(cross-posted from IMAO)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Reacting to Barack Obama's tougher stance in the War On Terror, presidential candidate John Edwards has declared that, if elected to the nation's highest office, he will launch a new offensive in the War on Poverty. Specifically, he vows to target people who have defaulted on their high risk mortgages.

"You better pay up, or Vito over here will be breaking your kneecaps."

"There is a greater terror than insurgents with roadside bombs," said Edwards, "and that's low-lifes who don't make their mortgage payments on time. If elected president, I will fight against those who betray the trust of the subprime lenders by hitting them where they live - literally - and foreclosing on their houses."

"Unlike naive and inexperience candidates who talk tough on fighting foreign wars, yet have never left Iowa, or Indiana, or Idaho, or whatever stupid 'I' state they come from *cough*Senator Obama*cough*, I have significant experience fighting this particular war. I've made almost half a million dollars working for a company that specialized on getting deadbeats out of houses and back on the streets where they belong. I don't just TALK tough on poverty, I knock the shiftless bastards around, too."

However, some critics question his credibility on this issue. The company doing the foreclosing (Green Tree Servicing) was only a small subsidiary of the company Edwards worked for (Fortress Investment Group), implying that Edwards's involvement in the actual foreclosure process was merely indirect at best.

Edwards challenged that assertion.

"I don't like to brag, but I personally dragged a 67-year-old Katrina victim out of her house by the hair, flung her down into the mud, kicked her a few times & told her to start paying her damn bills on time before we had to get REALLY rough with her," said Edwards with an air of great accomplishment. "That 'I was in a hurricane' crap may get sympathy on the evening news, but I've got a hair stylist to pay. I want my damn money. I can't buy haircuts with excuses."

Not to be outdone, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined her own "War on Poverty" agenda over the weekend. "When I'm elected President," said Clinton, "I plan to organize a new Cabinet-level 'Department of Collections' which will draw from some of the most prominent members of the Italian-American Legitimate Businessmen's community. They will 'help' those who might have 'accidents' if they don't pay their creditors by the end of the week. America's poor have some nice families, and it would be a shame if anything were to 'happen' to them."

[Hat tip to IMAO reader Cathy for that first link]

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