John Edwards: The Gift That Keeps on Giving...
I've never liked John Edwards. I've always felt he was a hypocrite and an empty suit, and above all, an arrogant bastard, who's considered opinion is that everyone else on the planet hasn't the same sense that God gave to a retarded Irish Setter.

The phony populism was always easy to spot: the "Two Americas" routine, the "do as I say, not as I do" sort of conspicuous consumption, the hypocritical (and public!) rebuke of Wal-Mart at the very same time he was twisting arms for an X-Box, or whatever it was.

I could hardly believe it could get worse. I was wrong.

By now, we've all heard about the famous $400 haircut. That caused a bit of a stir; a man claiming to be a champion of the poor avails himself of an expensive coiffure and still demands to be taken seriously. It just didn't wash. Especially when Edwards, in defending that haircut, makes a ridiculous statement about his staff making the arrangements and polishes it off with this humdinger (paraphrased):

"I was not personally involved in that haircut. I had nothing to do with it."

That's how stupid he believes you are. The man sat in the barber's chair. It was his hair that was cut. But he wasn't involved.

It's "I didn't inhale" and "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is", all over again.

Now we find out that Mr. Edwards, stalwart defender of the poverty-stricken, makes speeches at 40K a pop (twice the official "poverty level" yearly wage, for a family of four, no less!) and was recently paid $55,000 for speech on (what else?) poverty at the University of California, Davis. I rather doubt Mr. Edwards sees the logical problem here. It turns out by the way, that UC Davis is a public university (meaning it is supported by the taxpayer) which has plans to up it's tuition by 7% next year because, well, at 55k a pop for bullshit, it can't afford to educate folks at the old levels of funding.

This comes on the heels of the discovery that after being soundly whipped in his bid for the job of President and John Kerry's lap dog in 2004, Mr. Edwards went to work for a hedge fund. A job for which he was paid (I believe) $2 million a year. He claims that he took the job in order to study the economics of poverty. Let me repeat that -- the economics of poverty. He said that with a straight face, too -- give him credit for balls, at the very least.

He's also got a proven record of utilizing personal tragedy for personal gain. The tragic death of his son in an automobile accident vaulted him into a Senate seat (which he barely sat in, because he began campaigning for the Presidency five minutes after he was sworn in). He's used his wife's recurring cancer to garner sympathy and push his "health care plan" which basically amounts to "band-aids and eyedrops for thee...I can afford real insurance, thank you".

John Edwards: the answer to the question that no one has asked. If someone has asked it, please shoot them -- they cannot be allowed to reproduce.