Reply #26: "You sound like yet another trial lawyer hater". No

[Tom Rinaldo]

I no more hate trial lawyers who make a lot of money doing what they do than I hate brain surgeons or large non-profit CEO's, or high profile politicians who get invited onto lucrative Corporate boards, who all make a lot of money doing what they do. If you sense a tinge of ambivelence in the comment I just made here, OK, I accept that, but I do not single out John Edwards and trial lawyers in that regard at all.

Al Gore probably helped spread the use of technologies benefitial to humanity by serving on Apple's Board. He also got very rich doing so AND I happen to admire Al Gore greatly regardless of my ambivelence about the obscene spread between how the richest and poorest Americans are compensated for their life's work. We live in a culture that acknoledges no shame in any individual accumulating an infinite degree of personal wealth while others are left to starve. I am uncomfortable with that reality but I accept that it is a pervasive reality. I am also a vegetarian and I would prefer it if no one ate meat, but I hold meat eating against no one and cheerfully dine along side very close friends while they are scarfing down a steak. It all is what it is.

I fully accept that John Edwards accomplished an important social good on behalf of Americans who lack justice through his work as a trial lawyer. I will defend him for that now or later, whether or not he becomes our nominee. And I agree with you that he is a formidable human being who knows what political attacks will come his way, and who will fight back hard against them when they do. That doesn't negate my concern about the downside of aspects of the political tact that he took in this debate, as I have already expressed above. When political problems can be anticipated and mitigated against without compromising core principles or being untrue to oneself, it makes sense to use common sense caution rather than add fuel to potential political problems. That was my point.

If I have any beef (vegetarian pun intended) with Edwards over his comments about fighting corporations as a trial lawyer, it was not with his citing that as a positive contribution to furthering justice in America, or using that to show that he knows how to fight against entrenched special interests. All of that was absolutely appropriate in my opinion. My "beef" is in the pretty overt implication he made that his career path showed a greater committment to fighting against the status quo than Hillary Clinton's (and by extension career politicians also). His path was honorable in that regard, I grant that fully, but so was Bill Richardson's, and so was Hillary Clinton's. John Edwards got very rich in the 1980's while pursuing his work, much more so than do most career politicians. Hillary Clinton was a lawyer also, one who worked for non profits fighting for the rights and welfare of children in America, and they are about as powerless a group of people when it comes to defending themselves against injustice as any demographic group in America.