edwards to do? He has a long record of consitently being on the precise message contained in his response to the question (as Dean has consistently been on a similar message to the one revealed in his statement).

Are we such babies that we can't stand that Edwards and Dean are consistent?

We should have known Edwards's answer without having to hear it.

What's left is whether we want to be spun by the media fabrication of reality around Edwards's obvious answer.

You'd THINK the answer would be no.

[icehenge]

28. I don't have an opinion on what Edwards said

even though his comments were taken out of context.
When I wrote "Edward, against Dean" in the last messsage
I was meaning that the media painted Edwards against Dean.
I wasn't saying that I thought Edwards was against Dean.

[AmericanDream]

20. Thank you for bringing forth the entire picture...

[undeterred]

23. Great post PeaceProgProsp

Honestly, I think there are a lot of very reactive people here who never read past a headline and the first two sentences- whether its a DU post or an article.

[sendero]

26. Maybe the same reason..

.... so many people got worked up over "16 words".