This post is a followup to
Hunter Goes Postal. If you've read that diary, be warned. This one might make you even madder. We're going to follow the course of Tucker Carlson's two-year campaign to push a Republican lie into the public discourse.
Long story short: Edwards once sued a pool drain manufacturer on behalf of a five year old girl who was pinned to the bottom of a wading pool by a faulty pool drain by suction so powerful that it slowly pulled most of her intestines out, filling the pool with her blood and internal tissues. Her life was saved, but having no intestines, she will now spend the rest of her life being fed intraveneously. That doesn't mean she is fed through a tube. Think needle. As in, all her food must, every night, be supplied via IV directly into her veins. Turns out at least twelve other children had been previously similarly injured by drains manufactured by the same company; nevertheless, the company did nothing, even though the proposed fix to remedy the problem consisted of a pair of simple screws, cost less than $1 per drain.
The counterargument to the case seems to be, as far as anyone has been able to tell me, that the pool drain was working as designed, and what-the-hell-is-your-problem-you-goddamn-communist-for-questioning-us. The suction is supposed to be strong enough to pin children to the bottom of pools and perhaps suck out their intestines, apparently, so no harm, no foul. Or maybe it's the children's fault for being so goddamn stupid as to play in a pool equipped with this particular company's products. The precise defense of the company is never clearly described to me. Or maybe, since I'm not a Republican, I just don't get it.
This, then, is the origin of the Jacuzzi case. This case, more than any other taken on by John Edwards, trial lawyer, has the entire Republican establishment up in arms. And none more so than Tucker Carlson, CNN's resident sack of shit. Minus the sack. Tucker has been working the Jacuzzi case angle, harping on this one particular case, for at least two full years.
This case is the one that infuriates Republicans. This case, of a little girl being mechanically -- no, sorry, hydraulically disemboweled while playing in a public wading pool. For this, John Edwards is, according to Ari Fleischer, an "ambulance chaser". For this, John Edwards is, according to Dick Armey, part of a "well-connected swarm of trial lawyers who twist our legal system to pillage the productive sector for personal gain."
Note to Dick Armey: Stay away from my fucking kid, pal.
Here is the first example I have been able to find of Tucker Carlson specifically pushing the "Jacuzzi case" talking point.
June 4, 2002
BEGALA: Yes, sir?
ADAM SHAPIRO [caller]: Hi, this Adam Shapiro (ph) from Washington, D.C. And a question for you, Tucker. Aren't conservatives like you really afraid of Senator John Edwards of North Carolina because he is so popular with moderates, especially in the South?
CARLSON: In a word, no, Adam. This is a man who's been in politics less than four years. Before that, he was a personal injury lawyer, specializing in jacuzzi cases. Marvelous guy. Excellent manners. Very likable. That does not add up to a presidential profile.
So, there is is. June 4th, 2002. By that date, someone, somewhere, told Tucker Carlson that John Edwards specialized in "Jacuzzi cases." And Tucker, being ever-agreeable to digesting good ol' fashioned talking points, runs with it.
Now, any defense of Carlson would probably have to rely on some notion that he didn't really know what he was talking about. That he was repeating the phrase, and didn't know what the case really entailed. After all, he said "Jacuzzi"... the actual John Edwards case involved a little girl being disemboweled in a shallow (public) wading pool. Could he just be a tool, an empty mouth?
January 1, 2003
W/ Bob Shrum, Democratic Strategist
CARLSON: One of the leading candidates among the Democrats in 2004 is John Edwards. Smart guy, decent guy, articulate guy, doesn't have the resume in the current environment in politics, but four years [ago] he was a personal-injury lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases. That's not going to cut it in this environment, is it?
SHRUM: Well, first of all, he never did a case like that. And if you, by Jacuzzi, mean a young woman who had her insides sucked out by a defective pool drain, who has to for the rest of her life receive 24-hour-a-day care, and that he took that case and won that case, if that's what you're referring to, I think people in this country would like that.
CARLSON: And so you're saying -- just to make sure I understand you -- that that is the resume that he's going to run on for commander in chief in 2004?
SHRUM: No, of course not. No, I just have to correct the outrageous misstatement that you just made. First of all, he hasn't decided whether he's running or not, number one. Number two ... he didn't do class-action cases. He defended very, very powerless people against very powerful interests for 20 years.
CARLSON: And made millions.
(...)
CARVILLE: What experience did [Bush] have, Tucker, that John Edwards didn't? You've attacked John Edwards viciously. Tell us what [Bush] had.
SHRUM: You took what was a really terrible tragedy, in which he did exactly the right thing, and tried to turn it into a joke. You ought to be spanked for that.
CARVILLE: They don't believe that babies sucked into swimming pools ought to have lawyers. That's the difference.
CARLSON: James, lighten up. Lighten up.
Ahem. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Yeah, James, lighten up. After all, if you can't laugh about someone's five-year-old daughter getting her intestines sucked out in a public wading pool, what can you laugh about?
Well, so now we know Tucker knows the real story, at least of this date. At least of this date, Tucker Carlson knows that it was a public wading pool, not a Jacuzzi. He knows it was a little girl. He knows the case he's talking about.
Februrary 11, 2003
CARLSON: When the Al Gore for president campaign, you must remember that, when it first began to unravel back in 2000, Gore decided to move his staff and headquarters out of Washington to Nashville. The idea being if we go to Tennessee, people will think you're authentic. Voters aren't so easily fooled it turns out.
But don't tell John Edwards that. The Edwards presidential campaign hasn't completely collapsed yet, and already Edwards is pretending he's just another down home southern guy. According to this mornings "Washington Post," the Edwards campaign has rigged its phone system to make it appear that the staff is working out of North Carolina. Most Edwards aides are, in fact, safely inside the Beltway, of course. But to reach them on the phone, you must dial not 202 for Washington, but 919 for Raleigh. Pretty tricky. Now all Edwards needs is some way to disguise the fact that he used to be a trial lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases.
BEGALA: Let me tell you about one those. One of those cases, in fact the one I think you may be referring to, the one he's most famous for, was a 5-year-old girl named Valerie Lakki (ph). She was caught in the drainage of a pool, she was disemboweled for the rest of her life. She has to go through 12 hours on a feeding tube. John Edwards sued the corporate bastards that should have protect her. God bless John Edwards for doing that. If that's the kind of advocacy he'll take the presidency. He'll be a damn good president
CARLSON: He got rich from that little girl's suffering. He ought to be embarrassed about it.
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: There were 13 other example, that corporation knew about little kids being damaged by their product, they did nothing to protect them and thank god we have some people that are willing to protect us.
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: And getting rich in the meantime, good work, I love that.
BEGALA: Opposed to Dick Cheney got rich selling oil field equipment to Saddam Hussein. All of a sudden Tucker going to criticize who people earn a living.
As of this date, February 11th of 2003, not only does Tucker Carlson know the little girl and the circumstances of her case, but he knows that the product involved had previously injured other children, and did nothing about it.
He doesn't have a problem with that. But he does have a problem with John Edwards "getting rich" by taking that small girl's case.
At this point, the (ahem) goddamn Jacuzzi Case meme should have been dead. Tucker Carlson knows the circumstances of the case. He knows damn well that this was a bonafide case of faulty product design maiming little children for life.
And he doesn't give a crap, because a talking point is a talking point.
Are we all clear, at this point, why this is a "Jacuzzi case"? Because it's a lot more fun to imagine John Edwards as someone who takes cases for elitist, hot-tubbing liberals than to think of him as taking cases involving fathers who took their five-year-old daughters to a public wading pool to play for the day, only to have her pinned to the bottom of a pool while her intestines were sucked out by a product that had already been demonstrated to cause similar injuries.
And he doesn't give a crap.
September 8, 2003
CARLSON: As future historians may point out, the political career of John Edwards lasted fewer than six years. Elected to the Senate in 1998 after a lucrative career as a trial lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases, Edwards probably could have spent another couple of decades on Capitol Hill, giving regular press conferences, invoking cloture from time to time, brushing up on his senatorial image.
But then hubris intervened. Every senator famously thinks he can be president. Edwards really thought it, so he ran. Today, Edwards announced that he will not stand for reelection in North Carolina. Instead, he will devote all of his considerable energies to securing the Democratic nomination. The only problem? Edwards is not likely to get the nomination. And he's even less likely -- far less likely -- to become the president of the United States. His relatively safe Senate seat in North Carolina, meanwhile, will probably go to a Republican. And at result, the GOP strengthens its Senate majority, Edwards goes back to suing people for a living. If it weren't so amusing, it might be a shame.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
BEGALA: This is one of my favorite kind of stereotypes of the elite right that you play into. And that is that somehow representing people against corporations who make products that kill their children is dishonorable.
Which is more honorable, to sue a company that makes a product that kills children or to sell oil field equipment to Saddam Hussein, which is what Dick Cheney did when George Bush picked him to be on the ticket? I'll take the trial lawyers every day of the week.
(BELL RINGING)
CARLSON: I would love to take that seriously, but it makes so little sense, I can't.
BEGALA: Which is more honorable? It's a simple choice, Tucker.
CARLSON: All I can say is, suing people actually makes America a much less happy, friendly place.
Yes, but an America in which your daughter can have her f---ing intestines ripped out of her, while she's screaming for help, in a f---ing public wading pool -- that's OK with Tucker Carlson.
Suing the company would make America a less happy, friendly place.
November 26, 2003
w/ Dennis Kucinich, Presidential Candidate
CARLSON: Well, if you're not an obscenely rich trial lawyer, chances are you probably have not given a dime to the John-Edwards-for-president campaign and you probably don't plan to. Well, Senator Edwards would like to change that, of course, which is why he's begun offering a copy of his autobiography to anyone who gives him $35 or more. The plan will help fund his doomed bid for the White House and move a few copies of his book, which is entitled "Four Trials" -- two birds, one stone.
The Edwards campaign also hopes the book will explain why a former trial lawyer who, until just a very few years ago, was trying Jacuzzi cases, ought to be the president of the United States. As his spokeswoman admitted to "The New York Times" this morning -- quote -- "People don't necessarily understand how his career translates to the presidency."
That's for certain, not that Edwards necessarily had much to do with his own book. According to his campaign, of the $150,000 Edwards received from Simon & Schuster, his publisher, $135,000 of that went to researchers and ghost writers.
BEGALA: Now...
CARLSON: The guy doesn't even pretend to write his own book.
(APPLAUSE)
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: It's embarrassing.
BEGALA: Jacuzzi cases you say? That case a little girl who...
CARLSON: There were a couple cases.
BEGALA: Excuse me. Let me -- let me finish. This is important. A little girl had her intestines sucked out by a pool that the manufacturer could have prevented with a $1 part. John Edwards stood up to a big corporation. Republicans support the big corporations.
CARLSON: Stood up. Paul, Paul...
BEGALA: Edwards supported that family whose little girl was devastated by that product.
(BELL RINGING)
BEGALA: God bless John Edwards, God bless trial lawyers for standing up to corporate America.
(CROSSTALK)
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: Do you really think you're convincing anybody when you say, Republicans are for the company that kills the little girls? That's...
BEGALA: Of course they are.
CARLSON: That's not an argument. That's a bumper sticker.
BEGALA: Of course they are.
CARLSON: And you don't convince anybody.
BEGALA: Tucker, they're trying to take away all of our rights to stand up to any kind of corporate power. That's what Republicans are all about, sucking up to corporate power.
(APPLAUSE)
CARLSON: That's so overstated, it's insane. Nobody believes a word you say.
Actually, Tucker, some of us do. Because this case, of all the cases John Edwards took, is the one that apparently infuriates you. This case, this "Jacuzzi case", suing a pool drain manufacturer, is, as we have been told by you for over a year at this point, is an unforgivable act of greed.
February 20, 2004
CARLSON: Well, how do you hit a home run in New York if you're running for president? We'll show you one candidate's swing for the fences next.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Alex Rodriguez is a baseball player, American league MVP, and now a member of the New York Yankees. John Edwards is a former trial lawyer, specializing in Jacuzzi cases and a soon-to-be former U.S. senator from North Carolina.
They have nothing in common, right? Well maybe not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you all for being here. The folks who work for me here told me that the people of New York were excited about having a new, fresh face from the South here in New York City. But, unfortunately, they were talking about Alex Rodriguez, not me.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: You know, anybody who tells a good joke, I'm on their side. I'm not sure I'd vote for John Edwards, but good for him.
CARVILLE: He's a good man.
Anyone else getting tired of this yet? I wonder if there has been one show in which Tucker Carlson has mentioned John Edwards' name without the "Jacuzzi case" talking point.
But it keeps coming.
July 5, 2004
CARLSON: Your point is fair. That's why I want to go to quote that's, I don't know, just about two weeks old. This Chris Heinz, he's Kerry's stepson and an adviser to the campaign. This is what he told "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" on June 17. Quote: "I was very pro-Edwards in the spring, but now I think we need someone with stronger credentials on foreign policy.
In other words, the guy is a lightweight. He was a trial lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases just six years ago, and now wants do be vice president.
LEWIS: Let me be very clear. One, that Jacuzzi case that you're making a joke of is a child who was tragically harmed.
CARLSON: Oh, I know, I've heard that, yes.
LEWIS: And John Edwards went into court and got some compensation for the parents and the child. That was a great...
CARLSON: And for himself, yes.
LEWIS: So let's just (UNINTELLIGIBLE) fact there for a lot of Americans, keeping that quote...
CARLSON: Well, let's address Chris Heinz's quote here.
I've heard that, yes, says Tucker. Indeed you have, shit-for-brains. You've heard it for two years, and yet you still can't keep from throwing the words "Jacuzzi case" wherever you go. You know full well it wasn't a Jacuzzi. You know full well the company history, the fact that other children were injured and the company did nothing.
And you don't care. Not one goddamn bit. Because this case, this case of all cases, makes you hate John Edwards with something approaching a passion. You say Jacuzzi case, because you want every viewer of your program to think Jacuzzi case, and to hell with the truth. For two years, at every opportunity.
July 15, 2004
CARLSON: Compare that to John Edwards, this is his background. He has served less than one term in the U.S. Senate. Before that he was a trial lawyer specializing in Jacuzzi cases. This is my favorite. This is John Kerry's rationale, he says that John Edwards ought to be vice president because, quote: He has devoted a lifetime of caring."
Tucker Carlson. Republican.
That's quite a talking point you've got there, Tucker. Jacuzzi cases. Sounds liberal, decadent even. Sounds like he's a lawyer for yuppies. Sounds like he's a shallow, greedy, ambitious elitist preying on American companies just trying to earn a buck, keep their stock prices high, and keep the corporate jet feuled.
A nice image. Of course, the real image is of a small child being pinned to the bottom of a pool, her intestines slowly being sucked out, the pool filling with blood and her own entrials, while her father tries to free her, and of the wait for the ambulance, and of massive surgery to repair what little is left, and of a child now destined to be fed only through a needle for the rest of her life. And of a company that let other children be injured, before, and did nothing. Nothing.
But that part doesn't bother you.
LEWIS: Let me be very clear. One, that Jacuzzi case that you're making a joke of is a child who was tragically harmed.
CARLSON: Oh, I know, I've heard that, yes.
Yes, you have, Tucker Carlson. Yes, you have indeed.