Ring A Bell Today For John Edwards ... Let's Give Him Some Wings To Carry On Good Fight With ...

"Well, I've said too much. I . . . You're the Board here. You do what you want with this thing. Just one thing more, though. This town needs this measly one-horse institution if only to have some place where people can come without crawling to Potter ... "

Boy, it we want to run with a "It's A Wonderful Life" theme today, with John Edwards starring as George Bailey, we have to do some serious script doctoring.

We will need to write in two Mr. Potters!

I tuned in for a debate last evening and all I got was this lousy car wreck.

It was "Rock'em-Sock'em" robots last evening, in South Carolina, during the CNN Democratic Debate, and the Rock'em-Sock'em robot with HRC on her warm-up cape clearly got the shot on the jaw that had the other Rock'em-Sock'em robot's head shoot off its' shoulders.

And Obama's people may have some trouble pushing that head back down, to keep on fighting (or, better said, to begin raising his ire, as well as his political fists)


















Someone needs to sit down Barack Obama and explain that he's in a presidential campaign - and he is, presently, running against The CLINTONS (and yes, both of them).

Someone needs to explain that he only won the Iowa Caucus, not anything else, so the construction plans for that new, Utopian political landscape have to be kept on hold.

That someone needs to say again - and really accentuate - that he is running against THE CLINTONS!

Hunter S. Thompson, in his laser beam, spot-on "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail", about his view of the 1972 Presidential elections described the ego of a man running for president to that of "a moose in heat".

Well, there's two moose out there, ramming their antlers against anybody and anything that looks to be in their way on calling 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home again.

And, in this rewrite of 'Wonderful Life', we have to flash way forward, and bring in a denizen of the future, something no one would ever dream to set foot in Bedford Falls.

For, it hasn't taken long in this campaign season for Hillary to reveal herself ... She tried the weepy thing in New Hampshire, and, for whatever gains that got her, it's not the right fit

Much like one of those machines in the Terminator movies, her skin started melting off last evening, revealing the steel frame, the death-focused machine, pounding, relentlessly on Obama, on his Illinois "present" voting record, his connections to a Chicago slum landlord, his (and still unbelievably) embrace of the late Gipper, Ronald Reagan.

And, clearly, almost tauntingly, defending her husband's spirited entry into the primaries, giving no indication that she plans to call him off (despite the DNC calls to play nice and have Bill go off and act like one of those lame presidents from that dreadful movie "My Fellow Americans").

Again, someone mention to Obama that he is running against THE CLINTONS!

They don't run away from blood, they look to draw it out ... They thrive on it ... They wade in it, take showers with it ... Drink it, so they can go out on the campaign trail and get some more ...

This isn't work for the Clintons, this is fun ... This is relaxing to them, as comfortable as sitting in a big, leather Barker Lounger on a lazy afternoon ... Forget gardening, or Sudoku, just give'em a political office to run for ...

And the more Obama whines about it, the more they will hit him ... And hit him ... And hit him ...

Hillary, from the beginning, has looked at the Democratic nomination and, eventually, winning the general election, as her entitlement, not a process she would actually have to work to attain.

So, that alone, has the Clinton's pissed off.

But Obama is a gamer, and in marching forward, singing about his own destiny to the White House, he goes and panders in Nevada, perhaps talking loudly so as to be overheard in neighboring California, reaching out to, maybe, pick-up a few independents and left-leaning Republicans, stomping on the Clinton Legacy, blowing kisses towards Reagan.

That bought Obama nothing but bringing a red-faced, steam-coming-out-of-his-ears, husband Bill into the mix, and, with the success they have had, he's in it to stay (and, if you want to see just how The Clintons outflanked and kicked Obama's ass in Las Vegas, you need to read Al Giordano's "Nevada: What Really Happened at the At-Large Caucuses?")

This goes all the way through Super-Duper Tuesday and into the convention.

If Obama doesn't know by now, that he is in a scratch-your-eyes-out fight, just follow the trail of his blood all the way to Denver, where Bill and Hillary will be waiting for him, fingers and lips stained red, looking for more.

John Who?

So, where does that leave our guy John Edwards, that "one-horse institution" of this years campaign?

The MSM has written him off (and last Friday, the Edwards' team released a most amusing video on it), Lawrence O'Donnell has done a smear job on him and all the pundits, when they do the election math, there's no slide rule calculations for Edwards sitting on the table, at least, none with his name on it.

With the historic opportunity to elect the first woman, or first black, to the office of the President, it certainly doesn't bode well for Edwards.

Despite the above-referenced battle being waged between Obama and THE CLINTONS, it's far to big, to far up the ladder, for Edwards to sneak in there - unless, miraculously, an unprecedented, Howard-Dean-Ned-Lamont-stars-aligning-just-at-the-right-time grassroots movement rises up, takes over the process and writes its' own, dynamic history.

I don't know about Obama, but I feel certain, The Clinton Machine won't allow that to happen.

However, if such a star-aligning movement wants something to put a stake-in-the-ground with, they got that today.

In an extraordinary letter, Martin Luther King III has urged John Edwards to stay in the race and carry on the legacy of his father;

"…I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.

...So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud."

(You can read the full text of the letter here)

If you didn't have the jarring foghorn, that raging conflagration of the Obama-Clinton battle, King's letter to Edwards is nearly tear-inducing, painting just as good, if not better than the sketching of Obama, as to where the political debate should be - not about tearfully finding one's voice, or idol worship of the piece-of-you-know-what the 40th President of the country was.

So, to bring us back to our Edwards-as-George-Bailey theme, we turn to the under-the-weather daughter, Zuzu;

ZUZU: Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.

GEORGE (smiling) That's right, that's right

Ring a bell today for John Edwards ... Ring a lot of bells, so he can grab a pair of wings, and, as he has done so far in the campaign, go way up there and align those stars himself, and carry on the good fight.