JOHN EDWARDS: ILLEGAL CAD?

More than anything I am having a hard time understanding why it was wrong for John Edwards to take money from Bunny Mellon but perfectly acceptable for him to take cash and benefits from UNC-Chapel Hill. The trumped up, made up Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity my alma mater provided Edwards between February 2005 and December 2006, specifically.

It was widely understood that the position of center director (annual state salary $40,000, funded by private gifts to UNC) and the entire multi-million dollar edifice itself was created solely to keep Edwards’ political career kicking in the wake of the 2004 election cycle. The association with UNC in turn permitted Edwards to set up non-profits which expressly aided him in his “presentation” to the public, to the tune of millions of dollars.

That’s silly. This is a university we’re talking about!

UPDATE: A reader emails:

I found it interesting that you posted about UNC’s Center on Poverty. While attending law school in Chapel Hill, some friends in the Federalist Society and I ran a program that provided presents for kids from impoverished families in the community. Thinking that it would be a good way to reach across the aisle, we asked the Center on Poverty’s coordinator if the Center would like to co-sponsor or otherwise participate in the effort. The response we received was classic — we were told that the Center on Poverty existed to facilitate discussion of the underlying issues of poverty, not to assist in the alleviation of poverty. Sort of flies in the face of the grand old state’s motto, esse quam videri, doesn’t it?

Plus this postscript: “Please don’t use my name, if posted.” And I’d say that John Edwards’ career has been all about seeming instead of being. . . . Something in which he received a lot of assistance from the press.