John Edwards, Strike One

there was a moment in the 2004 presidential election when i realized that i would not vote for john kerry. it happened during a debate with president bush when i heard him criticize bush for a growing federal deficit and then a few minutes later make the claim that, as president, he would re-invigorate the economy. i admit that i am only an economic amateur, but i don’t see how a president can speed up the economy without increasing federal expenditures.

here we are facing down the barrel of the 2008 presidential election and no candidate jumps out at me as someone who i would definitely like to see as my next president. so, i figure i’ll just start eliminating candidates as i hear them say ridiculously contradictory things. good thing i didn’t have to wait long for john edwards to cross himself off my list.

this is what he said on meet the press earlier this month:

“And I also think it’s going to be really important to re-establishing trust between America and the world, because the president is, in effect, the personification of America. And when the president, what I believe—one of the things I do believe the president needs to do is, in the first 100 days, travel the world, not just meet with leaders, but speak to the people of the world the way great American presidents have in the past.”

that sentence on its own might have been enough; i was under the impression that the first one hundred days was when presidents went to work on defining their agenda and putting it into action. the clincher actually came later in the interview when he was asked about iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad:

“He was elected on a platform of economic reform and strengthening the middle class and lifting people out of poverty. He hasn’t done anything about any of those things. What he’s doing instead is he gives speeches and he travels around the world drawing attention to himself.”

i forgot already: is that his opinion about ahmadinejad or a preomonition about his own presidency?