Edwards on Bush: "What Planet Is He Living On?"

Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews Friday, Presidential candidate John Edwards ripped into George W. Bush when asked by Matthews to comment on Bush's silly notion that Americans should "go shopping" to confront the country's problems.

"What planet is he living on? I have absolutely no idea. I mean, this is the man who's in charge of this war in Iraq. After September 11, we had an extraordinary moment of unity and a proud feeling of patriotism -- I had it myself, all of us had it.

"It was a great opportunity for us to tap into the will of the American people to do great things together, not just for themselves, but for America. I don’t think that will and feeling has gone away and we need, the next President of the United States needs to tap into it and say, not in an ideological way, not in a partisan way, but say "These are the great things we can do as Americans, but you can't sit home and complain that somebody else is not doing their job. If you actual want America to be great, you're going to have to step out and take some responsibility yourself and do something.'"

Here's the clip:



Edwards is doing two things that are very important here: He's heaping the ridicule that's so richly deserved on the worst president in our country's history and he's pointing out the utter lack of true leadership coming from the executive branch of government right now.

The former North Carolina Senator is invoking the same spirit of volunteerism and honest patriotism that Franklin D. Roosevelt used to rally the nation during World War II.

It is both a stroke of political genius and a huge breath of fresh air going into 2007.