More Edwards hypocrisy

The Wall Street Journal editorial board takes on John Edwards today in their Review and Outlook piece entitled “Pride of the Caymans”;

Let us say right up front that it’s terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity.

We’re also encouraged to hear that, according to the former Senator’s spokesman, “John Edwards is running for President to give every American the opportunities that he’s had.” While there may not be enough half-a-million-dollar-a-year part-time consulting gigs to go around just yet, the hedge fund industry is growing. And there’s always private equity if you find yourself, as Mr. Edwards described his 2005 circumstance, making $40,000 a year at an antipoverty think tank and wanting to learn something about “capital markets.” Thus did he turn, in his time of need, to Fortress Investment Group LLC, pride of the Caymans.

So the editorial goes on tell us how the pretty pony railed against US investments being sheltered overseas in the 2004 campaign and today. How the Breck Girl told AP that he took the job to learn about the relationship between capital markets and poverty.

How refreshing it would have been, then, for Mr. Edwards to have emerged from his toil in the crucible of high finance to explain that all is not moral darkness in the upper reaches of the investing class; that people who invest in businesses help alleviate poverty and make the economy strong; and that it is risk-taking that offers Americans their best — indeed, their only — chance to have “the opportunities he’s had.”

It was not to be, alas. Mr. Edwards said instead that if he’s elected President he’ll still try to abolish offshore tax shelters. At least he’ll have already made his money.

Well, on top of this bald-faced lie that he took the consulting job as a learning opportunity (how many companies take on consultants who are there to learn), the man who has never had a bit of soil beneath his nails is telling us how we should spend our Memorial Day this year “supporting” the troops by demanding that they surrender (from Crotchety Old Bastard).

This is the Democrats’ Great Hair Hope?  Actually, I guess he’s no worse than their other choices.

Category: Politics