Sen. John Edwards getting ready for a brief video we filmed today in support of Amendment 42, the initiative to raise Colorado's minimum wage. We'll post that video in the next couple of days. --Image by me

Despite the nasty weather, we had a full house today for our informal discussion with former (future?) presidential candidate John Edwards. And it was a great experience for all concerned.

A word about that: when somebody of national prominence like Senator Edwards comes to town, getting an hour of his time in a small conference room can be kind of difficult. Aside from the obvious logistical hurdles involved with blocking out a solid hour from someone so busy, major figures like Edwards also take considerable risk when entering a room full of ordinary citizens he doesn't know and who haven't been frisked for handcuffs and weapons and such (apparently he doesn't get Secret Service protection anymore).

Okay, that's a little extreme--the point I'm making is that that the questions aren't screened, there's nobody to bounce hecklers, it's absolutely candid stuff. You know the guy has to walk into the room wondering if it's going to be a roundtable or a Jerry Springer episode.

Fortunately, there was nothing to worry about. Our friends who came today, representing the larger share of the Colorado progressive blogosphere (read their narratives of the event here, here, here, and here), are some of the most thoughtful and articulate people you'll ever pack into a room. And the only thing political types have to fear from them is the natural consequence of frank talk. Be honest and fear no truth, right? Edwards gets it.

What happened when you put these smart writers into a room with Senator Edwards sans podium was a grand exchange that worked its way from housing and labor issues to the use of torture and Guantanamo. There was something for most of us to strongly identify with, as well as points with which few of us agreed.

For myself, I was very much heartened by his strong support for labor rights. We need more people willing to stand up for our declining unions, and by that I mean really stand up and talk about rolling back the Taft-Hartley Act restrictions on labor organization. We need more people who will call our broken public housing and assistance programs what they are, and recognize that the gap between rich and poor in America will only continue to grow unless we as a country intervene to the tune of billions of dollars. It's redistributions of that kind which have rebalanced the American system several times in the last century, and fueled our unprecedented broad prosperity that Republicans now arrogantly take for granted. Like they did in 1929. Edwards gets it.

When the discussion turned to civil liberties and the use of "aggressive" interrogation methods, differences of opinion emerged quickly. It seemed to me as though we blinked and were suddenly discussing a 24 episode to justify, well, whatever we felt we needed to justify to save America from the "ticking bomb." To be fair, Senator Edwards never actually used the words "ticking bomb," but he was clearly hesitant to rule out wholesale any method of extracting information in certain circumstances. He did say several times that torture is un-American, and that all of our foreign policy should be carried out in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

If such an extreme circumstance would ever come to pass that "aggressive" interrogation of detainees became necessary to protect the country from an imminent attack, Edwards said that the incident should be made public and fully explained. There's a logic to this: if fighter jets had been able to intercept one of the 9/11 airliners, and had shot it down, most Americans would have accepted that as the correct decision. If such an action were concealed from the public, however, it would go over badly when it was ultimately revealed. We have a right to know, for good or ill, what's done in our name.

But the fact is that nothing has been shown to me demonstrating torture has an efficacy that would ever justify its use. And when I asked the Senator if there had been any situation since the 9/11 attacks that would rise to the extremity that we were hypothesizing about, he said there hadn't. But we're talking about this in a context meant to justify things that have happened since 9/11.

I'm not reconciled here: it's self-contradictory to invoke an absolute more like "human rights" and then note asterisks when it can't apply.

But if Edwards meant what he said about compliance with the Geneva Conventions, it's clear that we're still talking about a very different approach than that taken by the Bush administration. Perhaps it's the fact that this issue is in all of our faces every day in the media that we were forced to discuss it uncomfortably. At least this man would approach the subject with some consideration for universal human rights instead of opting for the "24 scenario" first and asking questions later.

The candor and sincerity with which Edwards responded to the hard questions put to him is what we'll all remember above the points on which we differ. He is an approachable, personable leader who is willing to sit down and listen to you without a check in your hand. It's men like John Edwards who should give you hope after years of broken trust and dysfunctional Republican government.

Yeah, the pleasure was definitely ours in the end. Thanks again to everybody who came--


Image courtesy Johne