See where Edwards puts his millions

Pundits seem taken with the idea that Sen. John Edwards is a man of the people. But maybe they should read the fine print about Edwards that's appearing in their own publications so that they can see what he's really all about.

Writing in yesterday's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof enthused, "He'll help with the Democrats' most crucial task: reconnecting the party to Middle American voters." The Washington Post's David Broder praised Edwards' stump speech as "a thing of beauty - a populist depiction of 'two Americas' divided between the privileged and the working people." USA Today editorialized rhapsodically about Edwards' "youthful good looks, personal charisma and a golden tongue."

But a look elsewhere in the newspapers shows a different Edwards. It reveals where Edwards puts his money, as opposed to his mouth. It shows an Edwards connecting with big multinational companies to create jobs offshore. It shows an Edwards who divides himself between his political ambitions here at home and his financial ambitions overseas. It shows that his tongue isn't so much golden as it is forked.

In 2003, as he sought the presidency, Edwards pledged to take the fight to "big corporations, pharmaceutical companies, big insurance companies, big HMOs." But what he didn't tell his audiences is that at the same time he was investing his own money in big corporations - big foreign corporations.

How do we know this? We can peruse Edwards' 2003 senatorial disclosure forms, reprinted in yesterday's USA Today. On page five of the paper is a list of Edwards' assets, including a holding worth between $1 and $5 million - that's the deliberately obscuring style of "full-disclosure" forms - in "American EuroPacific Growth Fund." Actually, once we look at the prospectus, we learn that it's really the "EuroPacific Growth Fund." And that's honest billing; on page eight, the prospectus tells readers, "Normally, the fund will invest at least 80 percent of its assets in securities of issuers located in Europe and the Pacific Basin."

That's the truth. On page 10, we see a list of the fund's holdings by country: Japan accounts for 21.5 percent of its assets, followed by the United Kingdom at 13.4 percent. And in a breakdown by industry, as opposed to country, we see "commercial banks," 9.40 percent, and pharmaceuticals, 8.67 percent. And specifically what companies are involved? The top five listed are AstraZeneca, Vodafone, KPN, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, and Nestlé - foreign companies all.

Is this populism? Is that what a "man of the people" does with his money? Maybe it's standard procedure if you're like John Kerry, who married a multimillionaire, divorced her and then married a billionaire. And as for the Bush-Cheney administration, don't expect it to worry too much, either, about job-exporting foreign investments. After all, the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, Gregory Mankiw, said earlier this year that such globalization is "a good thing."

But Edwards, by his own repeated proclamation, was supposed to be something different. In February, reacting to the Mankiw comment, he wrote Bush a mocking open letter, asking, "Is it a 'good thing' that high-paying manufacturing jobs are leaving America and being replaced with low-paying services jobs?"

No, it's not a good thing. But deeds speak louder than words. So the next time the North Carolinian asks his standard rhetorical question about the American people - "Will they have a president and an administration who understands their lives and who will stand up for them?" - he might be met with a counter- question: "Sen. Edwards, when will you divest your holdings in the EuroPacific Growth Fund? And in all other investments that create jobs overseas?"

Edwards is a hypocrite who got caught in a contradiction. Now it's a test of the press, as well as the public: Will he be able to get away with preaching job-creation here at home while practicing job-creation abroad?