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After confirming that he had an affair with a former NYC party girl-turned-filmmaker --but denying he fathered her baby-- former Senator, vice-presidential candidate, and presidential contender John Edwards spoke to both ABC News and CBS News about the situation. And, on the other side, a source described mistress Rielle Hunter as "an idiot, a fool, a moron, a faux guru, but not mean-spirited."
Edwards issued a statement (the full text after the jump), saying, "In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic." He expanded on his hubris to ABC News' Bob Woodruff, "I went from being a senator, a young senator to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences."
The National Enquirer had reported on his affair with Hunter last year, but Edwards kept denying it on the campaign trial, saying, "The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous. I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years, and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false." As the NY Times put it, his wife Elizabeth's public struggle with cancer while her husband campaigned made her a "hugely sympathetic character." Edwards claims he told his wife about the affair in 2006.
Hunter, had a baby girl on February 27, 2008, but Edwards said their affair ended too early for him to be the father. Adding to the mix, a former Edwards aide, Andrew Young, says he is the father and Edwards' national campaign finance chairman Fred Baron admitted giving money to Hunter and Young.
But Baron told the Dallas Morning News he wanted to get Hunter out of North Carolina, because of the tabloids, "I made a decision on my own, without talking to Edwards or anybody, to try to help them move to a community to try to get away from those folks." Baron added he used his own money, not campaign funds. When Edwards was asked about the National Enquirer photograph the tabloid claims to be him holding his love child, Edwards said he couldn't tell if it was him and said as a politician, he's holding many babies.
As for Hunter, she met Edwards at the Regency Hotel's bar in 2005. A source told the Post she was with a group at the time, drinking "like an old cougar fool...She's an idiot, a moron, a faux guru, but not mean-spirited." Novelist Jay McInerney met Hunter--then called Lisa Druck--back in 1987 and dated her. Thje main character in his book, "Story of My Life," was a "ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year-old who was, shall we may, inspired by [Rielle]." Hunter filmed a few campaign videos for Edwards, getting paid $100,000, though it's pointed out she had no experience making films.
Edwards said he has no plans to go the Democratic National Convention. Elizabeth Edwards has pleaded for privacy. And Hunter's sister has asked Edwards to take a paternity test, which Edwards claims he is willing to take. And here is Edwards' statement:
In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public.Former Edwards campaign workers have expressed their disappointment. Former campaign manager David Bonior said, "Thousands of friends and supporters of Senator Edwards put their faith and confidence in him, and he has let them down. Young supporters who put their time and energy into his campaign with a newfound energy and idealism for politics have been betrayed by his actions. But the issues we cared about and fought for — poverty, worker justice, clean environment and health care for all — are issues worth continuing to fight.”n the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up — feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.
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Dear Barack, I will keep you away from ladies that I deem a threat to your family for minimum wage and a health plan and together we can save the image of our party and politicians. (Little does he know I'd actually do it for free!)
Politicans that you feel have done good for the world seem to crash and burn over sex scandals.
President Clinton, Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senator John Edwards, Governor Jim McGreevy, Gary Conduit and Gary Hart.
With Youtube era, all of the recent politician scandals have tracebacks. With Spitzer he gave his last interview with Gabe Pressman and when talking about Grand Central terminal I believe it was, he talked about how it generated an emotional responce.
But at the same token, the NorthEastern Corridor has been carefully controlled by the ruling federal powers.
I still recall how the day before the Spitzer scandal went down, someone was monitoring me from a building across me on the roof and I knew something was going to happen the next day and it did. I wasn't sure what to make of it. Spitzer could have done it but maybe not. It wasn't too long after Spitzer generated a letter to the Washington Post about the banking system.
In the case of Edwards, when the National Inquirer story broke it was a shock to me at first.
We know that Edwards had the affair and lied about it now. The questionmark is the child. Edwards lost a child as we know, and I was in my head thinking that Edwards really wanted another child and so he had one out of wedlock if the child is actually his.
Why am I thinking about this and how is it relevent to my life? It really isn't but the public consciousness seems to let these stories take a life of their own and sometimes its better one just clears the air rather than let the story keep repeating.
I love how the Post is willing to throw the first stone! I bet nobody who works there has ever had an affair, right?
The campaign aide affair seems to be mandatory, doesn't it? Egos and other things inflammed....
mtauser, do you get out of the house much? Who cares?
In this day and age with news at your fingertips politicians still have affairs and still think they wouldn't be caught.
He didn't make a serious error in judgement. He made a pair of doozies. First the affair then the cover-up.
[3] Were we be being asked to vote for anyone from the Post? Were we going to put the fate of the country in their hands? Does anyone here expect high morals from Post employees all the way up the chain to Murdoch himself?
mtauser, I believe you may have problems that neither Jen or bornbred can help you with.
At least if you are a public figure and want to cheat on your wife, do it with someone good looking. This girl looks really used up. Same with Clinton - he couldn't do any better than Monica or Paula Jones?
In this sense, Spitzer had the right idea - order out.
This is just to funny for words.
I just hope that kid has a chance for a good life being that he is being raised around dopes.
@Steven--I know! How can you campaign for president and NOT think this will emerge? Jeez!
And definitely click the Dallas Morning News link-- it's amazing how these things work.
Edwards is the sideshow here. The real news is the fact that most of the major news organizations conspired to help their party and keep this scandal from the public. What else aren't they telling us?
Wonder how much Andrew Young is being paid to claim he is the father. Just goes to show that even wholesome baby-faced politicians need to keep their dick in a crate.
Wouldn't this story be more relevant if Edwards was currently running for office? He dropped out of the presidential race many months ago and isn't a serious contender for VP so, at this point, it's nothing more than celebrity gossip.
In other news, water is wet.
#14 this is is a chess game. Linking the young senator who is considered attractive and was a potential VP for Obama (or at least someone with a potential Cabinet position) to Obama, also a young senator who is considered attractive is just one additional tactic in the fear campaign from the supporters of McCain. Never mind the scandal in McCain's past about his leaving his old(er) wife for the younger, wealthier, more glamorous Cindy.
Jen said: "How can you campaign for president and NOT think this will emerge? Jeez!"
True. I think I've led a pretty honest and tame life, but there's still no way I'd ever run for public office because I don't want to see every foolish and embarrassing thing I've ever done made public. And you have to believe there's an excellent chance it will.
If you squint, it looks like the Cookie Monster is reading the Enquirer in the bottom picture.
Good old Enquirer. They would have earned some journalistic cred for breaking the story eight months before everybody else, but they went too far by throwing in the love child angle.
Yeah guess what, when you're a politician you get to live in a glass house because you are - in the case of most politicians - using your "morality" as part of your ploy to get elected. Edwards is one of these jerks, and therefore, he is an even more ridiculous hypocrite than most politicians.
Not to mention I don't believe him about that kid - why the hell did he go visit the woman and the baby last month if their affair ended in 2006 and the kid's not his? Lie, lie, lie, lie to cover up your lies. Hopefully his career will be over and we won't have to hear about this particular scumbag anymore.
I love his mealy-mouthing "explanation". Another lawyer tries to defend himself proving once again that he has a fool for a client. We don't want some innoculating, half-baked self-psychoanalyzing bullshit, we want the dirty ugly truth so he can be sealed in this waste capsule forever and not run for anything again. As obnoxious as this clown was before this tawdry scandal, he's even more grating and self serving after. Work on that golf game, John, and get the fuck out of our collective Mandala.
We posted audio from the ABC interview at Entertonement: http://entertonement.com/collections/1790/Affair
I liked it back in the old days when I didn't know who politicians were screwing. :p