Fallout from the John Edwards affair confession

Here’s a few things that have been reported in the aftermath of His Royal Phoniness’ ^[1]  affair confession ^[2] on ABC’s Nightline program Friday night:

• Elizabeth Edwards posted her own statement ^[3] on the Daily Kos blog
• In spite of the fact that John Edwards said he’d be willing to take a paternity test to settle the “who’s the father” question, The Other Woman aka Rielle Hunter has said ^[4] “no” to the idea.  Hmmm.
• Edwards’ campaign chair Fred Baron stepped forward ^[5] and admitted that he has been giving “financial assistance” to Hunter and the alleged father of the baby, Andrew Hunter (also an Edwards campaign staffer) and even paid for Hunter to relocate from NC to California.  He has said Edwards didn’t know about any financial arrangements.
• Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton’s Communications Director, said in an interview ^[6] with ABC News this weekend that had Edwards affair been revealed before the start of the primary season, it’s likely Hillary Clinton would have won Iowa and gone on to win the nomination.  Oookay. 

I was thinking this weekend about the gall it took for Edwards to try and run again for president knowing full well and good about the big skeleton that was in his closet.  His belief that he could weather through the primary season without the mainstream media hounding him until he admitted his affair is a testament in and of itself to his understanding of just how much they were doing their usual duty to Democrats by covering for him.   

And another thing – what if he had won the nomination, and here it is two weeks before the Dem National Convention?   Would the Democrat party be furious with him for having the affair in the first place – especially while his wife continued to battle cancer, or would their main concern be “How the hell could he have done this to us when we are so close to taking back the WH?”   According to FoxNews ^[7], Democrats at this stage of the game are merely “shrugging off” as not a big deal questions about the affair as they prepare to crown Barack Obama as their nominee. 

But we know if the shoe was on the other foot …