This Week in the Mercury
« Sweaterwatch '07 | Main | Sisters' Nolen Responds To SF Chronicle Article On Sit/Lie: Compares it to "JIM CROW LAW" »
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
News John Edwards Love Child Scandal—Developing
Posted by on Tue, Dec 18 at 4:02 PM
While his wife has cancer, no less. If the National Enquirer is bullshitting as usual, I hope they’ve got some SHIT HOT attorneys.
DOING THE ROUNDS: NATIONAL ENQUIRER ARTICLE…
Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign, The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.Sources have come forward to charge that the “other woman” previously worked on Edwards’ campaign and followed the 54-year-old candidate on trips across the U.S.
A source close to the woman, whose name is being withheld by The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, says that she confessed to having an affair in phone calls and emails, saying that her work with Edwards soon exploded into romance. The shocking allegation — if proven true — could devastate the Democratic hopeful’s campaign, especially because John’s devoted wife Elizabeth is locked in a desperate battle with breast cancer.
“The affair started about 18 months ago,” a friend says the woman confessed to her. “When they met at a bar, sparks flew immediately.
“She never expected it would turn sexual since John is married and is running for President. But it soon did — and she fell for him.”
In one bombshell e-mail message provided to The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, the woman confesses to a friend she’s “in love with John,” but it’s “difficult because he is married and has kids.”
In another e-mail, she writes: “Last night and this a.m., he actually has amazed me. He is a great man. My heart is loud and my head is silenced.”
Disclosed her friend: “She initially confided in a few of her closest pals that she was sleeping with ‘a married man named John.’
“It became clear the married man was John Edwards. They got together whenever they could, mostly at hotels where Edwards and his campaign staff stayed.”
The woman later spelled it out in a phone call to her pal and talked openly about having an affair with Edwards.
The friend says the woman told her that she “had a crush on John. One thing led to another, and they soon ended up in bed together. But she knew there was no way he was going to leave Elizabeth, a wife battling cancer.”
The ex-Senator’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. This past March, the couple announced her cancer had returned, but said his campaign would continue.
His spokesman said that allegations Edwards had an affair are “false, absolute nonsense.”
The woman’s friend told The NATIONAL ENQUIRER: “As the affair went on, she said that both she and John began to feel real guilty and they decided to end it.”
The ENQUIRER made exhaustive but unsuccessful attempts to reach the woman for comment regarding this article but she would not return phone calls or emails or come to the door of the house where she is staying.
Comments
It's my understanding there are libel laws in this country, though, right?
Bat Boy is made up. This is potentially damaging to a real life politician.
Enquirer cover = John Edwards' face in every supermarket check-out line in America. I'll bet a fistfull of Monopoly money that he takes Iowa.
Oh, and Dave -- I don't know about bat boy, but bigfoot is absolutely real. Pretty sure ODFW keeps counts.
The Enquirer got it right with former presidential candidate Gary Hart, and the paper's reportage effectively disintegrated his campaign. The paper also broke a good bit of news during the O.J. Simpson trial; whether it's actual news is debatable, but the Enquirer's facts were correct.
That said, it's had a couple of high-profile retractions, including the one where the Enquirer had to completely retract and apologize for its story about a gay sex ring within the family of kidnap-elebrity Elizabeth Smart.
Is this true? Who knows - yet - but I do note that there's nothing in that headline that says, absolutely, that John Edwards is responsible for the pregnancy in the right photograph.
(BTW, Matt - the headline is current, but the story you're quoting is two months old and has been denied by Edwards himself. Nothing in it was about a pregnancy, just an affair. The story that goes with this headline doesn't seem to have been made public yet.)
The Enquirer published this two months ago. Is the Mercury office combing through its tabloid backlog today?
Also, US libel laws require a tougher standard than Britain's. From what I understand, the claimant is required to prove that the defendant knew what they said was false when they said it (tough to prove), and that they said it with the intent to cause harm (also tough).
James, see this in comment 4: (BTW, Matt - the headline is current, but the story you're quoting is two months old and has been denied by Edwards himself. Nothing in it was about a pregnancy, just an affair. The story that goes with this headline doesn't seem to have been made public yet.)
And I never "comb my backlog". I wax it.
Oh, I see. I just did a Google search for "John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal" and came up with the October story.
So did I. As Kevin points out, all we have from the Drudge site is a photo of a pregnant woman and the words "woman linked to candidate is pregnant and in hiding." But that's pretty strong. Possible outs include:
a.she's pregnant with someone else's kid
b.this is a hoax
c.the story is plain incorrect
d.er...
Thing is, when Drudge runs something like this, it tends to be significant. He built a reputation on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Rielle Hunter! She's like Edwards' Travis Huntington:
Rielle Hunter was a campaign worker paid $114,000 to make web commercials touting his virtues, a position which reportedly required her to follow John Edwards around the country. She has been surprisingly unavailable for comment, although our sources say her cheeks are looking rosy.
Aaand we're on the second page at Google for "John Edwards Scandal."
I always thought he had shifty eyes. From the NE:
The woman linked to Presidential candidate John Edwards in a cheating scandal is more than six months pregnant and telling a close confidante that Edwards is the father of her unborn child, The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER's political bombshell comes just weeks after Edwards emphatically denied having an affair with Rielle Hunter, who formerly worked on his campaign.
But The ENQUIRER has now confirmed not only that Rielle is pregnant, but she is also living in Chapel Hill, N.C. in a gated community, just a few streets away from Andrew Young, who has been a key official in Edwards' campaign.
Young has been in charge of looking after Hunter, according to sources, and she has been careful to stay out of sight during Edwards' campaign. A former Director of Operations for Edwards' campaign, Young's last official position with the campaign was North Carolina Finance Director.
He left that job about a month ago — nearly the same time Rielle relocated from the New Jersey area to Chapel Hill.
In a bizarre twist, Young, a 41-year-old married man with young children, now claims HE is the father of Reille's baby.
But others are skeptical about his claim and talk of a political cover up is heating up.
Reille, when contacted in person by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER, denied that she was Reille Hunter. Later, she hired a lawyer and issued a statement, saying that Young is the father.
But a source close to the 43-year-old divorcee says Rielle has told a far different story privately.
"Rielle told me she had a secret affair with Edwards. When she found out that she was pregnant she said he was the father."
Rielle loves Edwards and will do anything to protect him, the source said.
The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has obtained exclusive photos of a visibly pregnant Rielle and learned from close sources that she has been in phone contact with Edwards. That information has not been denied by anyone.
"Rielle told me while Andrew Young is a friend, she's not romantically involved with him," says the source close to Rielle.
The Enquirer is owned by a Clinton donor.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1007/The_Clintonite_who_owns_National_Enquirer.html
Given the history, there's no way I can believe
ANYTHING that comes from a Clinton (nor a Bush,
Edwards, McCain, Kulongoski, Goldschmidt or any politician currently so employed). The creepy posers who play this game and insult the general intelligence by feeding us this shite are just spitting in our faces. And we deserve it, because less than 50% of us care enough to even mail in a ballot. Where's my fiddle? I smell smoke.
This really isn't suprising. I mean, this is a political race. People always dig up dirt to throw at their rivals. And when it comes to democrats, they literally stop at nothing. They'll probably even pay a pregnant woman to go out and pretend to be the "knocked up" chick who had an affair. Sure, this could be true, or this could be false. Though, honestly, I don't put my trust in the Inquirer for anything. I wouldn't doubt it if some other tabloid says that Edwards has an ALIEN love child.
OK. Woman is pregnant, woman hires lawyer, names father of baby. Father's not John Edwards.
But some "friend" of this woman says privately that this woman says Edwards is the father.
Nothing but a smear timed to hurt Edwards in Iowa. Pretty disgusting, really.
Let's not rush to judgment about Edwards. I think the NE tried this same stuff w/ Kerry in 2004, but that scandal was dismissed. However, I would also not be surprised if this IS TRUE; the NE broke the story of Gennifer Flowers & then-Governor Bill Clinton in 1992.
Enquirer owned by a Clinton donor....Hmmmmmmm.....
Could this just be another piece of the Hillary Slime Machine, like Robert Shaheen saying that Barack Obama sold drugs, or Bob Kerrey repeatedly calling Obama "Barack Hussein Obama" to emphasize his middle name?
Commentators are saying this would only benefit Obama. I've got to say I'm surprised at your skepticism. It's as though us "journalists" have nothing better to do than chuck slime at people...oh, hang on...I get it.
Sorry.
That's no lady folks! That's Dana Carver doing the Garth Algar thang again. For the loved of God, gimmee some eye bleach! Bet Garth is stunned & confused...& sore...
The right-wing Enquirer would like nothing better than to see John Edwards and Barack Obama crash and burn, so that Hillary will win the Democratic nomination. Because she cannot win.
But this news doesn't benefit Hillary. It benefits Obama.
Everyone in North Carolina knows Edwards has been screwing around with different women for decades. Only blind libtards who think sunshine radiates from the anal cavity of Little John could have been so blind as to not notice. Who knows, maybe they did, and helped to facilitate the affairs. In North Carolina, John Edwards is HATED. For six years he fucked every citizen in the state.
www.moronsinchapelhill.com
The Enquirer is certainly not right wing. They broke the story about Rush Limbaugh being addicted to drugs, remember? And they've done loads of stories about the Bush twins'antics.
The fact is, their track record is impressive with political stories. Try Googling "National Enquirer political scandal."
I bet Hillary paid this woman to have John Edwards' baby.
BatBoy is the Weekly World News dickweeds... The National Enquirer is the Newspaper of Record for the Democratic Party
When will we have a political climate where it doesn't matter if the politician has fucked anything? What does this have to do with running the country? I'm not saying I like Edwards, but he could sleep with a 2 year-old [dog] at this point and I'd prefer him to Bush.
Okay, is there someone out there who is stupid enough to believe that is there were one grain of truth to this "story" that Elizabeth Edwards would be on the campaign trail for John? I mean, please, Elizabeth is one of the most forthright women I have ever known. This is a shameless attempt at a smear-an attempt to change the subject at a time when Edwards is surging. This has Mark Penn's finger prints all over it-you know, Mr. "I don't want to talk about Obama's cocaine use..." oops....I don't want that man anywhere near the Oval. I'll say this, it's awfully bold for the Clinton campaign, no less, to push forward an "affair" story.
I want everyone to stop this nonsense...there is room in John Edward's mansion for an extra wife and baby...Romney said he had no problem with it...Bill Clinton said he didn't think John had it in him...Obama now calls Edwards sexy.....
It's amazing how a smear like this comes out, and everyone blames Hillary. If I were Edwards, I'd have planted the story, knowing few people would believe it and it would galvanize people against my rival.
Having said that, I'm a paranoid gambling addict. Although Edwards does run hedge funds, maybe he is, too.
John Edwards is pro-abortion....so what's the problem?
Was this the big story that was allegedly being held by the Los Angeles Times per the story in http://www.onecitizenspeaking.com/2007/12/john-edwards-al.html
"If the National Enquirer is bullshitting as usual."
When has the National Enquirer ever bullshitted? You're thinking of the Weekly World News. The NE is generally accurate, but you have to read what they actually wrote very carefully. There may be inuendos there, but if they don't come out and say something, it may not be true. Their style of writing is very clever in this respect.
I especially like watching Drudge's headline. It's gone from question mark, to headline without link, to headline that led to a blank enquirer page, to no link.
I think he's having an internal struggle with his attorneys...
The problem is, it's the same mouth-breathers who read the Enquirer that are the so-called "undecided" voters. They don't pay a lick of attention to politics unless something is sensationalized and then they have the audacity to cast their uninformed idiot ballot (or not depending on what's on TV). I mean who besides the ultra-rich do you think voted for Bush?
Drudge = biggest right-wing hack. He gives the Internet a bad name. That's saying something.
"Mouth breathers" is a great expression. It's like I said earlier—why do we even bother holding elections in this country? We should just nuke Iowa and be done with it.
There's a bumper sticker for you: "Nuke Iowa." Put it on your chevy, right next to the one that says "Fuck the troops."
See how long you last.
If I was Edwards girlfriend, I'd keep a very low profile. John Edwards would do ANYTHING to silence her because sooner or later she will want to accept money for an interview or book. It's human nature. And, it could be sexual harrassment.
I JUST FOUND THIS!
http://www.webcastr.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&task=videodirectlink&id=752
Before he was running for President, John Edwards made a series of short documentaries that later vanished from the internet...until now. Produced by Reille Hunter and Mimi Hockman for Midline Groove Productions.
Ok, so I went there to watch these videos. Rielle Hunter is not exactly a scintillating video director - rather bland campaign docu-style stuff. (But I did find a lot of other good stuff on that Webcastr.com site - check out the music stuff, the green energy channel, architecture clips or even stuff like science and a 'Black Hole laser' video that I had never seen before, for example.) We'll see what happens.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).
Our Friends
- UrbanHonking
- Your Daily Awesome
- Portland Metroblogs
- Hype Machine
- Lelo in NoPo
- Furious Nads!
- Oregon Media Insiders
- Huffington Post
- Loaded Orygun
- Food Fight Grocery
- Jesus Christ's Blog
- Willamette Week
- BlueOregon
- Pampelmoose
- The Etchasketchist
Our Enemies
- Russian Amputee Brides
- God Hates Fags (Westboro Baptist Church)
- Portland Indy Media
- Oregon Republican Party
- Jack Bog's Blog
- The Stranger
- Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers
- Any Dumbass Still Using MySpace
- Portland Monthly
- Life Decisions International
- Courtney Taylor-Taylor
- The Earthly Minions of Emperor Klaktu
All contents © 2006 Index Publishing • Privacy Policy • Contact Info • Production Guidelines
Yeah, and bat boy is real too.... not to mention those bigfoot sightings.