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John Edwards: Please Phone Denver

August 7th, 2008
By SHAUN MULLEN, TMV Columnist


01aaa_Edwards_Love_Child_1.jpg

Two TMV posts in one day about the fix John Edwards finds himself in? Hmm. You might think that there’s something to the allegation that he fathered a love child with Rielle Hunter.

If the onetime presidential wannabe thinks that the story is going to melt in the summer heat, he’s in for a rude shock in the form of risking being dis-invited to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Most of the mainstream media has treated the story broken by the National Enquirer like an anthrax-filled envelope, but Democratic Party insiders are sending Edward a different message. As Gary Pearce puts it:

“If it’s not true, he has to issue a stronger denial. . . . It’s a very damaging thing. . . . If it’s not true, he’s got to stand up and say, ‘This is not true. That is not my child and I’m going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.’ It’s not enough to say, ‘That’s tabloid trash.’ “

Pearce ran Edwards’ 1998 Senate campaign and senses, as do I, that with the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer and some other MSM outlets now actively pursuing the story, it’s on the verge of going big time. Very big time.

More here. And a timely reminder about that adulterer who wants to be the next president.



This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 7:11 am and is filed under Denver Democratic National Convention, News Media, Newsweek Blogitics, John Edwards, Democrats, 2008 Elections. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 25 Comments

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    As with Nixon, it is the coverup and the not actual "event" that is the real story here I feel.

    The Democratic Party has every right to be concerned about this. The Enquirer looks like it is playing to the timeline of the convention.

    If they have the goods, releasing it then would deliver maximum exposure . . . the MSM pro-Democrat embargo on the story would crumble . . . and the media explosion would taint Obama's triumphant convention (especially if HRC and the Horn Dog-in-Chief are celebrated at the Convention as well!)

    Personally, I don't give a rat's A** who Edwards is schtupping. The extraordinary MSM embargo on this story is appalling, however, and indicative of the fundamental liberal biases in the mainstream media.

    If the blowback during the Convention taints media darling Obama . . .it will be karmic payback.
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    No one says it better than Ann.

    http://www.anncoulter.com/
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    The extraordinary MSM embargo on this story is appalling, however, and indicative of the fundamental liberal biases in the mainstream media.


    And their coddling of your boy John McCain is just fine and dandy?


    If the blowback during the Convention taints media darling Obama . . .it will be karmic payback.

    You'd love for the election to be decided by some BS like this.
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    ChrisWWW said: "And their coddling of your boy John McCain is just fine and dandy?"

    Hmmm...I vaguely recall a New York Times, front-page above-the-fold story alleging an extramarital affair between McCain and a lobbyist . . . with FAR less substantiation than exists with the Edwards story.

    If that is your definition of "coddling McCain" I would hate to see what you think of as hammering him.

    "You'd love for the election to be decided by some BS like this."

    Actually, NO. I think Sen Obama has been the most disciplined and focused Democratic presidential candidate in over a generation. He has run an excellent campaign. For his convention to get sidetracked by this would be sad.

    However, the MSM could have dealt with this story way back when. It is, after all, almost a non-issue.
    "Former Senator and presidential candidate rumored to have baby with a woman not his wife."

    Not even a front page story, IMHO. The MSM embargo on this story . . . the LA Times blocking even a reference to it by their bloggers . . . has MADE this a story.

    The MSM built the dam . . . Obama might be the one paying the price.

    As Dee Dee Myers said in "Vanity Fair" -- echoing JFK, and mocking lame McCain's inability to get Obama's media attention - "Life isn't fair."
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    Marlowe,
    Obama has been the recipient of 24/7 babble about how he's presumptuous, how we don't know who he is, how he's a flip-flopper, etc. The stuff about McCain barely registers as a blip compared to the circus that forms around each criticism of Obama.
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    And I think hypocrisy has a lot to do with this... or more specifically, nothing to do with Edwards. The GOP sleazeballs and Spitzer were guilty of engaging in the same conduct they rallied against professionally.

    This story, if true, is just sad.
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    ChrisWWW...

    You know there has been endless coverage of "Another McCain Senior Moment" throughout July. The MSM trumpeted these gaffes . . . leading to the total media lockdown McCain is in at the moment.

    The mere fact that McCain is in one of the tightest "No Media" bubbles of recent years is evidence that you are wrong in your contention that "stuff about McCain barely registers".

    Conversely, Howell at the WaPo found that images of Obama significantly outnumbered images of McCain in the Post's coverage . . . and, even including McCain's decades longer term in Washington . . . in total number of images.

    Some of this is not actual bias, I concede: Obama is the flavour of the month, and a phenomenon.

    But this same intense coverage can lead to overexposure. McCain's "Celebrity" ad played to this.

    There is a clear MSM advantage to Obama. When McCain and Cindy are in soft focus on the cover of "People" I will concede the MSM might be balanced.
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    “And I think hypocrisy has a lot to do with this... or more specifically, nothing to do with Edwards.”

    (2) the following was Edwards' response to CBS News anchor Katie Couric's question about whether voters should care if a presidential candidate is faithful to his spouse:

    "Of course. I mean, for a lot of Americans -- including the family that I grew up with, I mean, it's fundamental to how you judge people and human character -- whether you keep your word, whether you keep what is your ultimate word, which is that you love your spouse, and you'll stay with them. ... I think the most important qualities in a president in today's world are trustworthiness -- sincerity, honesty, strength of leadership. And -- and certainly that goes to a part of that."

    Hypocrisy, thy name is Edwards.

    (Edwards quote courtesy of Ann Coulter)
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    ChrisWWW said: "This story, if true, is just sad."

    I agree. There is no venality in the sense of dubiously criminal activity.
    If true . . . Edwards did this for reasons of his own, and tried to cover it up.
    I suspect the coverup ... if true . . .proceeded from personal reasons too. Otherwise, why bother when his presidential ambitions are out the window.

    Personally, if it doesn't involve criminal activity or hypocritical public office holders, I think it should be off-limits.

    But again, by that rule, there was no reason for the MSM to expose Bill Bennett's gambling problem when he was a private citizen. It hurt no one except himself. Bennett was, however, a Republican.
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    jwest,
    Edwards making that statement and spending your public life crusading on behalf of values you don't hold are two entirely different things.
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    Marlowe,
    I agree that Obama gets the majority of the coverage, and that's not fair, but I don't think he gets the majority of favorable coverage.

    When McCain runs a smear ad, instead of it reflecting negatively on McCain, the press explains it away... "Oh, someone in McCain's campaign is doing this without McCain's knowledge."

    When McCain flipflops on drilling, it's a sign of his Maverickness. When Obama does it, it's a mortal sin.

    When a surrogate of Obama's questions whether or not McCain's POW story qualifies him for president, we get a solid week of hand wringing about how Obama denigrated McCain's military service. But when McCain basically accuses Obama of treason, that's just hardball politics.
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    "Personally, if it doesn't involve criminal activity or hypocritical public office holders, I think it should be off-limits."

    Hmmm...mea culpa...I enjoy the odd celebrity gossip as much as the next person.
    Thus, I should not have said the above.

    I was watching "La Dolce Vita" the other night...the movie that gave birth to the term papparazzi...and have been thinking about the vacuity of celebrity culture since.

    As Pogo wisely observed: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
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    I think there are a few complications with this story that could explain why the MSM isn't pushing hard on it.

    1. When the Edwards/Hunter tryst story first broke last fall the MSM was on it. Then they got tarnished when someone else admitted to being the father of Hunter's child, and everyone involved confirmed that version of the story.
    2. The evidence so far this time around is circumstantial. All we really know is that Edwards visited someone known to be a friend at an unusual hour and in an unusual way. That certainly isn't very smart, but that's all the evidence indicates at this point.
    3. McCain was accused of a similar impropriety with similarly circumstantial evidence. And the NYT, which broke that story, was severely criticized for it.
    4. If the story is true, who will it harm most? I'd say it's Edward's cancer-stricken wife and his family. Edwards would be exposed as cheating on his wife, and that's pretty much it. Heck, even McCain cheated on his wife. The first one anyway. There isn't the same element of hypocrisy vis-a-vis Edward's public message as there is in other stories of the same ilk. It was the element of hypocrisy that made the Craig, Spitzer, Vitter, Taggart, et. al., stories particularly newsworthy.

    So is there a double standard going on here? I don' t know. But for the reasons above, I think it makes sense for credible reporters to be careful.
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    ChrisWWW said: "When McCain runs a smear ad, instead of it reflecting negatively on McCain, the press explains it away... "Oh, someone in McCain's campaign is doing this without McCain's knowledge."

    Hahahaha...there was widespread criticism of "Celebrity" in the MSM...just as the McCain team bragged about it. (Interestingly, there was much less criticism and bragging about the smear over Obama ignoring the troops. That was a nasty smear . . . and McCain's team had carefully crafted it . . . yet it got much less coverage than I would have thought. So you may have a point there.)

    Re: flip-flops . . . everybody does it. Who is the bigger one?
    Well, the progressive howling over FISA ensured Obama got tarred with that one.

    As the Democrats have represented McCain as a typical GOPer in the pocket of big business, they can hardly say he is flip-flopping when he acts consistently the way they say he does.

    When did McCain accuse Obama of treason?
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    Edwards is guilty as sin & the creeps who run his covert "campaign" to grab limelight in Denver actually reported a friend's blog as "spam" after he posted a piece on Rielle & John Hair-and-Makeup's affair. Dems play dirty---it's amazing how quickly the viral allegation about Mark Foley spread after being posted on a fifteen-minute website by an anonymous schlub. Unless you understand that the media is 99&44/100ths percent for Democrat Party propaganda.

    Except for Fox & the Wall Street Journal, it would be about 100%.
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    "This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." - John McCain
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    Looks like McCain will win both a campaign & a war, the way the Dems are beginning to implode. So nice to see such nasty libtards get hoisted by their own petard!
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    So nice to see such nasty libtards get hoisted by their own petard!

    I don't think you really understand what that means :-)
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    That someone like daveinboca is both literally and figuratively the face of the Republican Party today speaks volumes. Keep stepping on your wee wee, big guy.
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    Ouch.
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    Senior moment candidate, meet senior moment supporter.
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    Chris - how do you find the time to post so often with your face buried so deep up Obama's ass?
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