Edwards' synthetic politics

Rich Lowry:

FRANCOIS de La Rochefoucauld had a point when he said, in his frequently quoted formulation, that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In the case of John Edwards, however, hypocrisy is simply a way of life.

The infamous $400 haircut - actually, some of his hairstyling sessions ran as much as $1,200 all told - wasn't a freak embarrassment for a candidate so self-righteously devoted to the poor. It was part of a pattern so pervasive that it has become the defining aspect of Edwards' candidacy.

When he lambasted hedge funds for incorporating offshore to avoid or delay paying U.S. taxes, what could be more natural than that he made nearly $500,000 for part-time work at the Fortress Investment Group, with hedge funds incorporated in the Cayman Islands for tax purposes?

When he hit other candidates for taking donations from Rupert Murdoch's media holdings, wasn't it inevitable that it would turn out he had taken $800,000 from Murdoch's HarperCollins for a coffee-table book?

Or when he attacked subprime lenders for foreclosing on victims of Hurricane Katrina, he would have $16 million - half of his net worth - invested in Fortress while it was foreclosing on a couple dozen homes in New Orleans?

Most of us uphold ideals that we can't meet, but liberal populism shouldn't be such an impossible standard. The late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, a liberal populist to his core, never had such embarrassments. The former North Carolina senator is experiencing a kind of toxic shock from his synthetic political persona.

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I think Edwards is done, but this piece by Lowry is too good to over look, because it explains why he is done without mentioning Ann Coulter. He goes on to explain how ineffective Edwards is out of the controlled environment of the court room. Yeah, he is done.