I’m not sure if it’s a deliberate misreading of the Carolina Journal or other reports, but Barry Saunders good-humored chiding of Edwards’ critics in today’s Raleigh News & Observer misses the point. The scrutiny and interest in John Edwards’ Chapel Hill-area house are an indictment of Edwards’ demonstrated insincerity in dealing with issues of wealth and poverty, not an indictment of wealth and success.
An earlier thread on this blog explored the Two Faces of John Edwards by noting that his high-profile poverty center makes him an anti-poverty darling?not of the poor, but of the other hand-wringing anti-poverty darlings. Our leading edge coverage of the house just points to the fact that the Face One John Edwards ‘I used to be one of you so I really feel for you–just an ordinary guy’ is very different from the Face Two John Edwards of the living-large lifestyle.
Heaven knows, we at the Locke Foundation have been villified aplenty for suggesting (OK, just saying it) that markets and personal initiative, not government poverty programs or wealth redistribution to even out wealth inequality? ‘wealth calming’ if you will?are the path to prosperity. That said, it follows that all of the great things we tout about free markets apply equally to Mr. Edwards. In short, success is good. Consumption is good. Even extravagant consumption in the form of personal basketball courts, swimming pools (I wish), squash courts and the like are truly fab, if that’s where one wants to spend the dough.
What isn’t so great is the self-righteous labeling of onesself as an advocate for the poor, the creation of a UNC-based Poverty Center that does nothing for the actual poor except aggrandize itself and those who work for it, and a claim to some kind of moral high ground with respect to the disadvantaged. If Edwards didn’t have such high political aspirations, the hypocrisy of his alleged empathy for the poor would still be high vanity, and still be worthy of note. To their credit, much of the American public still want elected officials to do more than stand up at a banquet and tell us how passionate they are about poverty; these folks want to see the people and organizations that make those claims take action on behalf of the poor.
This doesn’t mean one must be be a Mother Theresa, or camp out in a cardboard box under a highway (or on the sofa at Barry Saunders’ house). It does mean that Mr. Edwards would do far more to display real concern for the disadvantages of the poor if he got out and helped build a basketball court in some poverty-stricken neighborhood, to keep the kids out of trouble, than he does by building his own private court out on his ranch. Those impoverished kids would like their own basketball court, too, if Mrs. Edwards is correct.
But maybe Candidate John has got an even better plan–maybe he’ll throw open the doors at his new place for something really useful?nightly hoops for poor kids, and a lesson in how the market, not government or the gangs, can make an American dream home come true. [dropped link restored]
