Edwards: It’s the Cover-Up, Stupid
The question "What was he thinking?" is inadequate to describe such dangerous stupidity.
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.
Hunter’s lawyer, in issuing his Saturday statement to the Washington Post, said that his client would not take a test because she “wishes to maintain her privacy” — a transparently flimsy excuse. Protestations about privacy are dubious, coming from a woman who spent more than a decade pursuing a Hollywood career, and the Enquirer’s reporting, if false, would be equally libelous of her.
In his own statement Friday admitting the affair, and claiming that it had ended in 2006, Edwards declared himself “willing to take any test necessary” to disprove his paternity of Frances Quinn Hunter. Almost immediately, ABC News reported that Rielle Hunter’s younger sister challenged the Democrat to do so, saying, “Somebody must stand up and defend my sister.”
Hunter’s daughter was born Feb. 27; allowing a typical 40 weeks for full-term gestation, this means a conception date around May 23, 2007. To say that Edwards fathered her child is to say that Hunter was the sort of woman who would continue an affair with the married former North Carolina senator a full two months after his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, announced that her breast cancer had recurred.
In December, after the Enquirer reported Hunter’s pregnancy, she issued a statement denouncing the story as “innuendo and lies,” and Edwards campaign staffer Andrew Young issued a statement claiming to be the baby’s father. Young’s paternity claim wasn’t offered until after the Edwards campaign’s former director of operations was confronted by an Enquirer reporter outside the rental home in North Carolina where Hunter was living, prompting one “political insider” to tell the tabloid, “If you have an alternate explanation for a scandal, you don’t take 24 hours to offer that explanation, let alone days or weeks.”
Tabloid Facts vs. Edwards Lies
From the moment the Enquirer reported the Edwards affair — in an October article that didn’t identify Hunter or mention her pregnancy — the scandal has followed a consistent pattern: Edwards and his defenders lie and deny, while the Enquirer is always proven right on the facts.
Despite the Democrat’s denunciations, the “tabloid trash” clearly has the better record of truth-telling, and never once has Edwards — or any lawyer for Hunter or Young — gone to court to contest the Enquirer’s reporting. Why? Because filing a civil action for libel would put the Edwards camp into the legal process known as “discovery,” where the Enquirer’s lawyers could require Edwards, Hunter, and anyone else involved to provide whatever documents and other information were relevant to the facts of case. Sworn depositions would be taken under penalty of perjury.
Having spent several months engaging in an elaborate cover-up of his wrongdoing, Edwards is in no position to withstand the scrutiny of the discovery process, which would make the whole thing — every e-mail, every phone message, every canceled check — a matter of public record. Any attempt to hide or destroy evidence would be grounds for a charge of contempt or obstruction of justice. And DNA testing to determine the paternity of Rielle Hunter’s baby would be mandated by court order.
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Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party . A frequent contributor to the American Spectator, he blogs at The Other McCain.
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42 Comments
1. Rachel Peepers:If I hear one more bad word about John Edwards, I sware I’ll explode.
One, he had the affair while Elizabeth was in remission.
What’s more, as Barack’s spiritual advisor, the Reverend Wright commented, “It’s obvious to me that the lack of sexual activity was more than John Edwards could take.”
Barack’s wife, Michelle, agreed, adding, “If Barack and I stopped having a physical relationship and Barack started working closely with someone as vivacious as Ms. Hunter, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a slight dalliance. Of course, if he did, I’d boil his beans in oil.”
Aug 12, 2008 - 1:24 am 2. Jarhead:“She is dumb and uninformed except on New Age stuff and astrology.”
That made me laugh hard. I suspected that of most John Edwards supporters.
Aug 12, 2008 - 4:12 am 3. ice:This is the kind of story I read blogs for. One wonders how people can get a steady diet of cable, network and newspapers and survive. Well I guess I did about ten years ago but I was a lot less informed.
Aug 12, 2008 - 4:29 am 4. Moultrie:A highly successful Trial Lawyer who conjures up dead infants to sway juries has affair with ageless new age hippie bimbo…certainly not of interest to the Moron Media. I see the John Edwards movie in the works, Son of a Millworker, friend of a Light Worker.
Aug 12, 2008 - 4:50 am 5. Snoop Diggity-DANG-Dawg:“At this point, the tabloids could print the wildest gossip about Edwards without fear of libel litigation.”
Exactly correct, and I hope the National Enquirer does exactly that. They could say he’s a mutant, militant-lesbian from Mars and he couldn’t do anything about it.
Aug 12, 2008 - 5:02 am 6. Valerie:All I can infer from these facts is that she has told him the baby is his, and he believes her.
Aug 12, 2008 - 5:11 am 7. gus3:This man wanted to be in charge of The Football?
I wouldn’t trust him to be the water boy.
Aug 12, 2008 - 5:18 am 8. David:Dear Moderator,
It might be helpful to instruct our readers that, as they are typing, when a word is underlined in red it means the words is misspelled. Would it be possible to install a additional spell-check button or a preview option on the comment site? The misspelled words are distracting and reflect badly on the intelligence of the blog in general.
David
Aug 12, 2008 - 7:14 am 9. TomJW:Nixon is the example here. He didn’t break in at WaterGate. He tried to cover it up. He had to resign the presidency. How can anyone, particularly a politician, be so dense as to not know that?
Rachel Peepers:
If I hear one more bad word about John Edwards, I sware I’ll explode.
Aug 12, 2008 – 1:24 am
Why? Are you dumb enough to believe the low-life lawyer? He’s still covering up. He shouldn’t be believed until he comes completely clean about his lying, his payments to Hunter, and has the paternity test. Your brave lawyer threw her, the single mom he created, under the bus and called her a Dem politician groupie. He used a married staff member to lie that he fathered the child. Edwards has shown that channelling the unborn in court was actually the height of his moral being. He can’t be damned enough.
I’m with Ann Coulter on this anyway. Who knew he was hetero?
Aug 12, 2008 - 8:03 am 10. Debbie, Columbia, SC:Why the big fuss over this? Infidelity seems to be the NORM for politicians; just ask John McCain and Bill Clinton. Their affairs didn’t seem to hurt them much. But then again, I don’t think either has actually admitted that they are liars and cheats. How can anyone forget Bill Clinton’s famous line, “I did not have sex with that woman!”
Aug 12, 2008 - 8:21 am 11. ReCon USMC:Wow , John Edward’s ” Story gets wilder and wilder . Even his wife’s knowing the facts about the affair still Praised him . Now there is a true Hillary Clinton styled Liberal wife if I have ever seen one too many .
Aug 12, 2008 - 8:34 am 12. schnargley:A true Conservative women would have cleaned John Edward’s clock and he would have to hide all the Knives in the house or sleep in a locked door room alone !
His Mistress is a real Air head to make matters far worse if that is at all possible we are learning .
There is some ‘’serious explaining ” left . One suspects this story is really going to real get nasty about all the money and homes she got for free .
One of America’s highest paid Top Ambulance chaser’s ever is turning out to make Bill Clinton’s love life look like a minor desecration by a fellow Liberal and even dumber .
Just think this man was almost VP of this country and ran for President twice . He was also Father of the year 2007 .
Presented to him by a Liberal group in
San Francisco .
I guess that goes alone with Al Gore winning the “” Nobel Peace Prize ” because He said the world is getting warmer even though he is not a Scientist and knows nothing about climate patterns for the last 5 Million years …. Huh ?
Boring…yawn….nothing here folks keep moving…Enough on Edwards! Keep your noses out of his bedroom and his pants. Who cares what he does with his shmeckel? It’s none of your business or the press’ses! At least the MSM understands this. JFK served our country brilliantly while shtuping everything that moved within two feet of him (at least if it was female, because we were still somewhat sexually repressed back then,) beginning on Inauguration Day in the White House while Jackie O. soundly slept in the next room. None of our business.
What is important is leadership, hope, a change we can believe in. We need another JFK and I don’t care what the hell he does as long as he takes care of me and my needs.
Aug 12, 2008 - 8:54 am 13. John Edwards Scandal: Rielle Hunter Editing Her Own Wikipedia Page - UPDATED | DBKP - The Worldwide Leader in Weird:[...] Stacy McCain, Pajamas Media, echoes our own LBG in “Edwards: It’s the Cover-Up, Stupid“. What little doubt remained that John Edwards is the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby [...]
Aug 12, 2008 - 9:19 am 14. tanstaafl:“What was he thinking?” is inadequate to describe such dangerous stupidity.
He wasn’t thinking. He was feeling pretty after a $400 haircut, with Rielle flattering and flirting as is evident from her Webisodes “following John”.
LINK: Feeling pretty and other things, too
Aug 12, 2008 - 9:34 am 15. Susan Katz Keating:Re: “Keep your noses out of his bedroom and his pants. Who cares what he does with his shmeckel? It’s none of your business or the press’ses!” Not so. A man who can look his wife and family in the eye, day after day after day, while leading a secret duplicitous life, is a man who will defraud on any and all levels.
Aug 12, 2008 - 10:06 am 16. dexter:Did Edwards learn nothing from slick willie.The proper answer for democrats is yes I fathered the child,but I did not have sex with that woman.Cigar anyone?
Aug 12, 2008 - 10:35 am 17. TomJW:schnargley:
Boring…yawn….nothing here folks keep moving…Enough on Edwards! Keep your noses out of his bedroom and his pants. Who cares what he does with his shmeckel? It’s none of your business or the press’ses! At least the MSM understands this.
Aug 12, 2008 – 8:54 am
That’s a lie. The MSM was more than happy to make stuff up about McCain having an affair based on old rumours. The reason the MSM didn’t cover this is because it happened to a Dem. If that s.o.b. hadn’t used his wife’s cancer as a shield to deflect criticism during the campaign, you might have had something to complain about. Now it’s just reporting on what a detestable schmuck he is.
Aug 12, 2008 - 11:11 am 18. tanstaafl:Cigar anyone?
A new variation on the immaculate conception.
The point made in Mr. McCain’s article as to why the trial lawyer hasn’t pursued any action against The National Enquirer bears repeating.
It would open said trial lawyer up to full disclosure.
Aug 12, 2008 - 11:42 am 19. Lynn:Apparently she wasn’t raised too well. The horsey set is buzzing with this : From todays New York Post : ” Also getting renewed attention is a November 1992 Sports Illustrated article about a series of killings of thoroughbred horses. The brutal murders were committed for insurance purposes by a hit man who learned his trade from Hunter’s late father, James Druck.
Druck, a Florida lawyer, in 1982 taught Tommy “The Sandman” Burns how to rig wires to electrocute Druck’s prize show jumper, Henry the Hawk, for a $150,000 insurance payout, the magazine reported ”
Aug 12, 2008 - 12:24 pm 20. MacGhil: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.
Well done, RS!
I don’t care what the hell he does as long as he takes care of me and my needs.
Have a little self-respect, why dontcha. Try taking care of yourself and your own needs.
It’s embarrassing for America and so pathetic that so many out there want handouts. Don’t you people have any dignity?
The rallying cry of the Democrats goes: “Gimme gimme gimme, I need I need I need I need!” /Bob Wiley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsUaQUW-Az0#
Boring…yawn….nothing here folks keep moving…Enough on Edwards! Keep your noses out of his bedroom and his pants. Who cares what he does with his shmeckel? It’s none of your business or the press’ses!
Except, he used his marriage, the renewal of their marriage vows, and his wife’s cancer as campaign fodder. Ergo, he made it everyone’s business.
At least the MSM understands this.
All the MSM understands is how to shill for Democrats, and they do it without shyness or remorse. Sucks for you that they’re such epic failures on that front!
55% Say Media Bias Bigger Problem Than Campaign Cash
Aug 12, 2008 - 1:46 pm 21. Canadian Neighbour:http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/55_say_media_bias_bigger_problem_than_campaign_cash
The next denial I expect to hear from Edwards is known as the “limited hangout” routine first used by Nixon’s defence team during Watergate.
Edwards will admit that yes, he did have intercourse on several occasions with Hunter but he did not insert his penis very far and he did NOT come at any time. Therefore he could not have impregnated her. Case dismissed.
Aug 12, 2008 - 2:11 pm 22. Hannah Stevens:In the meantime, bush is going to try to get rid of the Endangered Species act so the that companies, developers, miners can do what they want with the land and the animals and environment be damned. Then on another note, the FBI has declared the Anthrax case closed, the Ivins fellow is the culprit, and of course he can’t defend himself now. How convenient. And we are worried about John Edwards affair. How short sighted Americans are. And if you all are concerned with this, why not be concerned with McCain; he had an affair when his wife was ill and he left her. I think that is worse.
Aug 12, 2008 - 3:51 pm 23. tanstaafl:I think you’re full of shinola (or something) on about 5 counts, “Hannah Stevens”
John Edwards, in case you missed it, is the guy who, most recently, has incessantly preached to us as about “Two Americas”/the travesty of unwed mothers et al. and etc.
I’m not holding my breath that this point will be registering in your ideological brain waves.
Aug 12, 2008 - 6:44 pm 24. Saltherring:Hannah Stevens has it right! All this Edwards love-child talk has got to be Bushes fault, just as everything else in the world is!
Aug 12, 2008 - 7:16 pm 25. Fen:Hah. Hannah hit all the standard talking points, all bundled up in a nice package.
Only question is: is it live or is it parody? So hard to tell these days.
Aug 12, 2008 - 11:31 pm 26. Martya:An area that I think needs to be examined is the Edwards-Rielle meeting. “In the Regency bar” seems a little glib to me.
Aug 13, 2008 - 8:43 am 27. bill force:Sleazy had just finished 2004 as the loser candidate for VP. He spent many nights in many hotels and their bars and had to have been the target of many women, professionals and not. Is the Regency Hotel a good place for lonely out of town business men to pick up hookers? What does the Hotel say? How about the records of the NYPD?
THIS CAN’T BE THE FIRST TIME THAT EDWARDS PICKED A HONEY TO TRAVEL WITH HIM!! In 2003 and 2994 when Edwards was traveling a lot (and his wife wasn;t with him), he must have had a traveling companion, if for no other reason than it would be difficult to pick someone up when the urge struck.
I still say, bottom line, John and Rielle make the cutest couple. If they started dating and going out on the town in California, and the tabloids took pictures of them and wrote things about where they went and what they did, well, I’d buy all the mags at the WalMart checkout, sit down in the TV room, open a fresh bag of potato chips and consume every word, devour every issue.
I wonder who Rielle has do her hair. What am I saying? They both have beautiful hair. Maybe they should be in the movies. Oh, well. I can dream.
Aug 13, 2008 - 9:25 am 28. tanstaafl:OH MY ! What a BIG microphone you have there !
Aug 13, 2008 - 9:43 am 29. John Edwards , the name says it all !! - Page 5 - Politics:[...] If we needed anyy more reason to hate John Edwards, read this . What a cad , denying his own child , paying someone else to pretend to be the father , hiding in a washroom …the the guy who judged Bill Clinton . Typical Dem….I know Repubs have done it too … its just that Dems are better at lying , make it the norm , not the exception and praise it instead of condemming it . http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/edwards…ver-up-stupid/ [...]
Aug 13, 2008 - 10:18 am 30. Lili von Shtupp:I’m a Dem, and I’m disgusted that the MSM didn’t cover this, has no intention of covering this, and thinks they did nothing wrong by refusing to report it as long as they did.
I don’t care what Kennedy, Clinton, McCain or anyone else did. I don’t recall any of them giving flowery speeches praising monogamy. I also don’t recall any of them creating little Kennedys, Clintons or McCains without assistance of their wives.
Edwards, after all his high and mighty preaching about unwed mothers went out and created one. This ranks right up there with Larry Craig’s hypocrisy about homosexuals….possibly worse, because it doesn’t look like the ditzy broad would be able to support this child without significant handouts from Edwards’ campaign. (When I contribute to a political campaign, I expect the money to go for commercials, office supplies, that kind of thing. Not diapers and formula.)
Aug 14, 2008 - 6:01 am 31. Vivienne Avare:Johns mistress isn’t protecting her privacy she is protecting her lover/sugar daddy Edwards. No doubt they put her up to denying the paternity test! Its bad enough to cheat on a sick wife for self-gratification he is a con man. To pre- tend you’re somebody you’re not,(family man with moral values) to win an election is beyond disturbing and disgusting! Edwards a loser, bedded a loose, immoral woman, they deserve each other!
Aug 14, 2008 - 2:31 pm 32. cedarford:Lynn, thanks for the tip on Rielle’s interesting past. Her Dad James Druck sounds like a kindred trial lawyer with Edwards. Guy part-specialized in horse life insurance law, then trained at least one guy to learn how to electrocute horses for the insurance payoff.
I Googled and came up with a full ESPN article by Lester Munson on the Drucks and Tommy “the Sandman” Burns, updated for the Edwards scandal.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=munson_lester&id=3533725
James Druck died in 1990. Pity. One suspects the old horse-killing trial lawyer would have found Edwards a wonderful partner for his daughter, a chip off the old block, and a perfect new silky pony for his Daddy Girl daughter.
Aug 14, 2008 - 3:48 pm 33. tanstaafl:…a loose, immoral woman
Would it make a difference if she were an unloose, “moral” woman ?
Anyway, she was some kind of smitten, adoring woman.
Gaga Over John
Aug 14, 2008 - 4:03 pm 34. Edwards's Dead Words:[...] Robert Stacy McCain from a couple days ago: 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. [...]
Aug 15, 2008 - 5:26 am 35. Dark Helmet:Gus 3,
Never underestimate the importance of water.
The man is a liar. What more needs to be said.
Aug 15, 2008 - 11:36 am 36. Pat:“JFK served our country brilliantly . . .”
Hogwash! JFK was responsible for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, which embarrassed the U.S. and made it look incompetent and weak to the entire world. The Soviet Union was greatly emboldened by this fiasco.
In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy needed to score a some kind of victory in order to salvage his reputation and that of his country. His clumsy, flailing efforts to do so just made matters worse: he committed the U.S. to a war in Vietnam, and he dragged the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse with his mishandling of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If this passes for brilliance in your eyes, then you are a very poor judge of character.
“We need another JFK . . .”
Don’t be a fool. JFK was a blundering hack who inflicted grave damage on his country. I hope we never see his like again.
Aug 15, 2008 - 7:02 pm 37. s sommer:I am amazed that Elizabeth Edwards knew about his affair and decided to support his run, anyway. What the hell was she thinking?
Not only that, but she gave the most “adoring wife ever” routine.
How could she stand to do that? Is it an act? Is she phony, too?
He always repulsed me. My “BS” meter just went off the charts.
I feel sorry for Elizabeth and her kids, but how could she foist him on America, knowing what she knew about his behavior?
She had to know it would somehow come out. Duh!
Are they both crazy?? Power mad? Delusional?
Was providing her political support her scheme to keep him?
Love is blind, but.. HOW blind?? Wow.
And, how does a woman in her 40’s get pregnant unexpectedly?
Was Edwards entrapped by his mistress? The truth will come out.
Aug 15, 2008 - 9:02 pm 38. s sommer:Hmm.
After a bit more thought…
Maybe, Elizabeth was just using Hillary as a role model, so far as knowing about Edwards’ transgressions, but thinking that was not a problem for him running for president.
She saw all kinds of accusations thrown at Bill Clinton, but he made it to the White House.
After watching the ultimate outcome of Clinton’s “success,” you’d think she might have thought America deserves better. Why put us all through that kind of thing AGAIN?
Evidently, not.
But, look who is speaking at the Convention.
Maybe, she thought she could “rehabilitate” Edwards in record time..
And, without the pregnancy story, maybe she would have pulled it off. Maybe.
Aug 15, 2008 - 10:00 pm 39. Trochilus:At some point, Edwards is going to have to own up to a series of facts, including the considerable likelihood that the child is indeed his. None of us know for certain, but we do know that he and his campaign pals went through elaborate means to cover up this incident. The use of his PAC moneys for that purpose is criminal.
If he is the father, one question he must now be pondering is, will she be permitted to move into The House, the one that is approximately 2/3 the size of a football field?
As I recall, John has a sumptuous hang-out room or “den” for himself, within The House, one that alone has a footprint the size of most average single family room houses in the United States. Plenty of “pacing” room, one would think. Almost too much, no? No . . . definitely too much! It has to be very lonely in there!
Imagine Johnny spending his time in there, thinking about whether he continues to fund this cover story, or whether he is even plotting a “necessary” escalation to the current smokescreen, especially now that papers like the New York Times have awakened from their long slumbers and begun to actively dismantle it, trial lawyer by trial lawyer.
Aug 16, 2008 - 11:11 am 40. Vivienne Avare:OF COURSE THAT IS EDWARDS BABY. HIS MITRESS IS MILKING HIM FOR ALL SHE CAN! THEY DESERVE EACH OTHER; BOTH ARE SELF SERVING/INDULGENT AND HAVE NO MORALS! JOHN WHERE WERE YOUR BRAINS; SHE ISN’T WORTH IT?
Aug 17, 2008 - 5:23 pm 41. Pajamas Media » Elizabeth Edwards: Tragic Heroine or Enabling Conspirator?:[...] and therefore he sinned, it now seems quite evident that the tale he’s been peddling is far from the whole story (even the mainstream media are finally on to it). Given that John revealed the extent of his affair [...]
Aug 18, 2008 - 12:47 am 42. ELAINE N. RAMEY:INVESTIGATE rightpundits.com and see DADDY JOHN EDWARDS holding his baby. TOO BAD HE WASN’T MAN ENOUGH TO RESPECT HIS MARRIAGE WITH A MATURE WOMAN, ELIZABETH EDWARDS. ONE THING JOHN EDWARDS HAS PROVEN : HE DOES NOT LOVE HIS WIFE ! IN A TRUE CHRISTIAN RELATIONSHIP, LOVE IS A TRIANGLE WITH JESUS CHRIST AT THE HEAD AND NO ONE CAN TOUCH YOU! Instead Elizabth with her serious cancer condition has to be the MOMMY to this worthless simpleton! JOHN EDWARDS IS A SNAKE !
Aug 18, 2008 - 9:00 pm