20 minutes

Man, is it me or does it seem that ever since Bush-Cheney jumped to a double-digit lead in the polls, the Democrats have been falling like flies? First Clinton has shortness of breath and chest pains (my first question was "Who was she?") and then the next you hear that Teresa Heinz-Kerry has taken ill.

Who's next? Maybe Terry McAuliffe will have a stroke from the pressure of protecting John Kerry from himself? Or James Carville's head will finally implode from the vaccuum in his skull? Barbra Streisand suffer from fainting spells? Maybe the length of Michael Moore's growing nose will cause it to collapse under its own weight?

They can all rest easy since they have everyone's favorite ambulance chaser at their side in John Edwards. Or then again, maybe they will receive medical attention from bureaucrats instead of physicians like the rest of us. It would be fitting, wouldn't it?

Bureaucrats and insurance companies dictate the health that you receive today because of the efforts of trial lawyers like John Edwards. Doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals have left the industry in droves because John Edwards and other trial lawyers have won huge settlements in mediacl malpractice suits.

I can understand someone suing and winning over a blatant misapplication of medicine or surgery or misdiagnosis but the case that made Edwards so rich recently was a case of a child born with cerebral palsy. Edwards argued that the physician caused the cerebral palsy by not delivering the child by caesarian section.

Cerbral palsy is genetic. It doesn't occur as result of anything that was done or not done during delivery. But Edwards managed to obfuscate matter enough to convince a jury that there was a direct link between the two.

So, now, Edwards and Kerry are claiming that they are going to provide affordable healthcare for all Americans. Kerry's running mate is the cause of the escalating healthcare costs but now all of a sudden, he is going to bring it all down. I guess in a way, he's right.

If John Edwards is elected with Kerry, he won't be practicing law for the next 4 years. And that alone might at least allow the cost to level out and not increase. But then again, the current bureaucratic mess that the healthcare system finds itself in today may eliminate enough trial lawyers by attrition and eventually bring the cost back down to a livable level.

Just wait until Bill and Teresa get the hospital bills. I'm sure they'll be calling you, Johnny Boy, to thank you.