Quote of the day - John Edwards [Christopher Reeve, Charles Krauthammer]

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

John Edwards - October 2004

In response:

"In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery."

Charles Krauthammer

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell [John Edwards]

Edwards' specialty was suing when babies were born with brain defects, which he — like other lawyers cashing in on junk science and gullible juries — blamed on the failure of doctors to have had those babies delivered by Caesarian section.

Since then, Caesarian operations have increased greatly, but without reducing those birth defects that Edwards and others had blamed on a lack of Caesarian deliveries. Studies validated by leading medical authorities, here and overseas, have found no such link between birth defects and a lack of Caesarian births.

Meanwhile, lawyers like John Edwards could laugh all the way to the bank.

Like so many liberals who talk about "bringing down the cost of health care," John Edwards has in fact been driving up the cost of medical treatment. "Defensive medicine," such as unnecessary Caesarian operations, is not cheap. Defensive medicine protects doctors from slick lawyers far more than it protects patients.

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

We are what we believe we are.

C. S. Lewis

Quote of the day - Bob Shrum - John Edwards exploits his son's death

"[John] Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling . . "

Bob Shrum - Kerry/Edwards campaign manager - recounting 2004 meetings between Kerry and Edwards prior to Kerry naming Edwards as his running mate.

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Odd, isn't it, this modern fascination with politics
and "public service"? A man who runs for office is, after
all, "promising" to make new laws, to create even more
new and arbitrary legal obligations for everyone. At what
point will we -- or rather, did we -- have enough
laws? Why is making new ones still thought of as an
achievement, or a form of production? Just asking.

Joe Sobran

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter - Treason

"Contrary to today's image of McCarthy as a despised Torquemada, McCarthy was given a rare state funeral with a private memorial service in the Senate chamber, his seat covered with flowers. St. Matthew's Cathedral bestowed him with the highest honor the Catholic Church can confer, performing a Solemn Pontifical Requiem Mass before one hundred priests and two thousand well-wishers. Seventy senators attended his funeral, as did J. Edgar Hoover. Thirty thousand Americans lined up outside the Washington funeral home where McCarthy lay to pay their final respects from early in the morning until late at night. Condolences poured in to McCarthy's wife, amounting to more than seventy bags of mail." -- Ann Coulter, P. 123

Socialized health care, smoking bans, tyranny

For those who are tempted to let the health care debate alone in order to focus on immigration or terrorism, etc., I sympathize. But we must remember that George Soros' employees never rest and never give up a battle. The war to turn control of this country over to Soros will be fought on many fronts, including health care. We must remember that socialized medicine is a stepping stone to greater government control. In fact, it is the biggest stepping stone - bigger than the gun grabs, bigger than taxes, bigger than McCain-Feingold, etc.

So let me just say that I think socialized health care is the single biggest factor in transforming the relationship of the individual to the state. In fact, once it's introduced it becomes very hard to have genuinely conservative government - certainly, not genuinely small government. I think I say in my book that in Continental cabinets (and in Canada) the Defense ministry is somewhere you pass through en route to a really important portfolio like Health.

Mark Steyn

It will be very hard for you to campaign for gun rights, lower taxes, free speech, etc. when the government has full power to decide whether your child can see a doctor the next time he gets sick. A society that depends on the government for its medicine is a silent, subservient, feeble society.

See also Tim Harford for a discussion of how the government's control of health care allows the government to regulate more details of our lives.