I noted a bit of irony in the Sunday NYT piece charting the parallel career paths of presidential candidates Mitt Romney and John Edwards.
The story opens in the final weeks of 1984:
Mr. Edwards, then making a nice salary as a lawyer at a small North Carolina firm, spent early December staying at the Inn on the Plaza in downtown Asheville. Scattered around his room were documents relating to his first big malpractice case, a lawsuit filed by a man named E. G. Sawyer, who used a wheelchair after his doctor had overprescribed a drug. On Dec. 18, at the courthouse opposite the hotel, a jury awarded Mr. Sawyer $3.7 million.
….In the decade that followed, Mr. Edwards would win one big verdict after another, and Mr. Romney would oversee a series of hugely profitable investments.
….“Some people come from nothing to being wildly successful and their response is, ‘I did this on my own,’” Mr. Edwards said in an interview. “I came to a different conclusion. I believe that I did work hard, and I think people should work hard, but I think my country was there for me every step of the way.”
I can’t help but think about the two men who were leading the country that was there for Edwards “every step of the way” during the bulk of that next decade: Ronald Reagan and and George H.W. Bush, who no doubt did their share in creating the “Two Americas” that exist in Edwards’ head. (Unless we’ve become “Two Americas” in just the past seven years, which I guess many people believe is the case.)
I’m always amazed at the controversy that surrounds Reagan 20 years after he left office and almost four years after his death. I remember when the publication of the Reagan Diaries was the subject of C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. Yes, many callers expressed their reverance for Reagan, but the number of callers expressing their hatred for Reagan was surprising.
