Silky Pony learning more about poverty by...charging $55k for speech

Man, I wish I had the entrepreneurial talent that the Silky Pony has...not to mention the chutzpah. First, he decides he wants to learn more about poverty by working for (and making a lot of non-poverty money off of) a hedge fund. Now this:

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who as a Democratic presidential candidate recently proposed an educational policy that urged "every financial barrier" be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show.

The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe Martin, the public relations officer for the campus' Mondavi Center confirmed Monday.
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The earnings -- though made before Edwards was a declared Democratic presidential candidate -- could hand ammunition to his competition for the Democratic presidential nomination. The candidate -- who was then the head of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina -- chose to speak on "Poverty, the great moral issue facing America," as his $55,000 topic at UC Davis.

That could cause both parents and students to note some irony here: UC Davis -- like the rest of the public University of California system -- will get hit this year by a 7 percent tuition increase that likely hits many of the kids his speeches are aimed at helping.

Allah at Hot Air opines:

For some reason, people keep asking him on the campaign trail about that mansion of his that’s big enough to encompass one of the two Americas he’s always yammering about. His answer: “So would it be better if I had done well and now I didn’t care about people who are struggling?” My answer: No, it’d be better if you led by example, liquidated 75% of that $40 million nest egg you’re sitting on, and showed us proles how someone committed to redistribution and income equality means business. Exit question: Could he eke by on only $10 mil?

I must confess, reluctantly, that I now agree with John Edwards' "Two Americas" theme: one America for $55k-a-pop speeches on poverty while wearing a $400 'do, and the other America for the rest of us.