John Edwards, widely derided as "the Breck Girl" for his well—coifed hair, has a secret admirer. Well, secret from the voting public, anyway. And quite a generous secret admirer, too. The New York Sun reports:

A mysterious $250,000 donation used to bankroll a political committee controlled by a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, John Edwards, highlights a gap in federal laws requiring reporting of political contributions.

In June, a closely held company gave a quarter of a million dollars to the One America Committee, a so—called 527 organization affiliated with Mr. Edwards, who became the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 2004 after making a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination.

A report that the committee filed with the Internal Revenue Service identified the donor as Oak Spring Farms, LLC, and listed an address of 160 Central Park South, which is the location of the Jumeirah Essex House Hotel. The firm's "occupation" was described as "investments/savings." No other details about the company were made public.

However, a search of Federal Election Commission records linked the firm to a Manhattan trust attorney, Alexander Forger. Reached at his midtown office Wednesday, the lawyer told The New York Sun that he was not a principal in Oak Spring Farms.

"I'm simply acting on behalf of somebody else," Mr. Forger said. He declined to identify the owners of the company or to discuss its other activities.

The gist underscores the ridiculous failure of the McCain—Feingold legislation attempting to regulate money in politics. We are worse off for its passage, and it should be repealed.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson   9 15 06