frankenlies.com
#10: "Crass," "Shameful," "Cruel" ...
On page 149 of Truth, Franken attempts to attack Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) for hypocrisy in relation to the Terri Schiavo episode from February-March 2005. Sen. Frist had spoken passionately on behalf of Terri Schiavo and the Schindler family in preventing Terri’s husband from starving her to death. Writes Franken,
"Only a few months before, he [Frist] had attacked his colleague, Senator John Edwards, for claiming that stem cell research could lead to cures for people like the just-deceased Christopher Reeve. In a conference call with reporters organized by the Bush-Cheney campaign, Frist had blasted Edwards’s claims as ‘crass,’ ‘shameful,’ ‘dishonest,’ and ‘cruel’."
Notice how Franken doesn’t provide the quote of what John Edwards actually said. The truth is that Edwards went far beyond simply saying that stem cell research could lead to curing people like Christopher Reeve. What Edwards actually said entails one of the most outrageous campaign promises in all of election history:
"The work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."1
That was the claim that Frist blasted as ‘crass’, ‘shameful’ etc. And Frist was not alone in speaking out against Edwards’ outrageous claim. Charles Krauthammer is a popular columnist who has lived with paralysis for nearly 30 years. (He is also an M.D.) Here is what he wrote in the Washington Post in response to Edwards’ remarks:
"In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery ... Politicians have long promised a chicken in every pot. It is part of the game. It is one thing to promise ethanol subsidies here, dairy price controls there. But to exploit the desperate hopes of desperate people with the promise of Christ-like cures is beyond the pale. There is no apologizing for Edwards's remark. It is too revealing. There is absolutely nothing the man will not say to get elected."2
"Exploit[ing] the desperate hopes of desperate people." That is what Al Franken is defending in defending John Edwards. Ugh.
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Notes:
1 "Frist knocks Edwards over stem cell comment," CNN.com,
October 12, 2004.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/12/edwards.stem.cell/
2 Charles Krauthammer, “An Edwards Outrage,” Washington
Post, October 15, 2004, p. A23.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34167-2004Oct14.html