Home Is Where the Hypocrisy Is

Coming on the heels of the recent revelations that The Breck Girl had taken money from a Rupert Murdoch company comes this latest news that his daughter was also handsomely rewarded by Murdoch money.

Edwards daughter received Murdoch money

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards recently defended taking a lucrative book contract from a publisher controlled by Rupert Murdoch -- whose News Corp. empire Edwards has sharply criticized -- by insisting that "every dime" of his $500,000 advance went to charity.

Left unmentioned by Edwards, however, was that Murdoch's HarperCollins paid portions of a $300,000 expense budget for the book to Edwards?s daughter and to a senior political aide, Jonathan Prince.

The sums paid to Cate Edwards and Prince, who are listed as co-authors on the little-noticed 2006 coffee table book, "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives," have not been made public, but were confirmed by two sources with first-hand knowledge of the book deal.

These and other details of the deal that have spilled out in recent weeks demonstrate both the complexity of Edwards' transformation into an anti-corporate crusader, and of Murdoch's double role as a corporate titan and political player.

Expect more mealy-mouthed doubletalk from Edwards, his flacks, or the one who wears the pants in the family, his obnoxious wife.

Not that he still has much of a chance for the Democrat nomination, but he may want to disclose exactly what he took from any Murdoch companies before he's buried completely.

A News Corp. executive would not speak on the record, but said the arrangement demonstrates that Edwards' opposition to media consolidation, and to the conservative Fox News Channel, is a newfound political stance.

"My guess is he had no reservations about doing business with us, just as he had no reservations about appearing dozens of times on Fox News or putting his website up on MySpace," said the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

News Corp. is holding back an additional card to play against Edwards: It hasn't released the details of the book's expenses, but presumably could.

UPDATE: More from Michelle Malkin.

Welcome to Your Worst Nightmare

This is truly disturbing, yet opens the door for so much comic relief.

We're always told how smart this shrew is, yet she constantly makes a joke of herself with cheesy stunts like this.

Of course, this leaves us with horrific images of the Breck Girl as a candy-striper.

NURSE HILLARY: STINT IN VEGAS HOSPITAL

August 8, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking health care personally.

She will work a shift as a nurse at a Las Vegas hospital next week, it was disclosed yesterday.

The high-profile event is part of the Service Employees International Union's "Walk a day in my shoes program," which gets politicians to step out of their tasseled loafers and high heels to put in a hard day's work while the cameras roll.

Lame.

Of course, the first thing that pops into your head is Nurse Ratched.


Let the fun begin.

Ambulance Chasers Bankrolling Breck Girl

Despite all the mealy-mouthed palaver about Two Americas and pretending to be a man of the people, when it comes down to raising real money, the Silky Pony knows where his real base lies.

Attorneys still bankroll Edwards effort

RALEIGH, N.C. - In his time off between presidential bids, Democrat John Edwards courted Wall Street financial gurus and Main Street labor leaders.

But when it comes to the money backing his second campaign, the wallets of wealthy attorneys who propelled the former trial lawyer's first run for the White House still open more than most. More than half of the Edwards donors who listed their occupations said they are attorneys, and they have given seven times more than any other profession, according to an Associated Press analysis of campaign finance data.

No doubt another lame pitch is forthcoming from the Pit Yorkie, campaign hack David Bonior, telling us the right-wing smear machine, led by the Associated Press, is out to assassinate the character of His Silkiness.

Underscoring how desperate Edwards is for cash, without support from lawyers, he'd be down with the also-ran Democrat candidates.

In the first six months of the year, Edwards raised $23 million. But without the roughly $7 million collected from donors identified as attorneys, his numbers would fall closer to that of lower-tier candidates, such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd. Edwards already trails Clinton and Obama by $35 million to $40 million in total funds raised.

There just aren't enough lawyers available to make up the difference.

Breck Girl Got $1,250 Haircut

OK, no more jokes about $400 haircuts. He's really off the charts now.

Edwards's Hairstylist Recounts All The Trimmings: Man Behind Pricey Coifs Details Long Relationship

For four decades, Joseph Torrenueva has cut the hair of Hollywood celebrities, from Marlon Brando to Bob Barker, so when a friend told him in 2003 that a presidential candidate needed grooming advice, he agreed to help.

The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at a meeting in Los Angeles that brought several fashion experts together to advise the candidate on his appearance. Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times.

At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut, plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

"He has nice hair," the stylist said of Edwards in an interview. "I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature and these are the things, as an expert, that's what we do."

If he were so strong and mature, he wouldn't have his wife fight his staged battles for him.

Seriously though, $1,250? I don't think I've spent that in my entire life on haircuts.

He feels pretty, oh so pretty.

H/T Hot Air.

NY Times Pens Love Note to Elizabeth Edwards

There's fawning coverage usually reserved for the Clintons, then there's unabashed puffery in this drivel about Elizabeth Edwards, moonbat wife of the Silky Pony.

Perspective on Her Side, Mrs. Edwards Enters Fray

When Mrs. Edwards called in to a television talk show this week to confront the conservative commentator Ann Coulter who had attacked Mr. Edwards this year, it was a decision that Mrs. Edwards said she made impulsively and on her own. The resulting dramatic four minutes of television created a surge of attention that at least momentarily electrified her husband’s campaign, winning applause from the left and apparently spiking contributions in the critical final days of this second-quarter fund-raising period.

It also made Mrs. Edwards the sympathetic face of the Edwards campaign, for a few days overshadowing the candidate himself.

Similarly, Mrs. Edwards told gay leaders at a kick-off event for the San Francisco gay pride parade last week that she supported same-sex marriage, a position at variance with Mr. Edwards’s. He learned of her remarks from reading a newspaper, an aide said. Mrs. Edwards said that she was just offering her opinion, as well as an explanation for her husband’s more conservative views on the issue, in response to a question. But the interview, some Democrats said, had the political effect of at least appeasing some liberal Democrats over Mr. Edwards’s views of gay-rights issues.

Anyone with a functioning brain knows the Coulter stunt was a pre-planned hit, so these reporters are either dangerously naive or just plain disingenuous. Even the Koslings figured that one out.

We're also to believe that her husband only learned of her position on gay marriage by reading the newspaper?

Please, don't insult our intelligence.

Still, several campaign advisers said the sharpest change in Mrs. Edwards’s role was the extent to which she has become a public figure in her own right. There may be a risk to this, aides to the couple acknowledged, to the extent that Mrs. Edwards might at once overshadow and diminish her husband at a time when opponents have sought to portray him as intellectually weak.

Nobody needs to portray him that way. He's doing an great job of it himself.

Can you imagine such puffery about the wife of a Republican candidate?

Neither can I.

Breck Girl Hits WaPo Fashion Page

The Silky Pony, a/k/a The Breck Girl, comes off looking more like a diva than a candidate for President.

This clown babbles on about Two Americas wherever he goes. Apparently there are Two Americas. One for blowdried blowhards who gets $400 haircuts, spa treatments and live in 28,000 square foot estates while the rest of us schlubs manage with $11 haircuts and modest homes.

Amid the nearly $3.3 million in travel costs, equipment rental fees and salaries listed on presidential candidate John Edwards's most recent campaign finance filing, a few expenses stand out. They are the ones incurred at Designworks Salon in Dubuque, Iowa, Torrenueva Hair Designs in Beverly Hills, Calif., and the Pink Sapphire salon and spa in Manchester, N.H.

The campaign paid $800 for two haircuts from the Torrenueva salon. Designworks provided $248 worth of camera-ready makeup. And Pink Sapphire was called on two occasions for Edwards's makeup needs at $150 and $75 a visit. Together they account for $1,273 worth of professional grooming, from trims to foundation.

According to the campaign, the haircuts should have been on Edwards's personal account and so he will make good on the $800. The makeup applications will remain on the campaign's tab.

While vanity is as common to the human condition as failing to learn from past missteps, one would think that a candidate who was lambasted in 2003 by a Bush loyalist as a "Breck girl" would exercise greater caution on matters related to his appearance. The anonymous critic, quoted in the New York Times, used the admiring attention paid to Edwards's thick mop of chocolate brown hair as a symbol of a candidate some painted as slick, shallow and lightweight.

That "Bush loyalist" I believe was Rush Limbaugh, though he may not have been the first to coin the phrase. Whatever the case, once you're being ridiculed on the WaPo fashion page, you're not going to be taken seriously.

But there is a line between grooming and primping. Brushing your teeth is grooming. Giving yourself a big Chiclet smile with veneers is primping. Having an adept barber come around to the hotel to give a busy candidate a trim is grooming. Getting the owner of an expensive Beverly Hills salon to come over, knowing full well that the cost is going to be 10 times what the average Joe is likely to pay for a haircut . . . that's a Breck girl move.

Watch this clip from 2004 when Edwards personally created a hole in the ozone layer while being sandblasted with hairspray.

It won't be long until he cries on the campaign trail after accidentally getting dirt under his fingernails during a photo op.

What a buffoon.