It is said of Charles “Lucky” Luciano (1896-1962), the man who put the “organized” into organized crime, that as he was being led off to the police station—at age 10—for various offenses, he quickly sized up the world. There was his criminal gang, there was the police gang, there was the press gang, and there was the politician gang. Although he was smart enough to con his way out of prison by arranging for the luxury liner Normandie to be blown up in New York Harbor in 1942, and then parlaying this into a security consultant position for the US Navy in exchange for freedom, mostly, Luciano had to use violence to achieve his goals.
He would surely admire the more profitable, and much less messy tactics of today’s corporate thieves, even if they are—slowly—being brought to justice. But he would be astounded at the worse thieves, who not only get away with it, they are applauded for it. Which brings us to John Edwards.
I thought the limits of my patience were shattered with the coronation of John Kerry as Dem presidential candidate. Here we have a multi-term senator with hardly any bills to his credit; a so-called war hero who collected more medals in his four-month Nam tour than can be rationally explained; a guy who goes from one very rich lady to a billionaire heiress; a faux Catholic who believes “life begins at conception,” but won’t force his convictions on others, although he’s more than happy to force all of his other less important albeit more Leftist convictions on others as a matter of course.
And to top it off, when asked if he were going to see Fahrenheit 9/11 replied that he didn’t have to, as he had been living it for the last four years, apparently giving tacit approval to all of Fatboy Michael Moore’s outrageous and debunked conspiracy theories.
In short, Kerry would seem to be the ultimate Democrat: rich, spoiled, stupid, vacuous, phony, and chock full of self-esteem.
Then, Edwards came on the scene. A rapacious plaintiff’s lawyer, who specialized in infant cerebral palsy cases (whereby it was ALWAYS the fault of the medical personnel and never genetics), and thus personally increased the costs of health care for all of his beloved “little people.” He used at least $6 million of his own money to barely win his race for the Senate in 1998, and immediately began his quest for higher office, re-inventing himself as a man of the people, mainly because he would never get reelected in his own state.
Charles Lucky had to strong arm, murder, and bribe, but Edwards could make tens of millions for himself by playing the system. Caring little for the wreckage in his wake—the unjustly damaged physicians, the closed medical centers, the defensive medicine and ultimately poorer care that would result from his acts—Edwards need only pander to the Hollywood idiots, and milk the Bush hatred feeding frenzy. It’s legal, isn’t it?
If you wonder how this can happen, think about the disaster that is public education in this country, and that reason has long been trumped by emotion—even at the highest levels. Rachel Carson’s famous book Silent Spring (1962), concocted of half-truths and junk science singlehandedly resurrected the scourge of malaria and doomed so many of the REAL little people of the third world into misery and death.
But, none of this resonates with self-satisfied moron Leftists and their media sycophants, all the while being unrecognized and unchallenged by the sheeple.
Welcome to Campaign 2004.