(Author’s note: Any resemblance between this satirical article and actual journalistic toadying is purely intentional.)

By CLARE LEE
Contributing Writer

CHAPEL HILL — After a long and extensive national search that no one knew about, the Law School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced in early February its selection for the director of its new Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. It will be former U.S. Senator and candidate for vice president John Edwards.

UNC-CH Chancellor James Moeser praised the selection and said that the center would be nonpartisan. “We don’t want people to get the mistaken impression that this new center would be used as a political platform,” Moeser said. “Edwards promised.”

Through a spokesman, Edwards indicated his pleasure at his selection. EDWARDS IN 2008 spokesman A. Dewey Fullum said that Edwards saw the issue was very important, and could even be pivotal.

Edwards was in Manchester, New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary in 2008, where he announced his selection at a Democrat fundraiser. “We have some UNC grads in Manchester,” Edwards explained later. “What about Drew Cline?”

Edwards told his Manchester audience of his ambitions with the center. “I intend to put as much time and effort toward addressing the needs of the poor at this Center as I did in the Senate,” he pledged.

UNC Law has budgeted four working days a year for Edwards at the CPWO. Edwards will make $40,000 a year.

Law School Dean Gene R. Nichol was positively giddy about the selection. “After looking over the lengthy and impressive list of candidates,” Nichol said, in between fits of coughing, “Senator Edwards was the obvious, the only, choice.”

Nichol said that he looked forward to working with Edwards. “Whatever you do, don’t think this is about politics,” Nichol said. “This is about what a law school can do to solve poverty.”

Asked what a law school can do to solve poverty, Richard Posner, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and senior lecturer at the University of the Chicago Law School, said, “I told you, no stupid questions.”

Pressed for more information, the author of Economic Analysis of Law, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, and many more works, said, “I’m serious. I’m right in the middle of three books and 12 journal articles. Can’t you tell what this is about without me?”

The idea of the new UNC-CH center was first broached in early November. At the same time, some UNC-CH faculty members and grad students were protesting the idea of a new curriculum in Western Civilization ostensibly because the school had approached a conservative foundation for funding. Protesters said the outside donors would taint the university because of their ideas.

There were no protests for the new center, Nichol reported. It will be supported by private grants to the university.

Richard Williams, chair of UNC-CH’s board of trustees, was pleased at how quickly and smoothly the process went from a Tuesday-night idea to a full-blown center with a marquee director.

“This is great,” Williams said. “And it’s not about politics at all. Really. Write that down. The administration assured us.”