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I was doing my nightly read of NRO's Corner tonight when I came across a series of posts making fun of John Edwards' new mansion. Here's one example from Mark Steyn:

JPod, please don’t mock John Edwards’ new mansion. Edwards Manor or Suing-‘em Palace or whatever it’s called could so easily have turned out like the two Americas: it was designed as two separate sections – a main wing and a subsidiary building which houses “John’s Lounge”. And yet the Democratic candidate managed to connect these two mansions with a $200,000 heated enclosed walkway lined with photographs of himself and his family.

Don’t you find that inspirational? Imagine if President Edwards were able to connect the two Americas with a heated enclosed walkway. Lined with photographs of himself. Including rear shots showing his angled nape.

The subsidiary building apparently has a “four-story tower”. Which is one story more than Edwards’ stump speech has. He’s got the story about his dad having to leave the restaurant in Robbins, North Carolina because he couldn’t afford anything on the menu, even though his dad was the mill’s production manager and the restaurant was designed to cater to mill workers. He’s got the story about the coatless girl going to bed hungry every night. He’s got a third Dickensian story about a guy somewhere in America whose factory is closing the very night of his speech.

And that’s it. So we’re all very excited to know what the fourth story walled up till now in the four-story tower is all about. Is it about a grimy urchin from the workhouse standing shivering outside the Ritz-Carlton in Washington in hopes that when Harry Reid tips his doorman with campaign contributions there’ll be a nickel left over for him? I can hardly wait.

Colour me confused. Aren't Republicans in favor of social mobility? John Edwards, the son of a mill worker, pulled himself up by his bootstraps and made millions. Isn't that the precise definition Republicans use for "the American Dream"?

The problem, from what I can tell, is that although Edwards made it, he nevertheless refuses to abandon the notion that we ought to work to minimize the massive disparities in wealth that have developed over the last few decades. Had he abandoned his principles after getting rich, that'd be just fine with this crew. But because he is both simultaneously rich and advocating for something less than a "to the victor go the spoils" policy, he is somehow a defective candidate. Or something.

I'd love to see the part of their Bible that justifies this approach.

UPDATE: And on a totally unrelated topic, here's another excerpt from The Corner:

So there you have it. While left-leaning academics inadvertently mock profundity by clumsily mimicking its language, contemporary artists openly mock profundity by self-consciously refusing to strive for it. Either way, the death of culture is what the left hath wrought.

The "death of culture is what the left hath wrought."

Ah yes...

I too remember the glory days when conservatives were creating glorious cultural works. Why, it is only recently that leftists, radicals, and liberals began creating works of art at all. What is art history if not the study of normal people doing normal things that were both embraced and understood by their society?

Good god... What is wrong with these people?