Longtime readers know how I feel about John Edwards aka His Royal Phoniness. Even at that, though, I haven’t blogged anything about the latest affair rumors surrounding him for a few reasons, the top three being:
- I want to know as little about John Edwards’ sex life as humanly possible;
- So far, it’s been a completely unsubstantiated rumor (no photos, video, reliable confirmations from credible sources);
- Because I hope like hell it’s not true. His wife is dying from cancer, and does not deserve to go through this.
But the rumor persists - in fact, it’s been floating around since last September, when liberal blogger Sam Stein first posted questions over at the HuffPo blog about the secrecy surrounding the short video documentaries Hunter helped produce for Edwards. The questionable Enquirer tabloid rag first wrote about it in their usual “anonymous sources” fashion a month later, and flat out accused Edwards of having an affair with Hunter. Edwards denied it at the time. Yet the rumor has surfaced again because the Enquirer supposedly has “new details” of a “recent encounter.” Here’s the latest:
Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was caught visiting his mistress and secret love child at 2:40 this morning in a Los Angeles hotel by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.
The married ex-senator from North Carolina - whose wife Elizabeth continues to battle cancer — met with his mistress, blonde divorcée Rielle Hunter, at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night, July 21 - and the NATIONAL ENQUIRER was there! He didn’t leave until early the next morning.
Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards. The former senator attended a press event Monday afternoon with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on the topic of how to combat homelessness.
But a months-long NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation had yielded information that Rielle and Edwards, 54, had arranged to secretly meet afterward and for the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own.
Here was Edwards’ response when asked about the rumor earlier today:
Reporter: How do you feel the situation in los angeles on Monday would affect any future in politics in this administration-a potential Obama administration?
Edwards: I don’t know…none. I don’t.
Reporter: None?
Edwards: None.
Reporter: The national enquirer story?
Edwards: I don’t talk about these tabloids. They’re tabloid trash and just full of lies. I am here to talk about helping people.
As I noted in the opening of my post, there’s no reason at this point to believe the story is true, because no reliable evidence has been revealed about the alleged “affair.” However, there’s a side issue here worth exploring, which Slate’s editor at large Jack Shafer wrote about today:
But if Edwards had an affair and lied about it, shouldn’t he suffer scrutiny akin to that of [disgraced Senator Larry] Craig? At least three-dozen daily newspapers in the United States published the Craig news the day after the Roll Call scoop, according to Nexis, but this morning not a single U.S. daily mentioned the Enquirer piece.
Now, as I’ve already said, the two stories aren’t completely analogous. A cop charged Craig with a misdemeanor, and he pleaded guilty. There’s no denying the police blotter is always news, and there’s no denying that Craig deserved the hypocrisy scrutiny. Edwards, as far as we know, is guilty of nothing beyond running away from tabloid reporters in a Beverly Hills hotel stairway in the wee a.m. after visiting a female friend in her room. Also, all of the Enquirer’s published “evidence” of an Edwards affair comes from unnamed sources. And I should mention that an Edwards political operative, Andrew Young, claims that he is the father of Hunter’s child. (Young is married with children of his own.)
Yet, if the press craves consistency, it owes its readers some sort of assessment of Edwards. Is he, like Craig, a public hypocrite? Edwards is still very much a public figure. As Drudge notes today on his site, as recently as June the Associated Press reported that he was a vice presidential short-lister.
If Edwards had no affair and fathered no love child, it should be easy to erase the hypocrisy charge, and the press owes him that, pronto. If we give Edwards the benefit of the doubt, which he deserves, visiting the woman who recently gave birth to the out-of-wedlock child of a married campaign aide is completely OK. But meeting her at a Beverly Hills hotel in the early hours of the morning and running from tabloid reporters when approached and hiding in a hotel bathroom for 15 minutes, as the Enquirer reports Edwards did, is not completely OK. Not if he wants to avoid the hypocrite label.
So why hasn’t the press commented on the story yet? Is it because it broke too late yesterday afternoon, and news organizations want to investigate it for themselves before writing about it? Or are they observing a double standard that says homo-hypocrisy is indefensible but that hetero-hypocrisy deserves an automatic bye?
What do you think? Should the mainstream media give this story the attention it hasn’t given it, or should it stay confined to the pages of the Enquirer until/if actual evidence surfaces proving the story to be accurate? Do you think they’d hold off if this rumor was about a Republican? The NYT tried the sleazy innuendo angle a few months ago with McCain, and it didn’t work, because there was no “there” there to the story, but at least in there were prominent people willing to go on record to share their thoughts, and it was a fact that McCain and Vicki Iseman did know each other for a long period of time. In this case, though, there’s no one on record willing to talk about Edwards relationship with Hunter, and there is no actual evidence of wrongdoing.
Your thoughts?
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Edwards’ loose zipper becomes germane if he is slated for a high post in an Obama administration, such as Veep or (God help us) Attorney General. If not, if he remains a civilian sleaze, then I’d rather not see the press put his wife through public humiliation — even though I’d love to see the Breck candidate truly humiliated.
As for the Enquirer … Well, I hate to defend that rag, but, anonymous sources or not, they’re right more often than people want to give them credit for.
Edwards and The Enquirer: there’s a match made in … somewhere.
Comment by Anthony (Los Angeles) @ 7/23/2008 - 11:05 pm
Should the mainstream media give this story the attention it hasn’t given it, or should it stay confined to the pages of the Enquirer until/if actual evidence surfaces proving the story to be accurate?
I don’t know - while I have a hard time getting my imagination around the idea that the Enquirer might print something true (even if accidentally), it is undeniable that the journalistic gap between the Enquirer and the rest of the MSM is rapidly shrinking.
After all, the MSM gave us the fake Duke rape case story, the fake Bush-Air National Guard memos, the fake “no WMDs in Iraq” story, the fake Koran-flushing story, the fake “Iraq is a civil war” story, the fake story about an imaginary romantic affair between John McCain and Vicki Iseman, the fake “Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame” story, the fake “Saddam had no nuke weapons program” story, the fake “no al Qaeda in Iraq” story, the fake “domestic spying” story, the fake “Gitmo=gulag” story, the fake “global warming is settled science” story, the fake “US Marines committed cold-blooded murder in Haditha” story….the list goes on and on. It would seem that the MSM has adopted the Enquirer’s style of spectacular attention-grabbing fraud.
So a more relevant question would be: What is holding the MSM back from running with this story? We can safely discount ethics and a desire for accuracy. Is it because Edwards is (a) a Democrat, or (b) a Democrat? Enquiring minds want to know!
Comment by Mwalimu Daudi @ 7/23/2008 - 11:11 pm
Excellent points, MD.
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 7/23/2008 - 11:17 pm
Terrific post.
Yes, it is very sad this is breaking when Elizabeth Edwards is fighting cancer.
This is the last thing she needs or deserves.
I wish there was a magic wand that would make it all go away for her and take away her cancer, too.
But there’s no magic wand any of us can wave.
She has to deal as best she can with Edwards as her husband and the father of her children.
I’ll leave that to her and her family.
The rest of us have to deal with Edwards as a public figure who wants our trust and our money so he can achieve high, powerful public office, the better to serve us, he says.
Hmm. That sounds so familiar.
Anyway, there surely are videos from security cameras the hotel had in the entry, hallways and elevator landing where the NE says its reporters saw and questioned Edwards.
If NE is correct about Edwards running into the bathroom and refusing to come out for 15 minutes, there may even be security camera film of some or all of that.
You have to ask why Edwards isn’t so far denying the story.
All he’s done is diss NE as a tabloid.
As you say the lack of media attention is striking.
Here in North Carolina, the two liberal/leftist McClatchy papers, the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer have been very, very quiet on all of this.
I think if Edwards knew this NE story was a phony he’d have been talking, talking, talking to both papers which have given him “home cooking” since he entered public life.
Thanks for giving me a chance to comment.
You have a great blog.
John in Carolina
Comment by John in Carolina @ 7/24/2008 - 1:54 am
I’ll wait for the pictures. They have pictures of everything else why on earth would they somehow not have pictures of this?
Unlike Clinton at least he is doing it with someone on his level, not a young intern he is way above on the power scale.
I never cared for him at all, and found the progressive blogesphere’s fascination with him mistaken, he is to me and always has been a transparent snake oil salesman.
MSM covers all manner misinformation, but to cover this without proof is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I also think the wife situation. Much of the mainstream media, at least the D.C. based media, probably knowS her to some degree and respectS her, and with her being ill might this all might be part of the reason.
Comment by cooper @ 7/24/2008 - 2:26 am
Extra will have Ms Hunter on their show and she will say, no affair, just friends and she worked for him up until he announced he was running for President.
Will she be telling the truth, perhaps, but none of you will ever truly know unless there was a camera in the hotel room. Mind your own business, because if
anyone really and truly cared about his wife and his
family reading this story it wouldn’t have been published. It’s just mean, the fact that his wife is
at death’s door, should be a big enough fact to lay off this man, who is truly trying to do some good.
Comment by Lee @ 7/24/2008 - 3:50 am
I’m certainly no a apologist for the Enquirer, but how friggin’ stupid would they have to be to deliberately slander a nationally known, and very successful (despite being a total douche-bag) trial lawyer?
If there’s nothing to this, he could (& would) sue them out of existence in a heart-beat.
My bet is he’s re-counting his (mis)steps to estimate how much evidence (pictures & phonecons) they might have against him.
Comment by Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg @ 7/24/2008 - 8:22 am
It’s seems incredibly suspicious that they have no pictures - the Enquirer says there were seven of their people there, and what, they all have cell phones from 1999? Not to mention the circumstances that they describe, where some random guy books hotel rooms and then drives Edwards to the hotel. even if he was actually there, it’s possible he was set up. The Enquirer and other tabs manufacture collisions like this all the time.
Comment by Ryan @ 7/24/2008 - 9:57 am
“It’s seems incredibly suspicious that they have no pictures”
It is, but I bet they do have pictures. It’s mo’ delicious to let Edwards respond (deny) the charge, and then release damning photos.
Comment by Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg @ 7/24/2008 - 11:24 am
I followed the Craig story, Vitter & Spitzer stories because I saw those as a more direct hypocricy… respectively anti-gay, pro-abstinence and anti-brothel politicians who said one thing while actively keeping their other hand in the pot.
Edwards, on the other hand, I’m not familiar with being a marriage advocate of any kind, or denigrating infidelity in any way as a politician. While his decision (if true) would be galling, I don’t see it as a direct hypocrisy… more as a horrible (and unfortunately common) mistake that may destroy his family in the process. Horrible, but doesn’t really affect me in any way.
Would it hurt his credibility? Sure, but lots of successful people have made the mistake of an affair, and have later come to terms with their mistakes, and their families. While it would probably hurt his chances as a presidential candidate, he could still survive as local politician for years.
Comment by alchemist @ 7/24/2008 - 11:27 am
Riiight alchemist. A man who has pledged total devotion to his wife as she suffers from the devastating effects of cancer will not be viewed as hypocrite for cheating on her and having a love child.
I’m surprised at you. You’ve gone through some pretty amazing lengths to try to excuse away liberal wrongness before, but I can’t believe you’d write something like you just did. I figured there were limits. I guess I was wrong.
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 7/24/2008 - 11:32 am
Huh? I guess I just don’t see it as liberal wrongness, I see it as a personal failing. He failed his wife, he failed his family. If this incident is true, which it probably is, he screwed up big time, and I’m not “excusing” anything. I just don’t see what that has to do with me.
This is different than spitzer, who battled brothels and actively skirted the law (and his own position) so that he could hire prostitutes. That’s a violation of his job, and therefore a fire-able offense (if not a prison sentence).
Let me put it this way, let’s say you have a good coworker with a bad marraige. If he cheats on his wife, that’s usually not grounds for him losing his job; assuming he shows up every day, keeps his work together etc. Now, if he’s cheating on his wife on the company dollar… he gets canned immediately.
Should we expect politicians to act better than the rest of “us” (I mean Americans in general… I would never cheat on my wife). I expect less and am still disappointed. This scandal seems pretty ordinary by political standards.
Comment by alchemist @ 7/24/2008 - 12:45 pm
He can if he is an officer in the military. You are expected to hold a specific code of ethics. Why shouldn’t we expect at least that much from our politicians??
Yep, especially for liberal Dems. - Lorica
Comment by Lorica @ 7/24/2008 - 1:37 pm
Alchemist wrote:
And:
I would point out that Edwards tried to use his wife’s cancer as a fundraising gimmick. That would make allegations of infidelity (if true) very legitimate as an issue. Personally I thought that the pants-down Presidency of William Jefferson Clinton would have cured us of the notion that character does not matter in our political leaders, but it appears that I was wrong.
At any rate - why is the MSM giving Edwards a free ride on this when they published phony allegations about John McCain and Vicki Iseman?
Comment by Mwalimu Daudi @ 7/24/2008 - 2:12 pm
“I would point out that Edwards tried to use his wife’s cancer as a fundraising gimmick.”
And while having previously sued physicians (like the ones trying to save his wife) out of existence so he could live in a 25,000 sq. ft house.
Yup. He’s clearly no hypocrite.
Comment by Snoop-Diggity-DANG-Dawg @ 7/24/2008 - 3:00 pm
So Alchemist, if I can be forgiven for simplifying your argument, Edwards’ personal behavior is only an issue if he has publicly opposed it previously?
Edwards has built his public persona as one who fights and sacrifices for others less fortunate than he. By itself that’s evidence of staggering hypocrisy, coming from a rich trial lawyer living as he does. It’s of the same nature as Al Gore’s stern nanny lectures about the failings of we little people, which he delivers from his Olympian heights, having ridden an air conditioned SUV from his Gulfstream.
In the first place, any public figure who puts himself on a pedestal and proclaims his superior nature immediately scores major points on suspicion of being a fraud. Like Cary Condit, he has unmasked himself as a reprehensible creep.
Comment by Steve Skubinna @ 7/24/2008 - 3:55 pm
To paraphrase the late Ann Richards - They say the baby was born with a silver comb in its mouth.
Comment by Don L @ 7/25/2008 - 7:52 am
Why shouldn’t we expect at least that much from our politicians??
We could, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Every personality profile I’ve ever seen puts those who are likely to run for office as (types of) adrenaline junkies. The same thing that leads them to succeed in the political arena also leads them to much higher rates of alcohol abuse, corruption, white-collar theft & infidelity. For example: It’s well known that the DNC & RNC hold large parties during their presidential conferences… staffed with high class prostitutes. Unfortunately, what politicians say & what they do tends to be miles apart. (That’s not very shocking, really)
I would point out that Edwards tried to use his wife’s cancer as a fundraising gimmick.
That is a completely fair point. And this alone will come back to bite him more than anything else. On that note, he does deserve to be dragged over hot coals.
In general though, if a politicians personal indiscretions are 1)legal are 2)seperate from their public office, I usually try not to care. Outside of the job, they have the right to screw up their own lives as long as they don’t screw up on government time.
For example: If Bush or Cheney were discovered in an affair, I wouldn’t care. They haven’t staked their reputation on ‘morality’ (well, maybe Bush a little in 2000). That’s directly different from, say the Craig story, where he campaigned against homosexuality while dabbling in his own time.
Comment by alchemist @ 7/25/2008 - 7:52 am
On a more serious note. I’m quite disappointed in those of us who have bought into the “it’s just sex” mentality, so it really doesn’t matter as long as there’s no real evil -like hypocrisy. Let’s analyze what happens here. The man, a seeker of the highest office in the land, has just fathered a bastard, but that’s no big deal “these days” of sexual license and pursuit. Forget the fact that he violated the sacred trust he vowed to his wife (and possibly to his God) He, in short, is a deceiver, a liar, radically untrustworthy and disloyal to do such to “one he loves” What would such a man do to you -whom he doesn’t know or really care about -beyond your vote. Has relative morality so dulled out sense of right or wrong, that it matters not anymore is we elect someone with a “total lack of character?”
The Clinton election raised this issue by asking out loud if “Character really mattered” and America laughed at it. It has come home to roost as the (GOP) party who has just dumped the “social conservative” wing applauds a Maverick (disloyalty) man who also dumped on his avowed loved one when he so decided he could getr a better deal and stands ready to dump on America a bit less than the messiah with his pandering to the borders and global warming crowd.
We reap what we sow.
Comment by Don L @ 7/25/2008 - 8:15 am
So just jumping around online, I found this marriage survey… 54% of people who got divorced did so (at least partially) because of marraige infidelity. Just ballparking it, if 50% of marriages end in divorce, and 50% of divorces are caused by infedelity, that means (at least) one in every 4 marriages contains infidelity.
Should infidelity be considered “normal”. No, it’s still a horrible thing. At the same time, it doesn’t make sense demonize everyone who screws up on this path. Do you have any friends who have ever cheated? I have, and although I was dissapointed in them, the loss of their family became the most painful (and most deserving) wound they had ever faced. In general, I don’t see any reason to add salt.
Comment by alchemist @ 7/25/2008 - 10:39 am
Alchemist, your position simply makes no sense. You are all over the map trying to justify your lack of willingess to call Edwards a hypocrite (assuming for purposes of discussion that the story is true). Why can’t you just call something for what it is?
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 7/25/2008 - 10:49 am
And this is why we have the elected officials we have. Thanks Alchemist folks like yourself who continue to vote for these fools because “they are doing a good job” are the reason we have a government full of power hungry idiots. Also using this logic, then what is your problem with Craig??? He was in Minnesota when he did what he did, wasn’t on official time. Yeah yeah yeah “his hypocrisy”, according to you we should expect this kind of thing from our politicans. I agree with Sister, your logic on this is all over the board, and it is the logic of someone who has surrendered to anothers will, and will do anything to defend it.
Absolutely Don!! Clinton did wonderful things, if you were China or North Korea. For the country he was actually elected to represent, all he did was give us was scandal after scandal.
Also, this isn’t about the pretty boy as much as it is an idictment of the MSM. Just compare how many stories about McCain’s supposed adultry, and how many about this situation. If Johnny really cared about his wife, then he do his very best to stay away from the appearance of evil. Which means he should be by the side of his dying wife at wee hours of the morning. But I guess that kind of devotion is just “too much to ask” from this politician. - Lorica
Comment by Lorica @ 7/25/2008 - 1:35 pm
Rohh Rooooo Roerge!!!
I guess we have confirmation people!!
LINK
Comment by Lorica @ 7/25/2008 - 1:39 pm
For clarification purposes; I agree that Edwards campaigned under his “my family is strong despite fallbacks” while simultaneously undermining his family. That’s scummy. 2 points to whoever pointed that out.
In general though, yes, affairs don’t really bug me. Hell, I expect them. Throughout history, politicians have had affairs. Scummy, yes, disgusting, completely, and I don’t really expect that to change now. We are in a society that loves reading dirt, and news organizations spend more time digging up adulterous dirt on politicians than they do exploring issues of racqueteering, fraud, white collar crime etc etc etc. All of which I consider more important.
Comment by alchemist @ 7/25/2008 - 2:27 pm
I have chosen to report on it on my blog since the story is well documented with first-hand accounts of the reporters who confronted Edwards. In addition, Fox News has corroborated the incident with the security guard who responded to the scene.
Edwards lied about the affair when he was a presidential candidate. Now he is considered to be on Obama’s short list for VP ot AG. He has mislead reporters in Houston and New Orleans who asked him about it in the days following the incident. This is a valid story that speaks directly to Edwards’ character, honesty and judgement.
The LA Times editor instructing the paper’s bloggers to not discuss it is instructive of an even larger story-the attempt of the msm to keep the story under wraps.
gary fouse
fousesquawk
Comment by gary fouse @ 7/26/2008 - 4:23 pm