Double Talking Edwards Caught Double Dealing For Cash?

Democrat Presidential hopeful John Edwards launched his campaign bemoaning two Americas from an impoverished neighborhood in New Orleans. Now two stories which may not bode well for the populist sounding Liberal are hitting the news.

Via Drudge - CarolinaJournal reports:

TWO AMERICAS: John Edwards New Home Largest in County, 28,200-square-foot; Also Most Valuable...

The other story may seem even more damning to some of Edward's most prized constituents.

When former North Carolina senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards finally succeeded last month in selling his imposing Georgetown mansion for $5.2 million after it had languished on the market, the names of the buyers were not publicly disclosed.

At the time, Edwards's spokeswoman told reporters that the house had been sold to an unidentified corporation.

Not so fast. Potentially, the buyers used proceeds of a $20 million dollar insider stock deal done a week before the stock collapsed, costing Edward's union cronies managed funds more than a few bucks. No doubt they'll be happy to learn that some of it, representing over a million dollar profit in four years for Edwards, may have made it into his bank account. There's little doubt in which of Edward's alleged two Americas he chooses to live - and rather well, at that.

In reality, the buyers were Paul and Terry Klaassen, according to several sources and confirmed by Edwards's spokeswoman yesterday.

The wealthy founders of the nation's largest assisted-living housing chain for seniors, the Klaassens are currently cooperating with a government inquiry in connection with accounting practices and stock options exercised by them and other company insiders. They are also the focus of legal complaints by some of the same labor unions whose support Edwards has been assiduously courting for his presidential bid.

The grand 18th-century house had lingered on Washington's slowing real estate market for more than 18 months. The Edwardses paid $3.8 million in 2002 for the six-bedroom Federal-style house once owned by socialite Polly Fritchey, and they did substantial renovations. The final sale price was half a million dollars below the asking price but still $1.4 million more than the Edwardses paid four years earlier.

This isn't the first time Edwards has been caught up in a controversy involving a real estate transaction. Funny how stingy Libs are when it comes to their own money. But they have no trouble coming up with programs to take ours.

Edwards has run into controversy once before on a house sale. In 2002, he reached a deal to sell a Washington house to a U.S. lobbyist for Saudi Arabia and then refused to give back the lobbyist's $100,000 earnest money when the deal collapsed. At the time of the sale, the Saudis were trying to improve their image in Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, and Edwards was serving on the Senate intelligence committee.

Edwards said he did not know the buyer was a Saudi lobbyist until after the deal had fallen through.

Comments

[yyy]

I'm sorry I don't get this.

Is he supposed to do a background check on the people he sells his house to?

Don't you EVER tire of Swift boating lies and nonsense?

[Heywood2]

What controversy?

Ya got nothing Dan.

[Darth Malice]

*Breck girl alert* Lifestlyles of the rich and pretty:)

[Dan Riehl]

Relax Libs - everyone knows Breck Boy is irrelevant. It's jsut fun to watch Hillary get up to speed. First Obama's madrassah and now this? Before her oppo reserach team is done there won't be another D candidate standing except Biden, who isn't a worry as he's so dumb.

[yyy]

Got any evidence that Hillary was behind the Obama lie?

[Crust]

There's no there there on the Edwards story. The real scandal here is the journalist John Solomon who has a less than stellar history for accuracy and the Washington Post that just hired him and put this on their front page. This feels like Ben Domenech, take 2. See e.g. http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/01/post_12.php for details.

[Legalize]

Um, genius, you do realize the "controversy" surrounding the sale of Edwards' D.C. home was debunked over a week ago, hours after John Solomon's moronic hit piece was published in the WaPo:(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/18/AR2007011802077.html). And you further realize that the Posts' Ombudsman launched an investigation into the hack reporting you and Solomon call "journalism" after a laundry list of lies, and discrepancies were noted in the piece: {http://mediamatters.org/items/200701190010); (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/01/post_7.php).

Of course, if you had any journalistic integrity, credentials, or basic know-how you could have investigated this week old story and come up with something salient.

You are at best an amateur liar and a fool. If you were any good at it you might be dangerous. I'm sure your apology and retraction will be forthcoming - or maybe just more idiotic backpeddaling.

[Bush Caused My Gout]

Hey Legalize (which I assume is the name you picked to show us that you advocate "legalizing" whatever it is you smoke on a regular basis - crack?) it's ironic that you mention journalistic integrity and then site "mediamatters.org" which is a laughingstock to anyone who can read, basically. Do you have a life? If Dan is a "hack", an "idiot" has no credentials etc. why do you come here? Are you really that bored? Maybe you should get an actual job.

[yyy]

Danny boy never apologizes, he has even been known to edit his own archive to remove really stupid and embarassing theories and viewpoints.

He just swift boats and moves on. He hasn't posted anything slamming Murtha lately, because Murtha's 'take' on the Haditha massacre has now been publicly born out by the miltary, which is prosecuting the soldiers for murder. Havent' heard much about the infamous 'immaginary' Iraqi policeman that happened to turn up and be arrested for his statements to AP. Havent' hears much about Michelle's trip to Iraq, maybe the little journalist didn't find the situation outside the green zone as cushy and full of the smell of victory as she expected, it also hurt of course, that the imaginary man AP made up was verified as a real live person doing exactly what he said he did turned up right before her big investigation was to occur.

LOL

[LegalizeLegalize]

"Hey Legalize (which I assume is the name you picked to show us that you advocate "legalizing" whatever it is you smoke on a regular basis - crack?) it's ironic that you mention journalistic integrity and then site "mediamatters.org" which is a laughingstock to anyone who can read, basically. Do you have a life? If Dan is a "hack", an "idiot" has no credentials etc. why do you come here? Are you really that bored? Maybe you should get an actual job."

No, Riehl World is a joke to anyone who can read actually, as evidenced by its laundry list of misleading and dishonest reporting over the past two weeks - and the readers who actually goose-step along with its fabrications as if they were fact. The Solomon story is over a week old - fact. Numerous assertions made in the story have been refuted as false - fact. Solomon has pulled these stunts in the past, and been caught lying before, i.e. exaggerating Harry Reid's land deal in Nevada - fact. The Post is now dubious about Solomon's reporting: (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012014.php) - fact. There is no story.

And yes, when I need to take a break at work, I do like to wander over here and see what mouth-breathing 28 percenters like you are lying about. It's much less stressful that arguing with actual adults.

[Legalize]

In any event, the point of these hit pieces is to declare that Edwards is a hypocrite for wanting to help the poor, while at the same time being wealthy, as if a self-made man who has been helping indigent and poor clients in court for years, and who set up a southern poverty clinic (with his own money) has to live in the gutter in order to ACTUALLY care about the poor.

To the 28 percenters, Obama is religious because he has eyes on the White House, and Edwards has been working for poor people all his life for the same reason. Yet, Bush's pandering to the religious right his whole political career is nothing to speak of. The delusional / paranoid / hypocritical state of the radical right really is an interesting phenomenon.

[scarshapedstar]

Anyone know the last time Bush went to church?

[Zifnab]

"Anyone know the last time Bush went to church?"

Does that even matter? Just tell me he's never been to a madrassah.

Look! A jackalope!

[Bill Adkins]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701250011 for more information of John Solomon's attempted hit piece about Edwards' real estate transaction. Turns out, Solomon is busted and the paper's ombudsman is looking deep into the agenda Solomon seems to be pushing. Between people like Solomon, the Washington Times and Insight Mag, journalism is taking a real hit and earned a black eye. "liberal media" is a myth perpetuated by the right wing liars of America.

[Crust]

Bush Caused My Gout, you may not have anything intelligent to say, but your handle made me crack a smile.

[sglover]

Check out the thread called "Think Positively". It's a thread that begins on a charming, whimsical note, with Riehl wishing for the death of Americans whom he dislikes. You can find it here:

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2007/01/think_positivel.html#comment-28324580

In it, you'll find Riehl claiming that he's a vet, and then, after much shucking 'n' jiving, finally revealing that he was NEVER in the military.

What sort of pathetic worm feels the need to lie like this?

If any of you right-wingers take this lickspittle seriously, you're welcome to watch Riehl kill whatever "reputation" he might have, with his own two hands.

[sglover]

Gotta retract that last. I misread a passage.

[Jon G]

Here's what the Post's ombudsman has to say about this BS story.

"I kept waiting to read about the connection between the Klaassens and Edwards that would make this sale unseemly; it wasn't there. Edwards spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri said Edwards "has never met or spoken with them; nor have they contributed to his campaign."

"The story was interesting, but it was more of an item for the Reliable Source or In the Loop -- and not worth Page 1. It seemed like a "gotcha" without the gotcha."

"But the story didn't pin down that the house, in the 3300 block of P Street, had at least $1 million in renovations, said several sources. The asking price originally was $6.5 million and had been lowered twice, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, the region's multiple listing service."

[kitt]

Either Riehl is slow on the uptake (there isn't any doubt about that), or he is a liar who is so lacking in imagination that he couldn't make up a new lie so he dove head first into an old and totally debunked lie. What a pathetic person Riehl is.

[DANEgerus]

I don't think Edwards has an obligation to 'check out his buyers'... but if a high profile politician has a pattern of suspect land deals he can certainly take the trouble to do so and to not do so only exposes his confidence that the MSMs will cover for him.

If it wasn't for Drudge & RiehlWorldView we would never know these things and would probably think John Edwards(D) was just a good-ole-boy-made-good as moderate as he is pretty.

But he's just another elitist willing to appoint himself/big government as the authority on what you do and what rights you have.

[DANEgerus]

For a bunch of "Liberals" speaking 'Truth to Power' it's pretty ironic how frequently Soros funded agit-prop gets cited as 'authoritative'.

'Talking Points Memo' and 'Media Matters' have their own record of well-financed crafted propaganda. That a zero-funding blogger like RiehlWorldView is to be compared to them makes 'Talking Points Memo' and 'Media Matters' look pretty bad don't you think?

Why don't you just compare this blog to Reuters or AP?

As for the 'land-deals' issue... no (R)epublican could get away with this:

'Obama & Rezco'

Is it a coincidence that Nancy Pelosi(D) made herself the richest woman in Congress with a series of land deals? Is is suspect she supported the Kelo decision, calling it the 'Word of God', which allows public siezure of property for private profits?