Michael J. Totten: Reviewing the Democrats

February 08, 2004

Reviewing the Democrats

Christopher Hitchens in Slate on party-mindedness:

I know many people who are much more intelligent than George Bush (even if they do keep saying so themselves) and whom I have heard, over the past decades, talk with perfect seriousness about the prospect of electing Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Bill Bradley, or Tom Harkin as president of the United States. Do such smart people really wish that Michael Dukakis had been president when Saddam invaded Kuwait, or when Mikhail Gorbachev began to signal from Moscow? Of course they don't, or not really, but they always think it must be better by axiom to have a Democrat (or "any Democrat" as they often put it) in office. Are they then in favor of permanent one-party rule? Of course not! They are for a healthy bipartisan system, where their candidate always wins.

He then reviews each of the Democratic candidates. He thinks Kucinich beats a lot of them (and he does have a point), and that Edwards beats them all.

Posted by Michael J. Totten at February 8, 2004 10:27 AM

Comments

I've read that Edwards has a personal fortune worth 50 million dollars. He accumulate this by winning medical malpractice suits against Ob/gyn's - using "junk science" to convince juries the MD's were responsible for the children being born with Cerebal Palsey.

If this is true would it lead you to question Edward's character/ability to govern/inclination to appoint judges interested in promoting justice and adhering to our Constitution?

Posted by: Jim Long at February 8, 2004 12:06 PM

Jim,

I don't know about Edwards' lawsuits. I suspect there is a more charitable way of describing them than your post above, but I must say I really don't know.

If it looks like he will beat John Kerry, of course I will pay more attention. In the meantime, from what I know so far, I like him more than I like any of the other candidates of either party.

That doesn't mean I think the man is flawless. No one is, least of all politicians.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at February 8, 2004 12:16 PM

Hi, Michael. I think you will agree that it pays to be informed. With that in mind, it is worth reading this Vololh Conspiracy post by David E. Bernstein:
http://volokh.com/2004_01_25_volokh_archive.html#107556733916125928
Bernstein links to some interesting discussions about Edwards and cerebral palsey cases.

Posted by: Randy at February 8, 2004 12:37 PM

Oops! I thought your program would create an automatic link, but it didn't, so here is a link to the Bernstein commentary.

Posted by: Randy at February 8, 2004 12:43 PM

I don't think it's "junk science," unjust, or unconstitutional to get a big jury award for a little girl whose intestines were sucked out by a badly designed pool drain.

What Volokh and the tort reformers hate is the jury system, because in the jury room, unlike in politics, the ideal of equality really is achieved.

The last time I checked, the Constitution established a government run by the people, not by "science."

Posted by: Jack Bog at February 8, 2004 01:21 PM

To: Jack Bog

Dear Jack.

"...in the jury room....the ideal of equality really is achieved."

If only this were the case, the LAST THING todays lawyers want is a fair minded jury. These lawyers have made jury selection a science. Their goal is to seat juriors who can easily be manipulated and distracted from the evidence,i.e. "The O.J. Simpson" case.

Posted by: Jim Long at February 8, 2004 02:33 PM

Jim,

FYI, Jack is a law professor at Lewis and Clark college in Portland.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at February 8, 2004 02:39 PM

Michael,
Of all the Democrats running, I dislike Edwards the least. However, as Mr. Long stated, he did in fact derive much of his wealth from CP law-suits.

Cerebral Palsy is an unfortunate condition and it's easy to get jurys to find against a Doc who usually have money AND high dollar insurance policies. As a mental health professional, I have long studied how juries arrive at some conclusions. Plantifs attornies don't pick out bright educated panel members, they pick those easily swayed.

Juries often think "The doc can afford it" and see a lifetime of suffering for the CP patient. However, it is pure manipulation and there is zero science that shows CP is a result of either pre-natal care or delivery practices.

I think the ethics charge sticks.

Posted by: gmroper at February 8, 2004 03:47 PM

I don't know much about Kucinich but I can tell you after seeing him on television and reading some articles on him like his contest on radio "win a date with the (troll) candidate" the guy is a HERB and who the hell would want that goul as President. I don't care if he is so-called "principled" or not.

Could you imagine that troll in charge of the Armed Forces and meeting foreign dignitaries and representing this nation?

I couldn't figure out Hithchens's logic here other than a crack of his Marxist idealism was shining through his pragmatist realism just a bit.

Mike

Posted by: Mike at February 8, 2004 04:17 PM

A more important question, I think, is if we should trust Bush to deal with North Korea and other issues that would come up in the next 5 year.

The cowboy approach that worked in Iraq may not work again, and then the consequences would be terrible. I don't want to see anther gamble.

Posted by: Gene at February 8, 2004 07:44 PM

Well, Gene, you have little to worry about, as Bush has resolutely refused to even negotiate unilaterally with the norks, despite enormous pressure from the same folks who are bitterly opposed to unilateral American action anywhere else in the world.

Anyone who calls the Iraq campaign a "cowboy" action reveals the degree to which they have subsituted anti-American screeds for actual information and thought about the American war against Islamism. The war was legal, backed by a significant coalition that lacked only Saddam's biggest trading partner, and was preceded by over a year of diplomatic discussion.

Posted by: R C Dean at February 9, 2004 03:54 AM

To all you Edwards-bashers, keep in mind that "a study by the Harvard School of Public Health estimated about 80,000 lives lost a year just in hospitals, not including emergency rooms, due to harmful medical practices."

Hitchen's personal attacks on all the democratic candidates are childish and completely off base:

He claims that "Think of all the money he (Dean) raised and squandered: It would have been far better spent donated to the reconstruction of Iraq."
Are you kidding me Hitchens? THINK OF ALL THE MONEY BUSH HAS RAISED THAT COULD BE SPENT ON THE RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ ($200 billion!!!). And for that matter, think of all the money that we have spent on Iraq that could have been better spent on clean water and food aid programs - a fraction of the cost of the Iraq war could save millions of lives if it went to clean water and food aid.

He goes after Kerry for his connections to special interests, which is legitimate. However, I think if Kerry wins the nomination this will be more of a moot point because of the Bush Administration's connections to Enron and Halliburton, among other things.

He calls Sharpton a "big-mouth shake-down artist." I used to think the same thing about Sharpton, until I watched one of his speeches a few weeks ago. I doubt if Hitchens has even watched one Sharpton speech this year. Face it, the guy is funny, brings a breath of fresh air to the campaign trail, and he is a lot more intelligent than the media makes him out to be.

Hitchens claims he will vote for Bush because of the only voting issue for him is the war against terrorism and "clerical barbarism" as he puts it. But Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Kucinich... all the democratic candidates... are just as committed to winning the peace in Iraq as Bush is, if not more so and with better plans (ie bringing in the UN, NATO, and more countries into the coalition). In fact, a new president would probably do a lot better job of fence-mending and bringing in these other groups to help us in Iraq. But Hitchen's claim about fighting clerical barbarism seems to go beyond Iraq... is he suggesting that we continue our quest of democracy via bombs to Syria, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea... etc.???

Posted by: Mike Bitondo at February 9, 2004 02:56 PM

"What Volokh and the tort reformers hate is the jury system, because in the jury room, unlike in politics, the ideal of equality really is achieved.

"The last time I checked, the Constitution established a government run by the people, not by 'science.'"

Professor Bog,

To begin with, I would be very interested in hearing your reason(s) for claiming that Professor Volokh "hates" the jury system. Further, I would like to hear you explain how "equality" is "really" "acheived" in the jury room, unlike in politics. Honestly, please edify me.

Michael Hall

To Michael Totten: Is it supposed to matter that Jack Bog is a law professor?

Posted by: Michael Hall at February 9, 2004 07:00 PM

Michael Hall: Is it supposed to matter that Jack Bog is a law professor?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe. That doesn't mean he's always right about law (obviously), but he does have a reasonable amount of, shall we say, background on the subject that probably none of the rest of us have.

My FYI was just as aside.

Posted by: Michael J. Totten at February 9, 2004 08:18 PM

Michael Totten:

Perhaps I should explain my comment a little further. I'm sure that Professor Bog is very knowledgeable about the law generally and whatever areas in which he specializes. However, Professor Bog's comment ventured beyond an interpretation of the law and into subjective values (i.e., not "unjust"). That is, I'm an attorney -- and I'm willing to admit up front that Professor Bog is almost certainly more knowledgeable about the law than I -- but I don't see that I'm somehow more qualified to proclaim something just or unjust than you or anyone else.

As for his statement that "in the jury room, unlike in politics, the ideal of equality really is achieved," I really don't know what to make of that. I'd like to see him unpack that remark, for I am genuinely unclear as to what he means by that.

Lastly, I'd ask Professor Bog to provide a citation in support of his contention that Professor Volokh "hates" the jury system. Frankly, I'd be fairly surprised if he could.

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