Crooks and Nannies

There are those who say that John and Elizabeth Edwards are diminishing themselves by taking on the vicious, utterly unfounded attacks of the irresponsible Ann Coulter.  Perhaps they're right; perhaps the Edwardses are fighting the last war.  But in 2004, I thought John Kerry was right to not dignify the Swift Boat attackers vicious and utterly unsubstantiated lies with a response, until it became all too clear he had made a mistake.

One of the few relatively substantive attacks Ann Coulter made is that lawyers like Edwards cost doctors their careers.  To some extent, that's true; however, the American Medical Association simply won't police itself.  Incompetent lawyers are at least sometimes disbarred.  However, even though the stakes are so much higher with doctors than lawyers, the AMA simply will not end the careers of doctors who routinely cost lives.  Civil suits are ultimately the only effective procedure to take scalpels and prescription pads out of the hands of deadly incompetents.  To be sure, some doctors who lose their careers to lawsuits don't deserve to; nonetheless, civil suits ultimately save lives.

But most of Coulter's attacks on the former Senator have been ad hominem:  Calling for John Edwards to be murdered by terrorists, and claiming that Edwards somehow celebrates the death of his eldest son; you just can't justify people saying things like that..  Coulter is willing to go out and say things that any decent human being would be overwhelmed by shame to so much as think.  Ann Coulter has always profited from a little bit of attention; the question is, can she stand a more prolonged look?  And will it hurt John Edwards that he is willing to stand up for himself and his honor?

These are unsettled questions at the moment.  I think Edwards is doing the right thing; it may yet prove to be a political error, however.  And I suspect, soon enough, Ms. Coulter will scuttle back into the shadows.

Rats cannot abide the light.