John Edwards Has No Grounds to Blast Hillary on Honesty and Sincerity

The Washington Post reports:

Edwards, meanwhile, has been pursuing Clinton on the question of her honesty and sincerity. During a stop earlier this week, Edwards criticized Clinton for her seeming fluidity on the issues in order to win. “Instead of moving from primary mode to general election mode, why don’t we have tell-the-truth mode, all the time, and not say something different one time than we say another time?” Edwards said.

“We need to be able to trust both a presidential candidate and a president of the United States,” Edwards said. His comments came after Clinton voted to authorize labeling the Iranian guard as terrorists, a vote widely interpreted as her effort to start running a general election campaign rather than appealing to members of her own party.

John Edwards has absolutely no legs to stand on to blast Clinton on honesty and sincerity. He flip-flopped on Iran diplomacy too. He was for the war before he was against it. He is clearly playing political gamesmanship on campaign finance reform. He also flip-flopped on many other issues.

The one that disappoints me most (other than his Iraq War vote) is his flip-flop on healthcare. Here’s an exchange between Tim Russert of Meet the Press and John Edwards:

RUSSERT (Quoting an AP Article): “Edwards … ran as a moderate Democrat for the Senate in 1998 and the White House in 2004, calling universal healthcare policies “irresponsible,” “impractical. Now he’s more liberal, shifting to the left along with Internet-fed forces within the Democratic Party, and vows to give healthcare to all.”

Have you shifted your views for political expediency, or has been there, has been there, has there been a profound, philosophical change within you?

SEN. EDWARDS: I’m exactly the same person that I was in 2004. I run for president for exactly the same reason. You know, I run for president, Tim, on behalf of the, my father, who worked in a mill all his life, the men and the women who worked in the mill with him, the men and women I grew up with who lost their jobs when that mill closed. Providing that kind of chance and opportunity to everybody is at the core of, is the core of why I’m running for president of the United States. That has never changed, and it is exactly the same today.

I do believe that there’s been some changes both in America and in the world. The war in Iraq is much worse than it was in 2003 and 2004, and it’s continued. Our healthcare situation is dysfunctional. It does not work. And I am convinced that the only solution to this is true, universal healthcare.

That response is not a good enough explanation for a general election.