The moral weakness of Edwards and Obama

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh110107.shtml

<edit>

Has there ever been a debate like this? A debate where the moderators so plainly intended to spend the evening trashing the character of one of the candidates? The only comparison we could dimly offer was Judy Woodruff’s gruesome performance in the final 2000 Gore-Bradley debate, where she worked so hard to express the outrage The Village felt against Big Liar Gore. (“They hate Gore,” Mickey Kaus wrote that week, surprised, having just arrived in New Hampshire.) As we’ve said, we’ll run through all Tuesday’s questions tomorrow—all the Clinton-sliming questions from this truly remarkable session. But have you ever seen a presidential debate where one candidate was essentially given two minders—where every word that came out of her mouth was immediately handed to her leading opponents for their inspection and review? In our view, it was embarrassing to see Edwards and Obama display the moral weakness required by such a cheap auto-da-fe. Only Richardson had the decency to say, out loud: “I just won’t go there.”

<edit>

For the record, Russert’s concerns about “credibility” and “consistency” extended to no one but Clinton. In the night’s second question, Russert invited Edwards to orate about Clinton’s troubling “double-talk.” As he ended, Edwards misstated a fact. And Russert was happy to let him:

EDWARDS: She said in our last debate that she was against any changes on Social Security—benefits, retirement aid, or raising the cap on the Social Security tax. But apparently, it’s been reported that she said privately something different than that.

And I think the American people, given this historic moment in our country’s history, deserve a president of the United States that they know will tell them the truth, and won’t say one thing one time and something different at a different time.

RUSSERT: You stand behind the word “double-talk?”

EDWARDS: I do.

Edwards is a very smart man, Russert a little bit less so. Obviously, Edwards knows that Clinton did not “sa in our last debate that she was against any changes on Social Security;” we’ll assume that Russert knows this too. But so what? The agenda this night was to slime Clinton’s character, as Gore and Kerry were slimed before her.

So Edwards was allowed to misstate. Meanwhile, when Obama was challenged, just one time, about his own “consistency,” high comedy quickly transpired:

RUSSERT (10/30/07): Senator Obama, you said in May, that, quote, “Everything is on the table when it comes to Social Security.” You now have an ad up in Iowa which says that any benefit cuts are off and raising the retirement age are off. Why have you changed your mind?

OBAMA: Well, what I say is that that is not my plan. Now, I just want to go back to what Senator Clinton said, because I think it’s important for us not to engage in business as usual on Social Security and talk straight...

Too funny! In that instance, we did have a clear-cut change of position. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course—but when Obama was asked to explain his change, he uttered one unintelligible sentence, then went right back to bashing Clinton for her lack of “straight talk.” But did Russert, so filled with concerns about credibility, ask his question again in his follow-up? Of course not!

more...

nt

Now, some Obama and Edwards supporters may like Russert's agenda because it was clearly designed to knock Clinton down a notch. The reason this should concern everyone is Russert will do it to ANY Democrat in first place.

Timmy is a closet Op...

Edwards/Obama went over the edge....

Richardson was right...

Where did Obama learn to debate?

to kill Kucinich or hurt Hillary or anything. NBC obviously thinks that a furball is better drama (and thus better ratings) than a nice polite discussion of policy differences.

on war and even giving a straight answer to questions

Its fucking politics people. Politics!

"Moral Weakness = Political Strength"

Edwards raised some moral questions about Hillary, which makes you question his morality? Makes no sense.

He goes ballistic if anyone dares challenge The Queen.

of Obama and Edwards allying with the Corporate Media to take down a fellow Democrat.

the fact that they could be so easily fooled into attacking one of their own (rather than focusing on the issues) shows that they might be easily swayed and fooled into another war. How can I take them seriously when they go after HC for her votes, yet, there's no proof of how they themselves will deal with new war votes?