Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Drudge is quoting Edwards as saying, "When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

According to the Hotline, this was discussed on Fox News' Special Report.

FNC's Kondracke, on John Edwards promising that if Kerry wins, the disabled will walk again: "What Edwards said is clearly part of the hype that the Kerry campaign has been delivering about how people are going to walk again next week, if we permit stem cell research to go forward. That's not true. It is probably decades away before it's really usable. On the other hand, you know, if we don't get started it will never happen" ("Special Report," 10/11).

NPR's Liasson: "I think this has become for a surprisingly, complicated scientific issue, this has proved to have real power on the campaign trail" ("Special Report," FNC, 10/11).

Columnist Charles Krauthammer: "I've heard a lot of hype over the last 30 years about the keys to the kingdom here in this issue. And all of them have proved false. For Edwards to make the claims he did is the worst demagoguery I've heard in Washington in a quarter century. To imply that Christopher Reeve was kept in the wheelchair because of the policies of the Bush administration on stem cells is ridiculous and insulting" ("Special Report," FNC, 10/11).

I'll bet some GOP 527 groups could get some mileage out of this statement in attack ads.

I wonder why Edwards didn't also promise that when John Kerry is president, people like Rodney Dangerfield are going to get some respect.

UPDATE: To my many e-mailers, yes, I know Charles Krauthammer is a paraplegic, and Morton Kondrake's wife Millie recently passed away after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. I can only imagine how their personal experiences colored their responses to Edwards' comments.

[Posted 10/12 01:57 PM]