The New York Times says that a connection between two trial lawyer buddies of John Edwards “went unnoticed” during the reporting on the Rielle Hunter scandal.
Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft refutes the skepticism of those who scoffed at Howard Wolfson’s assertion that, had John Edwards dropped out when the National Enquirer first broke the Rielle Hunter scandal in October 2007, Hillary Clinton might have won the Iowa caucus and gone onto win the nomination.
Five days after Edwards flat-lined on “Nightline,” I am still embarrassed by how badly I misjudged him both in print and in my personal feelings. . . . My wife (a magazine writer who developed her own friendship with Elizabeth) and I had several off-the-record dinners with the Edwardses. . . . I naively believed that I knew Edwards as well as I understood anyone in the political center ring. Yet I never saw this sex scandal coming — partly because I accepted the mythology that surrounded the Edwards’ marriage and partly because I assumed that any hint of a wandering eye would have come out during the 2004 campaign.
Shapiro then draws this “moral to the story”:
If we stopped expecting would-be presidents to be paragons of marital fidelity and shining examples of religious faith in the public sphere, we would not set ourselves up for constant disappointment at human frailty.
No, the real lesson is far more simple: Don’t trust politicians . . . especially millionaire lawyer politicians.
And now The ENQUIRER has uncovered that Edwards’ political operatives are still paying his mistress Rielle Hunter — and she was whisked away on a private jet two days before he confessed their extramarital affair on national TV! The ENQUIRER has also confirmed that Edwards secretly visited Rielle and their love child three separate times at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles this year — a fact that proves he is still lying to America and his wife.
Private jets, mistresses, secret trysts at the Beverly Hilton — in which one of the two Americas does this stuff happen? Like I said, once they figure out you’re never gonna sue for libel, the tabloids can print anything.
What little doubt remained that John Edwards is the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby evaporated Saturday when a lawyer for the former senator’s paramour issued a statement declaring that there would be no DNA test to determine paternity. Little doubt remained because of a dog that has stubbornly refused to bark since the National Enquirer first reported in December that Edwards had impregnated the divorcee he hired as his campaign videographer. That silent dog is libel law. Edwards is a famously successful trial lawyer. If the Enquirer’s accusation had been false, the former Democratic presidential candidate would have sued, and a paternity test disproving the charge would have been Exhibit A in his case.
Garance Franke-Ruta has the story and blogger Robert Scoble has the photos of Rielle Hunter on John Edwards’ 2006 presidential announcement tour. I’m looking at these photos and thinking, “Hey, girlfriend, for $114,000, couldn’t you have afforded a tripod?”
You know, if you’re working as a professional videographer, at least go to Wal-Mart and get a tripod for $69 of something. And maybe a remote microphone, too.
Remember that Edwards has said his affair with Hunter lasted only a short time in 2006 and had ended by 2007, yet these photos show their continued association in late December 2006.
There is a reason why the news media’s trustworthiness is rated so low. MSM news reporting by and large has not improved or become more rigorous with the advent of so many alternative news outlets. (To the contrary, the 24-hour landscape of cable news has sent them scurrying for their niche audience, wary of any mildly opposing views that might offend their target audience.) However, because of this and other similar episodes, the public now fully appreciates just how deficient most of the MSM outlets are.
How is it that our enlightened liberal friends, supposedly so sensitive to feminism and all that, can’t see that Edwards’ cover-up defense amounts to, “She’s a lying slut.” What’s amazing to me is how the Edwards’ camp has gotten Hunter to play along with their little game for so long.
Now will you moonbats finally peel the Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers off your rusting Volvos and Saabs? I’ve been telling you people for almost four years now how foolish you look, refusing to scrape off the reminders of yet another doomed Democrat ticket. . . . But after Friday, how can even a Prozac-swallowing moonbat’s moonbat continue to endure the snickers that a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker produces everywhere, including on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge?
After their bitter disappointment over the 2000 Gore-Bush showdown in Florida, and their rage over the “Swiftboating” of Kerry in 2004, Democrats would descend into a state of political apoplexy if the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy snookered them a third time. You think “Bush Derangement Syndrome” is bad? John McCain might become the first president to face impeachment on Inauguration Day. (Dennis Kucinich could easily whip up a 47-point indictment between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20.) Granted, there’s no civic virtue in electing a Republican president purely for the pleasure of crushing the hopes of liberals. But wouldn’t it be fun?
The triumph of Spite over Hope — just the sort of mean-spirited fun that makes our conspiracy so vast.
UPDATE: Speaking of moonbats . . .
(Hat tip: Laura.) Just random thinking here: Whatever happened to that “war for oil” we were supposed to be fighting?
The family of John Edwards’ former mistress, Rielle Hunter, is challenging the former senator to take a DNA paternity test after his claim that he did not father Hunter’s six-month old child. In the first reaction from Hunter’s family, her younger sister Melissa told ABC News that Edwards should immediately follow through on his pledge to take a paternity test. “I would challenge him to do so,” the sister said. “Somebody must stand up and defend my sister,” she said. “I wish that those involved would refrain from bad-mouthing my sister.”
Edwards’ attempt to salvage some shred of his personal reputation at the expense of Rielle Hunter has caused this blowback. Let’s consider Melissa’s wrath for a moment. It springs from the notion that Edwards and Hunter didn’t have anything more than a physical affair and that Rielle slept with his campaign manager at nearly the same time — which certainly paints Hunter as something less than a virtuous woman.
In other words, from the standpoint of Hunter’s family, Edwards’ claim boils down to, “Rielle, you nasty slut.” I wonder what Edwards-worshipping Amanda Marcotte will say about this? Will she accuse Rielle of internalizing the patriarchal condemnation of female promiscuity?
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