CHARLOTTE - Critics have blasted Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards for calling the "war on terror" "a slogan designed only for politics" and "a bumper sticker, not a plan."

Edwards made the comments Wednesday in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He offered a stinging critique of the Bush administration's global war on terrorism.

"He has used this doctrine like a sledgehammer to justify the worst abuses and biggest mistakes of his administration," Edwards told the council. "The war on terror has damaged our alliances and weakened our standing in the world."

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, said Wednesday, "When you go so far as to suggest the global war on terror is a bumper sticker or a slogan, it kind of makes the point that I have been making over and over again, that the Democrats, or at least some of them, are in denial. There is not a global war on terror because of George Bush."

Commentator Rush Limbaugh called Edwards' comments "truly dangerous and just ignorant." S.C. GOP Chairman Katon Dawson said Edwards "endangers the lives of Americans at home and abroad by trivializing terrorist threats."

Mark Kornblau, an Edwards spokesman, said such statements prove Edwards' point, "that George Bush and others have used the phrase, 'global war on terror,' ... to shut down debate and to quiet anybody who disagrees with them. And what Senator Edwards is saying is [that] when he's president of the United States, he's going to keep America safe, find the terrorists and destroy them."

Edwards himself has talked about the "war on terror." In 2004, for example, he told CNN's Larry King that the United States has to "stamp [terrorists] out before they do us harm. It is by far the most effective way to win this war on terrorism."

$55,000 poverty talk

North Carolina's former senator also found himself under fire Thursday for taking $55,000 last year for a speech on poverty at the University of California at Davis. Dick Rosengarten, publisher of California Political Week, called it "outrageous."

"He's trying to come off as Mr. Populist and Mr. 'I'm trying to help the poor,' and he charges $55,000 for a speaking fee? That's ridiculous," Rosengarten told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Edwards spoke to an audience of 1,787 in January 2006 at the school's Mondavi Center for The Performing Arts. Ticket prices of as much as $45 helped defray the costs, said Joe Martin, center spokesman.