Only Rarely Are People of Integrity in Politics

Grifters’ Tale
By Timothy Egan / February 3, 2010

Judson Phillips is a Tennessee lawyer, specializing in personal injury lawsuits, drunk-driving cases and men who get into trouble beating their wives. It was his idea to incorporate Tea Party Nation as a money-making venture and charge $349 to hear Sarah Palin talk about what’s wrong with America over steak and lobster this weekend in Nashville.

Andrew Young is a North Carolina lawyer, specializing in John Edwards. The deceptions. The baby born to the mistress. It was his job to make sure the Diet Sprite never ran low. And when Edwards suggested that Young co-habitate with the senator’s mistress, to further an outrageous lie, Young set up the guest room and explained to his family that they now had new members.

If there’s money to be made hitching your wagon to a politician trading in populism, well, who can fault these fine men for seizing the opportunity. They must know, the check is more reliable than the politician.

Palin and Edwards are two of an American archetype, opportunists playing to outrage while taking care of themselves. They are both attractive, with that lucky combination of genes that rarely lands on more than one member of an extended family. They can both hold an audience without saying anything of substance, or even making sense.

They repeat certain phrases: “good people,” “real Americans” and “God’s will” for Palin; “hard-working folks,” “two Americas” and “millworker’s son” for Edwards. Code words, time-worn and simple, that say: I’m one of you.

Members of the Tea Party movement, from people who can’t stand having an African-American in the White House to those genuinely concerned about the sea of debt, share at least one thing: they fear the country has gone to ruination.

They see “elites” in banking, on Wall Street, in Washington, getting theirs at a time when average income did not go up a dime over the last, lost decade. They should be mad. America is passing them by.

Edwards at one point claimed to be their leader, to share their pain, even before this movement had a name. His acolyte of 10 years, the attorney Andrew Young, believed every word.

But Edwards was scamming him. The senator drove a clunker to rallies — someone else’s car — but tooled around in his Lexus or BMW in private. He wore Armani suits, careful to tear the label off. While he nested in a $6 million mansion of nearly 30,000 square feet, he complained about the “fat rednecks” he had to listen to, those people living in trailers, with no health insurance, the other Americans.

And the scam extended to loyal donors, most notably Bunny Mellon, the 99-year-old heir to a dynastic family, whose money was solicited to cover up the mistress story, in Young’s account.
Now Young has found the light, he says in “The Politician,” his tell-all book. “Virtually every word that came of his mouth was a lie,” he says of Edwards, “but it was convincing.”

Palin is trying to get in front of the same parade that Edwards wanted to lead. When she quit on her state, barely halfway through a single term as governor, her explanation was a classic of incoherence.

She never mentioned the obvious reason for resigning: to get rich, quick. Nothing wrong with that; it’s as American as late-night ads for the Snuggie — the blanket with sleeves! But why not come out and say it, instead of cloaking it in some larger cause?

If Palin truly believed in the Tea Partiers and their discontent, she would not be charging $100,000 to stoke their fears. She can do that for free, on Fox. And what policy solutions does she offer the troubled middle class? Tax cuts, like the ones that caused this massive deficit to begin with? Preventing new regulation of the banks that got us into this horrid economic collapse, under the guise of “less government”?

She has nothing to offer but honeyed words, the syrup for suckers.

Say what you will about Tea Partiers, but many of them can see through this scheme in Nashville. “Smells scammy,” wrote Red State Blogger Erick Erickson, no friend of the media elite. Others are boycotting it, citing the $549 price for the convention, or the single night tab of $349 to hear Palin.

You could even see a bit of suspicion creep into Glenn Beck, Palin’s enabler on Fox, during the strangest of interviews a few weeks ago.

Beck to Palin: “Who’s your favorite founder?”

Palin: “You know, well, all of them.”

Beck was skeptical.

So Palin, who can’t name a founder any more than she could think of a Supreme Court decision, wants to lead a movement inspired by the founders. If the original tea party had charged a week’s wages to register political outrage, we might still be wearing fussy stockings and bowing to some Lordship arriving in Boston Harbour.

Palin says she’ll plow her take back into “the cause.” Her favorite cause, of course, is Sarah Palin. It came to light this week that her political action committee spent $63,000 to buy copies of “Going Rogue.” It’s a sweet deal: get average people to donate to Palin. She then spends their money on her book, increasing her royalties and exposure.

Political grifters, the smart ones, usually get out while the getting’s good. It’s always about timing: the trick is finding the mark, before the mark finds you.

Source / New York Times Opinionator Blog

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