Let's start with Rupert Murdoch. My, how John Edwards has pissed that man off.

Sure, Murdoch hates John Edwards because Edwards led the way amongst presidential candidates in pulling out of the Faux-news debates, helping expose his propaganda network for what it is.

But he hates John Edwards even more because John Edwards has spoken out publicly against the monopolization of America's media outlets into the hands of a small number of plutocrats like Murdoch. Murdoch's media empire fired back, calling Edwards a hypocrite, leaking confidential information, all in an attempt to smear John Edwards to avoid talking about the real issues.

Just look at the bile and vitriol spilling from these New York Post headlines. Two of the most savage attacks were directed as much as Nataline Sarkisyan and Elizabeth Edwards' as they were at Edwards.

Of course, Rupert Murdoch isn't the only right-wing corporatist to go after John Edwards with personal attacks.

Take the far-right Washington Times, for example. In the view of the editorial pages, Edwards is a "widely scorned" "sanctimonius hypocrite." All in all, the Times says, "Mr. Edwards's rank hypocrisy is boundless." On the bright side, he's "well-coifed" but "not ready for prime time."

Then there's that corporate wet dream, Mitt Romney, who apparently has quite a violent streak.

Every time I listen to someone like John Edwards get on TV and say there are two Americas I just want to throw something at the TV. -- Willard

You see, the problem isn't that there actually are two Americas -- one populated by wealthy elites like Mitt Romney, the other by just about everybody else. The problem is that people like John Edwards talk about the inequity of it all, and some day, the American public might decide to shove a big fat FU right in Mitt Romney's face.

Hell, even the Republican party can't stand Mitt Romney, the corporate swine.

As jamess diaried, big business is putting John Edwards on notice.

With the nation's economy increasingly becoming a volatile issue in the presidential campaign, the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce is about to issue one very tough promise to spend millions of dollars against candidates deemed to be anti-business. (Are you listening John Edwards?)

National Review, the rag read by the nation's conservative elite, just absolutely can't stand John Edwards. Byron York asks the probing question: "Is Edwards a phony?" Talk about expensive haircuts -- York knows a thing or two about those, I might guess. Rich Lowry affectionately (sic) calls John Edwards "The Hater" and accuses him of "unbridled hostility."

The grand-daddy of the entire crew of corporate warriors, one William F. Buckley, actually is an exception to the "if you fear, smear" rule of thumb. He understands that populism is a grave and serious danger to the plutocracy. So he does something almost unimaginable amongst these reactionaries: he actually engages Edwards on the issues. Sort of.

John Edwards Will Give You Free Health Care

By William F. Buckley Jr.

The word among professional Democrats is that John Edwards has set the stakes on the matter of health care, and no one who wants to be president can offer less than he is offering, which is -- of course -- guaranteed health. That is to say, guaranteed free health care.
...
Therefore, Mr. Edwards is doing nothing more than to call for increased taxes on the wealthy. They used to call that socialized medicine, when it was instituted by Great Britain after the war. It crossed the Atlantic into Canada, which is a tidy country in which to get sick, provided you can afford to travel across the border to an American doctor.

Perhaps a tad dishonest, but you've got to give Buckley this: the man is genuinely scared of populism.

George Will, the bow-tied pugilist, blathers on passionately about John Edwards, calling him "synthetic," a "histrionic huckster" who is "delusional." Edwards:

overflows with and wallows in the pugnacity of the self-righteous who discern contemptible motives behind all disagreements with them and who therefore think that opponents are enemies and differences are unsplittable.

Will sees Barack Obama as the antidote to Edwards:

Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee -- an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic "fights" against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.

In a bizarre article, The Weekly Standard picks up the same theme:

John Edwards and the Damsel in Distress
By William Tucker

IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND trial lawyers like John Edwards, you have to recognize their one enduring fantasy. They are knights in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress.

They'll tell you they're "standing up for the little guy" or "enforcing the Constitution" or "sending a message" or "teaching the big guys a lesson." But at bottom there's always that one image--a lonely woman, young, attractive, helpless, waiting to be rescued by some hero with a law degree.

The strange thing? The first half of the article focuses on John O'Quinn, a Houston attorney. Seems they had to work extra-hard to come up with material to fill out their laughably silly personall attack.

David Brooks plays the role of the whispering polemicist in contrast to George Will, the bow-tied pugilist. Like Will, Brooks hates John Edwards. Edwards is "old-fashioned" and thanks to Obama's victory in Iowa, "Edwards's political career is probably over." (Don't you wish, David, don't you wish.)

David Brooks has disliked John Edwards for a long time.

In 2004, Brooks raged (emphasis added)

The problem is that he talks about poverty in an obsolete way, which suggests he has learned nothing from the past 40 years. ... Edwards talks about poverty in economic terms.

This kind of talk is descended from Marxist theory, which holds that we live in the thrall of economic conditions. What the poor primarily need is more money, the theory goes.

We are moving toward a consensus on how to address the diverse problems that cause poverty. But when you go out on the campaign trail, you find politicians spreading polarizing disinformation. Edwards is right to talk about poverty, but by resorting to crude, populist rhetoric, he is leading in the wrong direction.

In 2007, David Brooks was still attacking John Edwards. When Hillary Clinton released her health care plan, Brooks questioned Edwards' temperament:

the plan seems to have driven John Edwards around the bend. The statement he issued yesterday qualifies as the shrillest statement issued by a major presidential candidate this year.

And finally, my favorite example of John Edwards pissing of the right people: corporate lobbyists.

(A big h/t to TheShoveler for this one.)

U.S. corporate elite fear candidate Edwards
By Kevin Drawbaugh

WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same -- Democrat John Edwards.

...

"My sense is that Obama would govern as a reasonably pragmatic Democrat ... I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from, to be blunt," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group.

But Edwards, Valliere said, is seen as "an anti-business populist" and "a trade protectionist who is quite unabashed about raising taxes."

"I think his regulatory policies, as well as his tax policies, would be viewed as a threat to business," he said.

"The next scariest for business would be Huckabee because of his rhetoric and because he's an unknown."

He's got them scared -- not so much about him personally, but about the ideas he's talking about.

That's why we fight.