It's a damn shame that courage consists of a long overdue apology. The apology comes from a man who, though attractive and decent, has appeared to be a mile wide and about an inch deep. He has changed.
John Edwards has stepped away from the plastic podium and down here onto real soil where the rest of us are standing and said he was wrong to vote to allow George Bush to take us to war on faulty pretenses. That's pretty good, but what struck me is that he didn't just back away from an awkward and shameful vote. He has come up with a plan.
After naming names -- Bush and Halliburton -- he deals with the mess they've created. He's realistic about what we should be aiming for in Iraq -- not a Jeffersonian democracy but "a relatively stable, largely self-sufficient, comparatively open and free, and in control of its own destiny." He calls Bush's America and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's invasion "imperialism" and acknowledges that the rest of the world has lost its respect for us; he recommends diplomacy and multilateralism.
I'd say about the only place Edwards is wrong -- except for leaving National Guard in Iraq -- lies in his continuing relationship with the Democratic Party which for the most part is no less unlovely than that other group on Capitol Hill. If he'd just quit his association with the Democratic Party of 2005, I'd mail in my campaign contribution to him tomorrow, without fail.
Edwards is building a campaign, no doubt about it, with a series of pretty substantial statements and speeches. Go back and take a look at this, too.
(Russ Feingold -- got anything to say?...)
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