Over at Patterico's Pontifications, he's got a pretty good, long comment thread regarding this story on John Edwards I highlighted on Saturday.

I posted a couple of comments, and as you can probably expect, the responses from the lefties was little more than name-calling. (The exact comment was: "You're a real jacka$$ aren't you?")

What the issue came down to was this: Who is the more admirable person, the one we should aspire to emulate when it comes to dealing with poverty: John Edwards or Dick Cheney? Edwards ran the aforementioned end-run around campaign finance laws while advocating big government solutions to poverty (the Great Society hasn't worked because we haven't thrown enough money into it?). Cheney gave more than $6.7 million to charity last year.

The way I phrased it over at Patterico's was: "Why is it more admirable in your eyes for someone to champion “policies” (read: taking my hard-earned money by force) to help the poor than someone who gives money to help the poor out of the goodness of their heart?"

Did I get a response? Any response at all?

Nope.

So, what's the answer? What would be the liberal-left view of Microsoft founder Bill Gates if, in addition to his extensive charitable work, he was pushing for lower taxes so he could give even more to the poor around the world?