There's a little hustler in every politician. But sometimes there's a little
politician in a hustler. Such is the case with John Edwards.
Last week, we learned that Edwards received $55,000 to give a speech,
"Poverty, the Great Moral Issue Facing America," at the University of
California, Davis. The poor students who attended were charged more than $17
a ticket. Earlier this month, it was reported that despite the fact he
denounces predatory lending and subprime mortgages for the poor, Edwards
made nearly $500,000 as a consultant to a hedge fund involved in that
business.
The former senator defended his gig on the grounds that he took the job to
learn how financial markets relate to poverty. This is a bit like saying you
frequent brothels so you can learn where babies come from. But here's the
hilarious part: Edwards said he didn't know the fund was involved in
subprime lending. If he was there to learn about poverty and finance, how
did he miss this salient fact? He must be a slow learner. No wonder his
former political consultant, Bob Shrum, calls him "a Clinton who hadn't read
the books."
Business Week magazine reports that Edwards launched a poverty center that
conveniently worked out of the same office as his political action
committee. The nonprofit center spent a staggering 70 percent of the money
it raised on a speaking tour for Edwards and on salaries for staffers who in
short order just happened to join his presidential campaign. This gives new
meaning to the term "poverty pimp."
A few years ago, when it was reported that "virtuecrat" Bill Bennett, the
former secretary of education, liked to gamble in Las Vegas, columnist
Michael Kinsley spoke for much of establishment liberalism when he declared,
"Bennett has been exposed as a humbug artist who ought to be pelted off the
public stage." I thought this was unfair, as Bennett never inveighed against
gambling, nor did his church consider it a sin. But certainly Edwards, who
gets choked up and misty-eyed from his own relentlessly recounted stump
speech about "two Americas," is more of a humbug artist than Bennett ever
was. You would think that when Edwards looks in the mirror in one of his
new, 28,000-square-foot house's six bathrooms, inspecting whether it's time
for another $400 haircut, he might feel the slightest twinge of conscience
about his us-versus-them shtick.