Obama's Joy?
Plus--Maybe we just want to make Hillary suffer a bit.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
John Edwards' new ad:
"When I'm president, I'm going to say to members of Congress, and members of my administration, including my Cabinet, I'm glad that you have health care coverage and your family has health care coverage. But if you don't pass universal health care by July of 2009, in six months, I'm going to use my power as president to take your health care away from you."
What power exactly does a president have to take away the health care coverage of Congressmen and exectuive branch officials?** Isn't the health coverage provided by statute? And doesn't Congress have to go along with changing a statute? ... More important, isn't this exactly the sort of showy bluff that won't work, bringing the Edwards presidency crashing down in its first year? ... Even more important, what kind of candidate thinks the voters are going to be taken in by a disingenuous display of substanceless bravado like this? ...
** Update: ---Edwards' own bloggers don't seem to know the answer. (Sample: "He'll speak to it effectively, I'm sure.") ...
Backfill: Howie Kurtz beat me to this point, and got this explanation from the Edwards camp:
"He would introduce legislation, that's all it is," spokesman Eric Schultz said. "He would introduce legislation and ask them to set a deadline for themselves."
Pathetic. And if Congress doesn't want to pass this legislation?
It's a phony threat from a ...
See also this DailyKos post. ...And the links here, including a suitably vicious Hillary counter. ...
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Photograph of Ann Coulter on Slate's home page by Brad Barket/Getty. Photograph of a wedding cake with two grooms on Slate's home page by Hector Mata/AFP Photo. Photograph of Princess Diana on Slate's home page by Georges De Keerle/Getty Images.