The strange case of Rachel Mellon

How creepy is this:

Ninety-seven-year-old Rachel Mellon, the widow of Paul Mellon and daughter-in-law of industrialist Andrew Mellon, donated the maximum $4,600 to John Edwards' campaign earlier this year.

So did the lawyer who holds Rachel Mellon's power of attorney, Alexander Forger.

Mr. Forger (we're not being sarcastic, that's really his name) also arranged for Mrs. Mellon to donate $495,000 to the Alliance for a New America, an independent "527" group recently set up by a former adviser to John Edwards named Nick Baldick. The Alliance is currently spending three-quarters of a million dollars running TV ads in Iowa in support of the Edwards campaign.

About a month ago, John Edwards' stump speech included a passage denouncing the capitalists of the Gilded Age, referring to "the Rockefellers and the Mellons and the Carnegies, all these people" who "used their money and power to dominate what was happening in the government and to dominate what was happening in the economy." Last Saturday, the Associated Press reports, the Mellons' name had been dropped from the speech, though Edwards insisted to reporters that there was no connection.

Creepy.

Someone who cares for Mrs. Mellon should explain to her that these nice young men are not her friends. Somebody should also check to see if she's been sold a reverse mortgage.


Copyright 2007

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