(2004-02-25) — Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards today called on President George Bush to make “thinly-veiled snide remarks” about him like the one he made about Sen. John Forbes Kerry recently.
Sen. Edwards, who yesterday finished a respectable third-place behind Dennis Kucinich in the Hawaii caucuses, said Mr. Bush’s failure to insult him was more evidence that “we live in two Americas.”
“There’s one America where old Yale Skull and Bones brothers genially rib each other,” said Mr. Edwards, “and there’s a second America where the son of a southern textile mill worker curls up each night on a set of cold tracking-poll numbers, hungry for attention. If you could look into the desperate eyes of that young man, Mr. Bush, you might find it in your heart to hurl a few buzz-building slurs at him.”
In a speech to the Republic Governors’ Association Monday night, Mr. Bush said: “The other party’s nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group, with diverse opinions: For tax cuts, and against them. For NAFTA, and against NAFTA. For the Patriot Act, and against the Patriot Act. In favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”
Mr. Edwards said, “By unilaterally lampooning John Kerry, Mr. Bush is trying to count me out of the process before the voters in most states have spoken. If you really believe in freedom, Mr. Bush, ridicule me too!”
