June 27, 2007

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I'm getting a lot of e-mails, "When are you going to talk about this Ann Coulter thing with Chris Matthews?"  Yes, we've got audio sound bites about it.  I just want to say one thing about this, well, maybe a couple things about this. If you don't know what happened which is not hard to understand because it was on Hardball and nobody watches that show in great numbers, we'll have some audio and we'll get to it at some point.  I don't know when, Mike, so don't panic setting it up.  It's not going to be any time soon.  But just a clear setup.  It was like when George H. W. Bush back in the '90 campaign was on Larry King Live and Stephanopoulos called in and started arguing. George H. W. Bush is a guest, he'd been invited on, and he was ambushed by George Stephanopoulos.  King is out there acting all surprised that Stephanopoulos got through.  I know how these things work, because I, ladies and gentlemen, have been on these shows and have been ambushed too.  That's why I don't do these things, it's not productive.  

Ann Coulter was clearly ambushed.  If you listen to the transcript and you listen to what Elizabeth Edwards said when she called in, it was a script she was reading.  Now they've put out a fundraising letter on their website and in an e-mail, because the Edwards campaign is foundering, the Edwards campaign is in trouble.  They need money.  Look, it's easy, you go on television, you finish, and somebody says, "You know what you shoulda said," and sometimes I've resented that, but if I would have been on that show last night and been ambushed by a guy's wife, the guy doesn't have the guts to call himself.  By the way, to skewer Ann Coulter for bringing up the death of their son, Wade, they're the ones that exploit their son's death.  I've got two pages of websites and links that I can establish and prove that these two are the ones exploiting their own son's death.  But here's the thing.  If I'm Ann Coulter what I coulda said or woulda said, "Well, what is this?  This is interesting, Chris, here I am as a guest on a national cable show hosted by you, a notorious left-winger, I am appearing willingly, even though I don't suspect ambushes like this, I'm not surprised that you've set one up.  Yet Mrs. Edwards, so glad you called, so nice to talk to you, so nice that your husband has your skirt to hide behind.  Your husband refuses to appear on Fox News in any format because he considers them hostile, he considers them invalid, and yet he sends you out to criticize me because I'm appearing on an enemy network.  So nice to have you call in, Mrs. Edwards, so that your husband can send you out to fight his battles.  This is some presidential quality that he is displaying here by having you go out and do this."  That's one of the things that I would have said. It's easy to come up with this stuff after the fact.  I'm not being critical of Ann Coulter.  She's my vice president on the 1/2 Hour News Hour on the Fox News Channel, and, you know, when I'm down in Cabo Wabo, sometimes she's running the country.  

Matthews is all over television today trying to score ratings out of all of this.  Ann Coulter got all kinds of applause for her comments last night, and Matthews couldn't believe that.  So he started treating these people as a bunch of Neanderthals and just like the way he was talking about Tennesseans during the election last November, when that Harold Ford ad was running, (paraphrasing) "When they're sitting there in the tavern at midnight on Friday drinking the long necks, when that ad comes on what do you think they're going to think?"  These elitist snobs set up this ambush and so forth, and Ann did not waver from it whatsoever.  It was cool.  It was good.  I mean, what Matthews said when she got applause last night, Matthews said, "What do we have, a Deliverance audience here?"  Incest, southern hayseed hicks, rolling down the river, Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1968, Proud Mary.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We'll get to the sound bites now, because I didn't want to leave you hanging on this.  Ann Coulter was set up on Hardball last night. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of the Democrat presidential candidate, John Edwards, the Breck Girl, called in to implore Ann Coulter to stop being mean. They wanted her to be nice, stop the personal attacks.  I have comments on that aspect of it, but let's just go straight to the audio, and I want to set a couple things up that happened on Hardball last night with something that happened Monday on Good Morning America.  The cohost of that show, Chris Cuomo, was talking to Ann Coulter.  He said, "You said that you were joking about John Edwards and using that slur against gays, the F-word."

COULTER:  Oh, yeah, I wouldn't -- I wouldn't insult gays by comparing them to John Edwards.  That would be mean.  But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack.  So I've learned my lesson.  If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.

RUSH:  Now, let's go back, March 2nd, Real Time with Bill Maher.  His guests were Barney Frank, Joe Scarborough.  They're discussing comments posted on the Huffington Post expressing regret that the supposed assassination attempt in Afghanistan in February on Vice President Cheney failed.  Here's a portion of that exchange.

MAHER:  But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow.

SCARBOROUGH:  If someone on this panel said that they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say…

FRANK:  I think he did.

SCARBOROUGH:  Okay. Did you say…

MAHER:  No, no. I quoted that.

FRANK: You don’t believe that?

MAHER:  I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live.

RUSH:  The instance here was an assassination plot against Cheney, there's Bill Maher -- and of course nobody wants Bill Maher to shut up.  Only he did get fired by ABC for some comments.  But all this Fairness Doctrine talk and all of this -- of course he's on cable so it doesn't apply, but all the mean-spirited attacks, Maher somehow always escapes these criticisms, always does.  So now let's move forward to last night on Hardball.  During the interview with Ann Coulter, Elizabeth Edwards called in to the show and it was set up with NBC that she would call in.  Coulter was sandbagged.  She was set up, didn't know it, but it didn't faze her.  Chris Matthews says to Elizabeth after she called in, "Do you want to say something directly to the person who's with me?"

ELIZABETH EDWARDS:  In the South, when someone does something that displeases us, we ask them politely to stop doing it.  I'd like to ask Ann Coulter, too, if she wants to debate on issues, on positions, we certainly disagree with nearly everything she said on your show today, but it's quite another matter to -- for these personal attacks, the things that she has said over the years not just about John, but about other candidates, it lowers our -- our -- our political dialogue precisely at the time that we need to raise it.  So I want to use the opportunity, which I don't get much because Ann and I don't hang out with the same people, to ask her politely to stop the personal attacks.

COULTER:  Okay, so I made a joke, let's see, six months ago, and as you point out, they've been raising money off of it for six months.

RUSH:  Right.  Now, what's going on here is obvious, is it not?  This is just as I had a caller the other day, you are responsible for the Hispanics in this country not voting Republican, you're mean, you're not nice, and you're hateful rhetoric, and is this the same thing now.  In fact, I think this has Fairness Doctrine implications.  I think that this attitude from Elizabeth Edwards, you're too mean, you need to stop saying things the way you are saying them.  Meanwhile, all the viciousness that comes out of the mouths of Democrats is never mentioned.  They then had this exchange with one another.

COULTER:  I didn't say anything about him actually either time.

ELIZABETH EDWARDS:  Ann, you know -- you know that's not true, and once more, it's been going on for some time --

COULTER:  And I don't mind you trying to raise money, it's better this than giving $50,000 speeches to the poor just to use my name on the web pages, but as for a debate with me, yeah, sure, we'll have a debate.

ELIZABETH EDWARDS:   I'm asking you politely to stop -- stop personal attacks --

COULTER:  How about you start raising money on the web page, then?  No, you don't have to, because I don't mind.

ELIZABETH:  It did not start with that.  You had a column a number of years ago --

COULTER:  Okay, the wife of a presidential candidate is calling in asking me to stop speaking?  You're asking me to stop speaking?  Stop writing your columns. Stop writing your books.

ELIZABETH:  -- which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean's death and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car that said, "Ask me about my dead son."

COULTER:  That's -- now -- three years ago.

ELIZABETH:  -- dialogue.  It debases political dialogue, it draws people away from the process.

RUSH:  The fact of the matter is, it's the Edwards themselves, folks, have been exploiting the death of his son, not Ann Coulter.  I've got two pages here of examples, web links, quotes of the Edwardses doing this.  What I would have said is, "You know, this is really cool, Mrs. Edwards. Your husband doesn't have the guts to go on Fox. He's running for president.  That's not very presidential.  Sends you out, he hides behind your skirt, yet here I am with a liberal on a liberal cable network, not afraid to take your phone call.  I'm more qualified to be president than your husband." 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  I just saw that the Breck Girl is going to be on Hardball tonight on MSNBC, which begs a couple of questions.  "Are we going to be more interested in what he has to say or what his wife has to say?" and, "I wonder if they'll let Ann Coulter call in and sandbag John Edwards just as she was sandbagged last night by Mrs. Edwards?"  Let's go back in time, shall we?  Let's go back to our audio archives, October 5th, 2004, Cleveland, Ohio, a presidential debate.

THE BRECK GIRL:  I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter.  I think they love her very much.  And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter.

RUSH:  Now, what is that?  Kerry did the same thing, and then here came the Breck Girl.  That was a vicious personal attack, and it was aimed at the Republican Christian conservative base, who these clowns thought maybe didn't know that the vice president and his wife had a gay daughter, and it's all couched in this (Breck Girl impression), "I think the vice president, wife, love their daughter. I think they love her very much, but I..." whatever he said.  The day after this comment, the Breck Girl then sent out his wife, Elizabeth, to bash the Cheneys again.  This was on ABC Radio Network. Jim Hickey interviewed Elizabeth Edwards on October 14th.  This comment is about Lynne Cheney's remarks about Kerry's comments about Mary Cheney.

ELIZABETH:  I think that it indicates, uh, a certain degree of shame with respect to, uh, her daughter's, uhhh, sexual preferences.

RUSH:  Well, a little tag-team action going on here.  The Breck Girl goes out and talks about what a wonderful couple the Cheneys are. Why, they are not afraid to speak publicly -- and then Lynne Cheney said what John Kerry said about their daughter being gay was uncalled for, was not part of the campaign, did not raise the civility of the debate.  So Edwards' wife goes out and says, "It indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to their daughter's sexual preference."  Of course, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a vicious personal attack, and that's not lowering the discourse of American politics -- and let's go back to 2004 again, October 11th, in Iowa.  This is the Breck Girl himself.

THE BRECK GIRL:  If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk -- get up out of that wheelchair and walk again!

RUSH:  Now, that was not being nice.  That is mean, that is passing on information to people, giving them false hope that stem cell research -- which Bush, by the way, was doing; you know the drill on this -- misleading all these people with spinal injuries that only when John Kerry is president will they walk again.  It's like Michael J. Fox and his ads during the last election about Parkinson's Disease. It's the same thing. These are not nice people. These are mean people.  This whole episode, by the way, there are two reasons why it was orchestrated, this thing on Hardball. They're running out of money at the Edwards campaign, and he's not doing all that hot.  They've had two big fundraising days.  The last one was when Elizabeth had the press conference announcing that she had cancer, or her cancer had come back. I forget what the previous one was, but I've been watching Pat Buchanan today talk about this, and he's exactly right.  Pat Buchanan said there's no question what this is.  This is a sympathy play.  It is a play for pity.  The Edwardses are not these weak-minded, dispirited little people that can't handle hardball in politics.  This is just a sympathy play.  The second thing it is, it falls right in line with this effort to characterize conservative speech as "unbalanced, unfair, mean-spirited, extreme. We need to regulate it."  Here's one more little exchange between Ann Coulter and Elizabeth Edwards last night.

An audience member said, "Why isn't John Edwards making this call?"

ELIZABETH EDWARDS:  Yeah, why isn't John Edwards making this call?

MATTHEWS:  Well, do you want to respond? We'll end this conversation.

ELIZABETH:  I -- I haven't talked to John about this call. 

COULTER: I think this is just another attempt for --

ELIZABETH EDWARDS:  I -- I -- I -- I'm making this call as a mother.

COULTER: (laughs)

ELIZABETH EDWARDS: I'm -- I am -- I'm the mother of that boy who died.  I -- my children participate.  These young people behind you are the age of my children.  You're asking them to participate in a dialogue that's based on hatefulness and ugliness, instead of on the issues, and I don't think that serves them or this country very well.  

MATTHEWS:  Thank you very much, Elizabeth Edwards.  So you want to...? You have all the time in the world to respond.

COULTER:  I think we heard all we need to hear.  The wife of a presidential candidate is asking me to stop speaking.  No!

RUSH:  Now, I want to wave these two pieces of paper at you when I say that it's Edwards who has been exploiting his son's death, not Coulter.  There's a link here from Front Page News: "Edwards' public success spotlights son's death."  They used it again at the end of 2003 in Edwards' own piece called "Four Trials."  Another one: "Running for his son, teen's death changed Edwards' life."  The Edwards press machine was making an issue in 2004, acting as if they're finally opening up about it, but they were on record talking about the death of their son in 2001.  Then again in the Chicago Tribune in 2005, Edwards pretends he's finally opening up about his son's death: "Throughout his campaign for president and then vice president in '04, former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina made it clear the death of his teenaged son in a car accident was off limits, not for discussion, in the political context."  They're the ones that have been talking about this.  "But now his wife Elizabeth sent an e-mail to supporters voicing connection that she shares with Cindy Sheehan."  This is in the Chicago Trib article two years ago.  

"As Sheehan was camped near Bush's ranch protesting the war, Edwards called on her own family's backers to support Sheehan and in a departure from a campaign trail silence that the Edwards have kept about the death their 16-year-old son, Elizabeth Edwards noted that Sheehan son Casey died in Iraq eight years to the day after her own son," and then here the Edwards are in 2006 using it with Oprah and her dim-witted audience.  "Book saves memory of son, Edwards tells Oprah."  Here's John again, "finally opening open up." It was like characterized as finally, after all these painful years, finally opening up after his son's death.  Yet he's been opening up for four or five years in a row -- and of course the Edwards campaign site loves to bring it up also: "A tribute to Wade Edwards."  That's what Elizabeth Edwards called last night about, to get Ann Coulter to stop talking about their son's death and exploiting it, and she's written about it in a column six months ago, and then today: "Dear friend, last night I had an important talk with Ann Coulter, and I want to tell you what happened.  How did she respond?  Sadly, perhaps predictably, with more personal attacks.  John's campaign's about the issues, but pundits like Ann Coulter are trying to shout him down.  If they'll not stop, it's up to us to cut through the noise.  Help us fight back.  Please give what you can today.  There are just over three days left to hit our $9 million goal for the end of the quarter.  If we make it, we can directly reach voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and all over the country with our detailed plans on the issues that matter.  Why do Ann Coulter and other right-wing pundits keep attacking John?  Because John's bold, specific plan hits them where it hurts: solving global warming, ending the war, building a fair economy. John's agenda threatens everything these talking heads and their corporate cronies stand for, and they know John can win, but we need your help to hit our goal. Please give what you can today."

The whole thing is about money.  The whole thing.  That's the best script they could come up with -- and it's Elizabeth Edwards today, dated today. They sent that out on a blast e-mail, and I guess they put it on their website as well.  

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

The Hill: Edwards camp again turns to cash cow Coulter
AP: Ms. Edwards Asks Coulter to Stop Attacks
breitbart.tv: What Did Coulter Really Say?
BH: Running for his son: Teen's death changed Edwards' life
John Edwards on Principles & Values: Lost teenage son in a traffic accident
CT: Edwards Using Son's Death As Political Tool

July 2, 2007

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back and play a little montage for you back on May 23rd in New York City, the Breck Girl, John Edwards, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations.

EDWARDS:  The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics.  It is not a strategy to make America safe.  It's a bumper sticker, not a plan.  It has damaged our alliances and has weakened our standing in the world.

RUSH:  CNN is reporting that the Glasgow attack, the Jeep Cherokee, the flaming SUV that went into the airport there, was staged by the same men who drove the car bombs in London.  By the way, they did try to detonate them.  The cell phones didn't work.  For some reason their cell phone connection didn't work when they tried to detonate the bombs, but they tried. "British authorities have arrested two more men in connection with the series of failed attacks, and they have concluded that Al-Qaeda planned and launched the attacks.  Authorities suspect that the two men who rammed an explosives laden vehicle into Glasgow's airport on Saturday are the same people who parked two car bombs in central London, a day earlier."  In addition, what we've also learned about this is that the United States two weeks ago had advance knowledge -- this is ABC News -- they said that the US warned the UK of an imminent attack at Glasgow two weeks ago.  So nobody has any doubts now that that was Islamofascists, and nobody has any doubts that it was Al-Qaeda.  So John Edwards is out there, "Oh, the war on terror, a bumper sticker, why, it's just a slogan designed only for politics.  It doesn't really exist."  

How do you think we found out about this attack on Glasgow two weeks in advance?  You think it might be the monitoring of these guys' phone calls that the Democrats want to shut down?  What might explain this?  How do we find this out?  Democrats are hell-bent on closing Club Gitmo, and they want to turn all of the terrorists that are down there, who are still useful as intelligence sources no matter how long they've been there, the way intelligence is gathered is something that -- this is an intel success story, Gitmo is, an they want to shut it down and they want all of those terrorists, those prisoners of war, if you will, to be brought into the United States legal system.  Hasn't that been demonstrated to be the ineffective way to conduct a war on terror?  It's folly.  This is why the Democrats are really vulnerable on this.  They do not take this seriously.  In the midst of what happened over the weekend in the UK, they're still talking about closing Gitmo and bringing all these prisoners in and giving them legal rights, habeas corpus and all that, and of course nobody in the Drive-By will ask John Edwards, "Well, what about these comments that the war on terror is just a bumper sticker?"  In fact, we have even more.  Sunday, June 3rd, at the Democrat debate in New Hampshire, it was on CNN, Wolf Blitzer said, "Let me let you clarify what you said the other day.  You said the war on terror is a bumper sticker, not a plan.  With the news yesterday, this alleged plot at JFK which could have done horrendous damage and caused an incredible number of casualties, do you believe the US is not at war with terrorists?"

EDWARDS:  I reject this bumper sticker, Wolf, and that's exactly what it is, is a bumper sticker.  As president of the United, States I will do absolutely everything to find terrorists where they are, to stop them before they can do harm to us before they can do harm to America or to its allies.  Every tool available:  military, alliances, intelligence, I will use.  But what this global war on terror bumper sticker, political slogan, that's all it is, that's all it was intended to do, was for George Bush to use it to justify everything he does.  The ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture, none of those things are okay.  They are not the United States of America.

RUSH:  And none of them are as the Breck Girl portrays them, none of them are.  That's just a left-wing mantra.  It is a mantra of the far-left fringe kook base.  I think the Breck Girl actually believes it, though, I think he's doing more than pandering.  But then, later on, on last Friday's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, his guest via satellite was Elizabeth Edwards, she had to come to his rescue again, and Blitzer said, "Your husband caused a stir recently when he suggested that the war on terror is really nothing more than a bumper sticker.  Given what's happening in London today, two car bombs found, what do you make of the criticism he's faced because he seemed to be suggesting there really wasn't much of a war on terrorism?"

MRS. EDWARDS:  I think that it's easy to misconstrue what John said.  His intent -- he believes that there are terrorists out there and that we need a concerted effort to where certainly everyone applauds the work of London police and London law enforcement officials who discovered these bombs and the work that was done obviously as a predicate to finding them.  But when we use words like a war on terror, we create an awfully big frame, and what it's done is whenever somebody objects to torture or objects to spying on American citizens or objects to the ignoring of the Geneva Conventions --

RUSH:  Stop the tape a second.  Stop the tape.  This torture thing has gotten out of control.  Club Gitmo is legitimate.  Spying on American citizens was never what was happening.  It was not what was going on.  The administration just doesn't do a very good job of explaining all this, particularly the PR case they could make about how great the intelligence gathering at Club Gitmo has been.  And the Geneva Conventions, for crying out loud, anybody with a brain knows that terrorists are not subject to it.  They are not granted those protections, even though the pressure has been brought by leftists in this country to include terrorists who do not fits the definition in any way, shape, manner, or form, bring them in under the umbrella of the Geneva Conventions.  She has to know that.  Well, I say that, but maybe she doesn't.  Maybe she really doesn't.  But anyway, she's out there having to pick up all the mess that her husband makes, to straighten out what he said, and to try to explain -- here's the rest of the bite.

MRS. EDWARDS:  -- they get hit over the head with this language, "but there's a war on terror."  There are terrorists, but it's when we have a -- this slogan, it stops us from behaving the way we ought to and it's used as a weapon against those who would like to complain about some of the methods.

RUSH:  Now, Blitzer wanted to clarify the Edwards position, and he continues with this leading question.

BLITZER:  If he were president of the United States he would vigorously go out after those terrorists?

MRS. EDWARDS:  Absolutely.  He said that at every turn.  And one of the terrorists he'd go after, I have to say, is Osama bin Laden.  You know, somehow we seem to have lost track, when we made this great big frame, we lost track of the fellow that we should have been going after with a laser.

RUSH:  Well, let me take a break here, folks, before I blow a gasket.  I should know not to let this stuff irritate and agitate me as much as it does, but sometimes even I have my boundaries fail. 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  And here's the latest on the non-war on terror.  From Sky News, one of the men involved in the failed terror attack on Glasgow airport was an Iraqi doctor who trained in Baghdad.  Sources name the man as Bilal Abdulla.  "He was left relatively unscathed in the incident, pictured being led away from the explosion by police. He worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow.  Police blew up a second suspect car outside the hospital on Monday - the first car was detonated on Sunday.  The other man detained at Glasgow airport had severe burns and remains in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra - he was in the flaming jeep that was driven at one of the airport terminals.Meanwhile, Mohammed Asha, 26, has been named as a man arrested on the M6 on Saturday night.  The Jordanian was detained with a woman of 27 dressed in traditional Muslim dress, believed to be his wife, on the M6 near Sandbach in Cheshire."

The Daily Mail has a little bit more about this.  An Iraqi junior doctor and a brilliant neurologist working for the national health services are among the suspects being quizzed over the series of bomb attacks across Britain, it emerged today.  The junior doctor named as Bilal Abdulla, is said to have completed his medical training in Baghdad.  The suspected ringleader of the Al-Qaeda car bomber is a "brilliant neurologist" working for the NHS.  Saudi Mohammed Asha, 26, arrested with his wife, as you just heard.  You'd have to say they're homegrown.  They're living and working there, and they are respected in their professions, or let me put it this way:  They are in respected professions.  But they're clearly Al-Qaeda, and they trained in Baghdad.  Now, terrorists trained in Baghdad.  How can that be?  I thought there was no reason for us to be -- oh, I know, because if we hadn't gone to Iraq, then Baghdad would not have become terrorist central, and of course then these guys could not have been trained.  They might not even be terrorists if we hadn't gone to Baghdad.  That's how it will play out.  That's the latest news on the non-war on terror, according to the John and Elizabeth Edwards campaign. 

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

NYT: Elizabeth Edwards?s Illness Doesn?t Quell Her Influence

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/us/politics/01edwards.html?hp

The Beverly Hills hairstylist, a Democrat, said he hit it off with then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina at a meeting in Los Angeles that brought several fashion experts together to advise the candidate on his appearance. Since then, Torrenueva has cut Edwards's hair at least 16 times.

At first, the haircuts were free. But because Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut, plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

"He has nice hair," the stylist said of Edwards in an interview. "I try to make the man handsome, strong, more mature and these are the things, as an expert, that's what we do."

It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned for president, vice president and now president again, his hair seems to have attracted as much attention as, say, his position on health care. But when his campaign reported in April that it had paid for two of his haircuts at $400 each, the political damage was immediate. With each punch line on late night TV his image as a self-styled populist making poverty his signature issue was further eroded.

Edwards said that he was embarrassed by the cost and that he "didn't know it would be that expensive," suggesting the haircuts were some kind of aberration given by "that guy" his staff had arranged. His wife, Elizabeth, made lots of jokes at her husband's expense and the campaign wished the whole issue would go away.

But Torrenueva's account of his long relationship with Edwards -- the first he's given -- probably guarantees that won't happen quite yet. And if $400 seemed a lot for a haircut, how about one for three times that?

Asked for a comment, the Edwards campaign said this week that Edwards had arranged for the stylist to give him numerous cuts over the past four years. But it said that a personal assistant handled paying for the haircuts and that Edwards didn't realize how much they cost.

"Breaking news -- John Edwards got some expensive haircuts and probably didn't pay enough attention to the bills," said spokeswoman Colleen Murray. "He didn't lie about weapons of mass destruction or spring Scooter Libby; he just got some expensive haircuts."

In the days after the $400 haircut first caused a stir, Torrenueva did not give many details about his client to reporters who called or came by his Beverly Hills salon. But Torrenueva says he was hurt by Edwards's response to all the flap.

"I'm disappointed and I do feel bad. If I know someone, I'm not going to say I don't know them," he said. "When he called me 'that guy,' that hit my ears. It hurt." He paused and then added, "I still like him. . . . I don't want to hurt him."

Torrenueva said he normally charges men $175 when they come to his salon for a haircut. But the cost for Edwards went up because the stylist had to leave his shop and go on the road to do his haircuts.

Edwards is certainly not the first politician to face ridicule when his or her grooming habits caught the public's eye. It took a long time for President Bill Clinton to live down the haircut he received from the stylist Christophe of Beverly Hills while Air Force One was parked on an airport runway in Los Angeles. And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) had her own minor version of the Edwards treatment after her Senate campaign spent nearly $3,000 in fees and travel for two sessions with stylist Isabelle Goetz.

While Democrats seem to get the most attention, Republicans have not been completely immune. Campaign aides to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the best-coiffed Republican candidate in the presidential race and the wealthiest of all the hopefuls, fretted in an internal document that his well-tended locks may be considered a negative. He has assured Massachusetts reporters that he spends no more than $50 for a trim...