What Nerve!

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a labor group he would ask Americans to make a big sacrifice: their sport utility vehicles.

The former North Carolina senator told a forum by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, yesterday he thinks Americans are willing to sacrifice.

Edwards says Americans should be asked to drive more fuel efficient vehicles. He says he would ask them to give up SUVs.

John Edwards proudly says he drives a an energy-efficient Ford Escape and says he uses his Chrysler Pacifica (a "crossover" vehicle more like a station wagon than an SUV) when he needs more than two seat belts in the back. He also admits to having a pickup truck for when he needs to "move furniture or haul something". When was the last time he and Elizabeth moved any furniture?

He lives in a huge monstrosity of a house, to the tune of 28,000 square feet, over 10 times the size of the average single-family home in the US*. He declares that in addition to energy saving methods used at home, he's going to purchase carbon credits in order to ensure that his home is operated in a carbon-neutral way, and at the same time, his guilt at using so much energy is assuaged. Maybe Al Gore can advise him on how to purchase some of his available credits. It looks like Edwards needs to purchase a lot. It appears that a great number of trees had to be felled in order for his house to be built to his specifications.

He is wealthy enough to have an attached recreation building which, according to his county tax officials, "has a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, sqwimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated 'John's Lounge'." Imagine the energy expended just to keep pipes from freezing and enough lights on to get around the 10,400 square foot "main house".

Don't get me wrong. The man has worked hard for his money, even if it was at the expense of medical doctors' insurance premiums. He should be allowed to spend it however he wishes. I care not a whit about how he spends his money. What I do care about is how he tries to tell the rest of us how to spend our money and live our lives.

Edwards is a great one to be bloviating about "two Americas". Maybe he has inhaled too much hairspray.



*according to census figures.