For example, on January 9 last year, the wealthy trial lawyer gave a speech at the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis. He charged $55,000 to speak to an audience of 1,787, or nearly $31 per member. It was the highest speaking fee he charged of the nine speeches he made last year at colleges and universities. The topic of his speech? Poverty.
Last year, Mr. Edwards was paid $479,512 as an adviser to a New York-based hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group. Normally this would not be a problem except, as the Washington Post pointed out on May 17, “Fortress owned offshore funds that served as tax havens for investors and … the firm’s portfolio included subprime lenders, which provide high-risk loans that often target minorities. As a candidate, Edwards has railed against both practices.”
Indeed, John Edwards, who is running for president, held more than $7.5 million in investments with Fortress in addition to his salary.
Publicly, John Edwards is not a big fan of Wal-Mart. In fact, last August 4, the presidential candidate delivered a speech during which he complained “We want every single consumer in America, every person in America, to know that if they walk into a Wal-Mart, that first of all their tax dollars are subsidizing Wal-Mart employees. Their tax dollars are helping provide health care for Wal-Mart employees, because Wal-Mart’s not doing it. Their tax dollars are going to provide housing and food stamps for Wal-Mart employees. What is wrong with this picture?”
A little over three months later, on November 15, a staff person attempted to obtain a Sony PlayStation3 on behalf of John Edwards’ family – from a Wal-Mart in Raleigh, North Carolina.
That same evening, Edwards reportedly told a homespun story to participants of a United Food and Commercial Workers gathering about how his son had chided a fellow student for purchasing shoes at Wal-Mart.
Now, John Edwards is perhaps most famous about his lamentation over the existence of “Two Americas” — the privileged and the non-privileged.
But we were informed just last month by the Charlotte Observer that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the presidential candidate, is “scared of the ‘rabid, rabid Republican’ who owns property across the street from her Orange County home — and she doesn’t want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor.”
The neighbor, Monty Johnson, remarked “I thought he was supposed to be for the poor people. But does he ever socialize with any poor people? He doesn’t speak to me.”
Just the month before, the perfectly-coiffed John Edwards invoked the name of Jesus in denouncing American greed, noting that “I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.”
While I agree completely with his words, John Edwards isn’t one to talk. You see, in January, the Carolina Journal disclosed the particulars of the Edwards’ new home, describing it as “28,200 square feet of connected space. The main house is 10,400 square feet and has two garages. The recreation building, a red, barn-like building containing 15,600 square feet, is connected to the house by a closed-in and roofed structure of varying widths and elevations that totals 2,200 square feet.”
John Edwards, who denounces our own selfish short-term needs, will enjoy a recreation room that “contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated ‘John’s Lounge.’”
Back to Wal-Mart, John Edwards spent an hour at a Barnes & Noble in Manchester, Iowa last November 27 to promote his new book. Having previously noted that “Wal-Mart makes plenty of money. They need to pay their people well,” it is odd that the presidential candidate would choose Barnes & Noble to promote his book. According to the Union Leader, “The Barnes & Noble where Edwards will hawk his book pays $7 an hour to start. The Wal-Mart that sits just yards away pays $7.50 an hour.”
And we didn’t even get to the $400 haircut John Edwards recently sat through, but by now, you get the full picture of John Edwards’ hypocrisy.
John Edwards claims to feel bad about the existence of two Americas, and says he cares deeply for those in poverty. Perhaps he does, but John Edwards is as far removed from poverty as I am from liberalism.
There is nothing wrong with getting rich and living rich. However, it is the height of hypocrisy to live rich while lecturing the rest of us on our focus on selfish short-term needs. But John Edwards is a liberal who is more interested in attaining political power than setting a good example.
Whether it is rich liberals with exorbitant lifestyles lecturing the rest of us on saving the planet by trimming our energy use, or lecturing us about the immorality of greed as they greedily pursue wealth, liberals have two sets of rules for society: one for them and one for the masses. Liberals love telling the rest of us how to live, but it’s not enough to listen to what they say. You also have to watch what they do.
