John Edwards--Traitor To His Class

Just saw John Edwards being interviewed on CNN--a typically hostile, vaguely sarcastic interview, replete with questions like, "The voters in your home state rejected you in 2004. Why should they find you any more attractive a second time around?"

Here was the lead-in they used to introduce the whole segment (paraphrased): "Coming up, an interview with presidential candidate John Edwards. Does his enormous personal wealth undermine his credibility as a spokesperson for America's poor?"

We've heard this sort of sniping about "limousine liberals" before. It always leaves me wondering: Who is the penniless person that CNN and the rest of the media have chosen to be the "credible" spokesperson for the poor? Where is the homeless guy or the single mom working at Wal-Mart to whom Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews are planning to devote scores of hours of coverage between now and the Iowa caucuses?

I assume there must be such a person, since the "liberal media" would obviously not want the perspective of the poor to be ignored altogether. Their only motive for trashing the motives of any advocate for the less-fortunate who is not poor is simply to protect the integrity of a cause to which they're deeply committed. That's right, isn't it? Isn't it?

Tags: John Edwards, CNN