David Corn

John Edwards is giving what his campaign bills as a "major thematic speech" at noon today in New Hampshire. Judging from the excerpts the campaign has passed out in advance, the address will be nothing he hasn't said before. Edwards will bash the Washington political system for being ridden with institutional corruption and perverted by campaign donations from corporate interests. Edwards certainly has a (fundamental) point. But will such a critique help him beat Hillary Clinton (or Barack Obama, who makes a similar case)? Here are some excerpts of the excerpts:

It's time to tell the truth. And, the truth is the system in Washington is corrupt. It is rigged by the powerful special interests to benefit they very few at the expense of the many. And, as a result, the American people have lost faith in our broken system in Washington, and believe it no longer works for ordinary Americans. They're right.

I believe you cannot be for change and take money from the lobbyists who prevent change. You cannot take on the entrenched interests in Washington if you choose to defend the broken system. It will not work. And I believe that, if Americans have a choice, any candidate who takes their money--Democrat or Republican--will lose this election.

Edwards is obviously talking about Clinton, whose campaign is fueled by lobbyist money and is run by political strategists who also work for corporate clients. (See Mark Penn.) But the question is whether Edwards' attack on the system can serve (in political terms) as an effective attack on Hillary Clinton. There are indeed progressive Democratic voters who see HRC as an establishment-friendly Democrat and harbor suspicions of her. But that meme hasn't yet--as far as I can discern--come to infect the Democratic body politic. It is, I'm afraid to say, a boutique critique of Clinton.

So my hunch is that Edwards will have to be more explicit in tying Clinton to the sleaze of Washington to have any chance with this line of attack. Ditto for Obama. (And I'll get to his new anti-Hillary initiative soon.) So when the full text of Edwards speech is publicly available, here's what to look for: a direct slam on Clinton. If it's not there, Edwards might be spinning his wheels.

MORE ON THOMSPON'S DISTORTED VIEW OF 20-SOMETHINGS IN IRAQ. As I noted several weeks ago, Thompson has a stump speech line about Iraq that is...well, pretty dumb. He likes to say

Every day, our troops in Iraq demonstrate a heroic resolve to win. I wish Democrats in Washington would dedicate as much time and energy to winning as they do on how to surrender the fight. The average 20 year-old serving in Iraq apparently knows more about national security than many of the 20 year-political veterans serving in Congress.

So what does Thompson think when he reads pieces like the The Washington Post front-pager on Saturday that notes that the experience of soldiers in Iraq

has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from [his] battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- [Sgt. Victor] Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

The article focused on Alarcon's battalion's efforts in Sadiyah, a neighborhood in Baghdad and noted he mission there has been a flop:

American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people. After they left, insurgents and militiamen used their abandoned homes to hold meetings and store weapons. The neighborhood deteriorated so quickly that many residents came to believe neither U.S. nor Iraqi security forces could stop it happening.

"It's just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing," said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion's operations officer.

That sure doesn't sound like the progress George W. Bush and David Petraeus hail. According to the Post, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. George Glaze, says that

his soldiers are playing the role of a bouncer caught between brawling customers. Alone, they can restrain the fighters, keep them off balance, but they cannot stop the melee until the house lights come on -- that is, until the Iraqi government steps in.

"I'm frustrated. After 14 months, I've got a lot of thoughts in my head. Do they fundamentally get giving up individual rights and power for the greater good?" Glaze said. "I'm going to leave here being skeptical of everything."

And the piece ends:

The American people don't fully realize what's going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.

"They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don't go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire," he said. "They don't ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground."

So it seems to me that Thompson ought to get his backside over to Iraq and spend two weeks with the 20-something soldiers of 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, before he says anything else about this war.