How Dare You Make Money

Here we go again. Apparently the news network that pays Bill O'Reilly millions of dollars to act like he's just one of the regular guys is crying hypocrisy on John Edwards again.

John Edwards has an example to teach University of California at Davis students how to avoid poverty — charge $55,000 for a speech.

That's how much the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate negotiated for his fee to speak to 1,787 people at the taxpayer-funded school in January 2006, according to financial disclosures.

According to Joe Martin, the public relations officer for UC Davis' Mondavi Center, the fee for a speech entitled, "Poverty, the Great Moral issue Facing America," was worth it to school officials.

Martin told The San Francisco Chronicle that the center paid Edwards because at the time "he wasn't a (presidential) candidate and from our point of view, he was a speaker of interest that people in the community were clearly interested in ... we feel it's our mission to present those speakers."

Seriously, screw you guys. Just because you talk about people who are poor, it doesn't mean you have to take a vow of poverty. This is the classic move by people who don't want anyone to think about the poor; they try and disqualify anyone who has the means and the access to power to do so. Edwards came from nothing, worked hard and used his intellect and his talent to be successful, and because he hasn't forgotten where he's come from, somehow he's greedy? Back during the haircut story, Edwards had a good response to this:

Presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday it's silly to suggest that his wealth and expensive tastes have hurt his credibility as an advocate for the poor.

"Would it have been better if I had done well and didn't care?" Edwards asked.

The answer, of course, is "yes," to people who don't want you to care at all. And for media to broadcast these GOP slurs as if they have any resonance to the issue is just deceptive. It's just as stupid to critique Edwards for not having any new ideas on poverty, when the old ideas haven't been implemented. Edwards has demonstrated a commitment to poverty here and around the world. Instead of arguing why poor people shouldn't get any attention, his critics attack the messenger.

Several Democrats in the House lived on $21 a week for food to show the difficulties of actually surviving under the federal food stamp program. The stories at the Food Stamp Challenge blog are interesting. Rep. Tim Ryan couldn't finish the program because a bunch of his food was confiscated at the airport:

Last Friday night, in New Hampshire to deliver a commencement speech, Ryan succumbed to a pork chop in the hotel restaurant because he feared he would otherwise be too weak to give the address.

Afterward, as he rushed to catch a flight back to Washington, airport security officials confiscated jars of peanut butter and jelly from his carry-on luggage, leaving him with nothing but a small bag of cornmeal to eat in the final days of the "Food Stamp Challenge," which ends today.

"It just showed me that when you're living on food stamps, you're really one event away from disaster," he said. "If you drop a jar of sauce or jam, you can lose an opportunity to eat. Some people are constantly living on that edge."

So yesterday, in the Cleveland airport on his way back to Washington from a funeral, Ryan bought a bag of peanuts. "I feel bad I couldn't do it the whole time, but I certainly got the point," said the lawmaker, who lost four pounds during the week and ended his test early, with dinner at a Washington restaurant last night.

He said he came away with two lessons: He made some poor choices when he shopped for the $21 worth of food, and the country's food stamp program is not sufficient for the 26 million Americans who rely on it.

Does this mean Rep. Ryan "doesn't care" about the poor, because he ended up going to dinner last night?

The whole language abut poverty needs to be rewritten by those who suffer these rhetorical attacks. Global poverty matters, to our national security as much as anything, and the messenger is completely irrelevant. Edwards should keep striking back hard in the face of these stupid criticisms. He's done a decent job so far, but since this is a defining issue for him that separates him from his rivals, he has to be clear.