Edwards on the stump with Salazaar: Blasts Bush*/.Rumsfeld

Sen. John Edwards blasted the Bush administration on Monday for mishandling the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq.

The North Carolina Democrat, in Denver to endorse Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar's bid for the U.S. Senate, called for the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"I think Rumsfeld should resign or he should be fired," said Edwards, who failed in his bid for the party's presidential nomination this year.

He added that the buck shouldn't stop at the Pentagon, but at the White House.

"The president himself is responsible for this and he needs to take responsibility for it and needs to be held accountable for it," Edwards said on a day when Bush emphatically supported the embattled Rumsfeld.


http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~29805~2139937,00.html

Colorado newcomers Susan and Newell Holt were walking through the hotel lobby when they spotted Edwards, a fellow North Carolinian.

"I just told him I'm going to vote for a Democrat for the first time in my life," said Newell Holt, a Republican. "I've had it with Bush and his cowboy shtick."

His wife, a Democrat, already supports Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign, but is more forceful on her preference for vice president: John Edwards.

But Edwards, facing the question for about the millionth time Monday, gave what even he called a "non-answer," saying Kerry wanted to keep the selection process "confidential, private and dignified."

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/election/article/0,1299,DRMN_36_2875964,00.html

One of my favorite bits about Salazar was hearing him speak so forcefully against the Patriot Act. Coming from an AG in a frankly red state, it's pretty remarkable.

That, and when someone asked him how we could be convinced he wouldn't be in the pocket of big corporations, he rattled off the list of them he'd gone after as AG. "I don't expect many campaign contributions from those guys." :)

That's the important part. That's the part you're not hearing many people say.