I would feel sorry for John Edwards if he didn't keep stepping in his own crap.
John Edwards has made a career out of supposedly helping "the little guy." This covers everything from his career as a shyster--er, trial lawyer getting jury awards in the six figures for "malpractice," which included things like cerebral palsy. All the feminists complaining about the abundance of C-sections done in this country have John Edwards and all the ambulance chasers like him for that.
When Edwards ran for president in 2004, he talked about the two Americas, one for the wealthy and one for the poor. This political argument was particularly galling, given Edwards' multimillion-dollar lifestyle.
Now, Edwards is back and lecturing us, yet again, on how badly "we" treat "the poor" (the poor being defined as anybody who would vote for Edwards for a government handout). The problem for Edwards is that he is still a rich guy. He lives in a 28,200 home that is big enough to house the homeless for the state of North Carolina (ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea). He gets $400 haircuts. He preens and fusses over his hair and clothes. And I'm sure Edwards never has to decide if he has enough money for a gallon of milk and a pack of bologna (if they even eat bologna).
In short, the man who is soooo concerned about the little people has a, well, wealth problem. It's hard to pretend you are so concerned about the poor when you live the good life.
Now comes news that Edwards charged $55k to give a speech on poverty.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who recently proposed an educational policy that urged "every financial barrier" be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show.
The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe Martin, the public relations officer for the campus' Mondavi Center confirmed Monday.
That amount -- which comes to about $31 a person in the audience -- included Edwards' travel and airfare, and was the highest speaking fee in the nine appearances he made before colleges and universities last year, according to his financial records.
The earnings -- though made before Edwards was a declared Democratic presidential candidate -- could hand ammunition to his competition for the Democratic presidential nomination. The candidate -- who was then the head of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina -- chose to speak on "Poverty, the great moral issue facing America," as his $55,000 topic at UC Davis.
Doesn't Edwards' staff check this stuff ahead of time? Their job is to make him look good, not like a greedy bastard.
It's not that wealthy people can't do a lot for poverty. There have been numerous multimillionaires in this country who used their wealth to enrich the nation, from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates. The difference is that those philanthropists used their own money to help the poor, enrich the public. They weren't proposing spending $125 billion of your money to work on poverty.
Of course, the price tag of Edwards' speeches wouldn't be such a problem if he and his wife Lizzie were more charitable in their personal lives. But given Lizzie's nasty snobbery, lashing out at people who did nothing to her, it's hard to see either Edwards as the sort of people who have the compassion they constantly harangue the rest of us for.
This won't be the last time we hear about some profligate spending or outrageous fees charged by Edwards. He didn't get the money for his "home" by being charitable.
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