Already we have seen how discussions about hair can take the level of discussion about serious issues like Iraq, the environment, and poverty down. That is why I appreciate the marked decrease in supporters of other candidates recognizing this and arguing on more important and relevant grounds. However, the hair story is not the first story that I remember setting off the fury over John Edwards and the attempt to label him with a misguided denotation of hypocrisy.
In today's NY Times, there was another story <u>insinuating</u> wrongdoing on John Edwards part for... get this... starting and running an anti-poverty group under proper US regulations. However, when you read the article you will notice an accusatory tone that is all too familiar to those who paid attention to the
insinuations during the Abramoff scandal's break that Democrats were just as involved. But as we knew then and know now, it was a Republican scandal.
Getting the media to admit that was not easy and took us, not our elected officials, to set the story straight.
I am also reminded of another story from the Washington Post co-written by a somewhat well known
John Solomon of
Harry Reid Boxing Ticket and Harry Reid Tipping a Door Man fame. That story about John Edwards
insinuated that his house sale was some sort of underworld conspiracy to........ sell a house. The accusatory tone in that article (another PAGE 1) was even brought into question by one of the
Washington Posts own ombudsmen. They described it as a "GOT YA" article without the "GOT YA".
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701230004
Wash. Post reporter baselessly suggested Edwards broke campaign finance law
In a January 23 online discussion, Washington Post reporter John Solomon defended his controversial article about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' recent sale of his house by suggesting -- without offering any evidence -- that the sale violated "federal campaign law" disclosure requirements.
Solomon explicitly stated in his response that the disclosure requirement "is encoded in federal campaign law" but offered no evidence to support that contention. Indeed, that argument is absent entirely from the January 19 article. And Solomon himself seemed to contradict his own allegations with his next answer, in which he said, "A frontpage story doesn't have to always find wrongdoing or lead to prosecutions."
Now onto todays story regarding one of many poverty centers John Edwards started and was head of.
In Aiding Poor, Edwards Built Bridge to 2008
John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.
Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million (EDIT BY ME: Just in case you didn't know John Edwards is rich), came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.
...
The money paid Mr. Edwards’s expenses while he walked picket lines and met with Wall Street executives. He gave speeches, hired consultants, attacked the Bush administration and developed an online following. He led minimum-wage initiatives in five states, went frequently to Iowa, and appeared on television programs. He traveled to China, India, Brussels, Uganda and Russia, and met with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his likely successor, Gordon Brown, at 10 Downing Street.
...
This article was not written by John Solomon and was not up to his level of disregard for the truth, in fact, it included an Edwards campaign response:
...
“One of the Center for Promise and Opportunity’s main goals was to raise awareness about poverty and engage people to fight it,” Jonathan Prince, deputy campaign manager, said yesterday. “Of course, it sent Senator Edwards around the country to do this. How else could we have engaged tens of thousands of college students or sent 700 young people to help rebuild New Orleans? It’s patently absurd to suggest there’s anything wrong with an organization designed to raise awareness about poverty actually working to raise awareness about poverty.”
“Of course, some of the people who worked for Senator Edwards in the government and on his campaign continued to work with him to fight poverty and send young people to college,” he added. “Perish the thought: people involved in politics actually trying to improve peoples’ lives.”
...
The money was used to fight poverty in a real way. It helped result in the increased minimum wages in states across the country. It was not transfered into his campaign for president when he announced.
This organization was set up in the same way as MoveOn.org which has come under similar attacks from Republicans for overstepping advocacy.
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2007/6/22/2245/12991/36#c36
* The organization in question, a 501(c)4. (11+ / 0-)
Other examples of 501(c)4 organizations like the Center for Promise and Opportunity, notably unmentioned by the New York Times? MoveOn.org, the League of Conservation Voters, and AARP.
Shadowy conspiracies all, I'm sure.
If the Center for Promise and Opportunity - notably, not the same organization as the Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation, which administers College for Everyone, nor the same as Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina - is any more political or less charitable than MoveOn.org, the League of Conservation Voters, or the AARP, I'd like to know how.
Even the New York Times notes that the Center paid for Edwards to walk picket lines, rally for minimum wage initiatives, and generally promote progressive causes that most of us would consider worthwhile.
...
by Drew on Fri Jun 22, 2007 at 03:20:51 AM CDT
However, this is the point that the article's tone tries to get across without proof.
“I can’t say that what Mr. Edwards did was wrong,” Mr. Owens said. “But he was working right up to the line. Who knows whether he stepped or stumbled over it. But he was close enough that if a wind was blowing hard, he’d fall over it.”
In other words,
he didn't do anything wrong, but we're watching him and going to make a big deal out of what wrong he didn't do.
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