Sometimes you can’t win for losing — or something like that.

Look off to the right of this column and you’ll see a sampling of letters we received about U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, the Waco Democrat who for the past three months has found himself aggressively targeted by fiscal conservatives over his impending vote on health care reform.

During a rowdy town-hall meeting in August, Edwards faced everything from polite questions from sincerely concerned constituents to insults and slurs from others who came to attack him, not to engage in any meaningful dialogue. I recall one man calling him a liar only moments after the meeting began, then storming out of the hall in holy indignation.

So, after it was all said and done and the congressman three months later bowed to their wishes and voted against this monstrosity of a health-care reform bill, some cavalierly impugned the congressman’s very motives, which is a pretty presumptuous thing to do.

Rob Curnock, a local Republican who seeks another shot at unseating Edwards, claimed Edwards got a “pass” from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that allowed the congressman to vote against the bill and yet stay in the speaker’s good graces.

Which caused the congressman in turn to erupt in indignation — and, I’d say, with some justification.

When you holler and demand someone do something and then he does so, it’s disingenuous to then attack the guy anyway. Yet, even after Edwards’ votes against two key Democratic bills — controversial cap-and-trade environmental legislation and the health-care reform bill — some insist he got a pass from House leadership.

“I would ask if Curnock has any proof of that,” Edwards told me after his ride in the big Veterans Day Parade in downtown Waco last week. “Did he just make that up? He did that on cap-and-trade, too. I have never in my life asked the speaker for a pass on anything, whether it was a Republican or Democratic speaker.

“I’ve never asked for a pass and I’ve never received one. I listened instead to the thousands of people in my district, spent hundreds of hours studying the bill and made the decision that I felt was right for our country.”

Edwards acknowledged the president called him the day before the vote — when, by some accounts, the House vote was still uncertain — to lobby for his support.

“He said he knew there were some provisions in this bill, in the House bill, that he would like to change, such as supporting a trigger mechanism to reduce costs if they were higher than expected,” Edwards said, “but that he wanted to move the process forward.”

Edwards told him he couldn’t in good conscience vote for it. The tone of the president, he said, was nothing but respectful about their difference of opinion.

“It was a tense several days (in the House) because everyone knew it would come down to one or two or three votes,” he said. “It’s an issue that, unlike most, affects every single family personally. That’s why it was so highly charged.”

Incidentally, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, of Louisiana, who once studied at Baylor University, was the sole Republican to vote for the Democratic health-care reform bill.

Republican Whip Eric Cantor, full of praise for Edwards and other Democrats crossing party lines and showing bipartisanship, later told reporters that, no, he would not be disciplining Cao for voting with Democrats. Which makes sense.

Adding to the tension for Edwards: The 13 shooting deaths at Fort Hood. The post was in Edwards’ district 14 years. Alongside Rep. John Carter, the Round Rock Republican conservative, Edwards has continued to keep the post a top priority.

I told the congressman that, between the Fort Hood shootings and the hard-fought battles over health care, the past several days must have been among the worst in his long career on Capitol Hill. Just a day earlier he had returned to the post for the memorial service, led by the president.

“When I met the families yesterday, I understood what they’ve lost, what they’ve sacrificed,” he said. “It really puts everything else in perspective.”