[John Edwards]The Photos everyone's been waiting to see

Bats, you are so incredibly intellectually dishonest to try to compare this to anything in McCain's past. Give us all a break from your tired, malicious partisan barbs. Elizabeth Edwards sits at home right now, as you type, grieving, while you bring partisan politics into the picture. To think that she sits at home grieving while you attempt to minimize her husband's act of adultery is sickening. John Edwards, liar that he has now proven himself to be, wrecked his marriage by playing hide the pork sword with a woman who is not even attractive. A reprehensible act.

Furthermore, thinking this is in any way comparable to what McCain was forced to do over 30 years ago, prior to him running for President, is just absurd. Edwards lied to us, over and over and over again. He has made a mockery out of his marriage, his covenant to God, and his political party.

 

Wow -- I'll go out and make my John McCain bumper sticker with that ringing endorsement.

 

Is anyone else getting grossed out by the repeated use of the phrase "Hide the pork sword" or is it just me?

 

McCain was forced to cheat on his wife? This is a breakthrough revelation that needs to be investigated. If he was forced to cheat on his wife, who's to say he won't be forced to nuke China if he becomes President? This seems to disqualify him from the Presidency.

 

George:

Please explain how John McCheater was "forced," at the age of 42, to cheat on his severely injured wife with a 24 year old rich girl and abandon his family so he could reap the rewards of her youth and riches. While you're at it, perhaps you could explain how he was "forced" to lie to the American public about the affair both in books and interviews ever since.

TIA.

 

LOL. Ladies and gents, the Treasures(TM) Family Values... never that far below the surface. Revolting.

Apollo, yes indeed. But one particular poster is getting very excited by repeatedly typing it, as Friday night may well be Treasures Night.

 

Bats, any self-respecting heterosexual man put to such a decision would have no other choice but to jump to the 24-year-old hottie with wealth. There is no decision. This is called close your eyes and allow your sexual and financial instincts to take control. It's nature.

 

Dude, you've finally shown your hand. Even you don't believe half the **** you say around here. You do it just to rile people up. I gotta say I'm impressed.

 

John Edwards the liar...er lawyer ...Good to see him crumble.

 

There is no "finally" to it. It's been obvious for quite some time and you are just now coming around. I wish everybody would figure it out and not get riled.

 

As wealthy as the guy is I'm skeptical he would use campaign funds. My only thought would be so it can't be traced directly back to him, but I'm too ignorant of campaign spending disclosure laws to be certain.

 

It wouldn't be obvious to me since I'm not here all the time. I figured he was being true to his very twisted conservative thinking until now.

 

John Edwards.....what a joke

What is it about liberals, lying, and not being able to keep their custard launcher to themselves?

 

Oh, let's not go there.

GOP = Grand Outhouse Party

 

It's not necessarily a blanket statement to liberals, because I like some of them, but Edwards, always had this condescending tone in his speeches...As if he was talking down to EVERYONE...Obama at least is likeable, that is his appeal...But Edwards is a liberal samfishy type mold, and I relish those that feel they are above the fray, above humility get humble pie...

Politics aside, ...(partly because those aspirations are gone) I wish the best for his wife. and the best for his fooled supporters...For Edwards, I don't wish anything good.

 

I don't know Big Texx, that's such a thoughtful and evidence based point. What's your opinion on what it is about liberals? I assume you have a theory, I would love to hear it. Until you posted, it never occurred to me - only liberals / democrats are ever involved in sex scandals. Or any scandals. Never republicans or the AM radio talk show hosts parroted endlessly on this bulletin board. Those people never have these sorts of problems. Just liberals. Coincidence? Surely not.

Thanks for taking the time to write about custard launchers, that was also totally cool.

 

And in other news Edwards is still lying, that interview is a disgrace. Maybe the baby is not his (I still think it is, actually), maybe his family already knew, and maybe not everything the Enquirer says is dead on, but he is STILL full of crap, and he needs to go away forever. No poverty czar, no attorney general, just please go home. (BTW, my bet is that he shaded the truth to his family, and maybe kept on with the affair after E. Edwards was diagnosed, but fessed up to part of it, not all of it. Something like that. )

But he obviously knew about the hush money, his denial of that is more transparently false word-parsing bullcrap. Like he did not keep track of this woman like a hawk; he just ran for president, genially believing that a walking time bomb with money problems and a baby would probably not detonate his entire career.

I really am bothered by how his freakish boyish charm somehow obscured his record as a theatrical quasi-sociopath- this debacle is not an isolated incident.

Not to pile on, but Edwards' vintage trial-lawyer transcripts are no easy reading, certainly nothing you'd want to hear from a leader of the free world. The NYTimes had a huge piece on him five years ago. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, ah can feeeeel the baby from beyond, in this courtroom, saying 'I may be just a little baby in heaven, but one thing I DO know that this doctor killed me pursuant to North Carolina malpractice statute 4.023A and his hospital owes my family $2.35 million dollars..." or whatever. Crap like that.

What amazes me is that he still ran for president with this issue bouncing around. That he would risk winning the nomination with such a horrific vulnerability waiting to be exploited - i mean, talk about delusional narcissism. How myopic and self-aggrandizing do you have to be? How much do you really care about the impoverished when you are playing games with the freaking democratic nomination with such massive policy issues at stake. What is he were the nominee right now? He thought it would blow over? No one would figure it out? It seems like the narcissism he claims to have under control was/is powerful enough to lead him to believe that climbing his career ladder was more important that gift wrapping a presidential election to the republican party had he been the nominee. Luckily, Obama and Hilldog handed his ass to him in the primaries.

How would you feel if you had given him money at this point? I mean, forget the moral lapse for a second; the strategic idiocy of his campaign existing in the first place is shocking.

 

You can tell a person's political affiliation based on the gender of the person they have an affair with.

 

I didn't think the interview was bad. But for him to still run for president was the height of being irresponsibility. It makes some of the stuff Kerry's people accused him of in 2004 more credible.

 

After reading that article, I'm wondering how McCaine could have been a foot soldier in the Reagan "Revolution" when the Reagans were pissed at him?


AP article about Edwards explaining why they couldn't do the story, something about needing proof. I'm curious who the Enquirer's source was.

Reporters found Edwards' affair tough to prove
AP's approach: 'Better to get it right even if we couldn't get it first'

WASHINGTON - Reporters don't like being beaten on a major political story, especially by a supermarket tabloid. And being beaten up over not reporting one is even less appealing.

But a sexual affair can have just two people who know the truth. Without witnesses, documents, photographs or some form of irrefutable evidence pointing to the truth, news organizations will not endanger their own integrity.

That made it difficult to prove — and to print — the rumors that John Edwards had cheated on his seriously ill wife while running for president. Reporters were left to poke around the edges of a potentially career-ending scandal in search of an opening.

"It's not like they didn't know it was there," said Mark Feldstein, a former investigative reporter who teaches journalism at George Washington University.

"Proof is the biggest issue," Feldstein said. "The National Enquirer is not well-regarded as a news source by the news media."

Last year the National Enquirer published a story alleging that Edwards had an extramarital affair. It reported last month that the former senator had fathered a "love child." Readers of the popular if trashy weekly — perhaps some who only glance at the headlines at the checkout counter — joined the political enemies of the handsome Democrat in asking why other news media were not carrying the story.

Confirming the story
So did many of those who live in the blogosphere, where the Enquirer story was taken as fact in spite of its anonymous sources. Where, they asked, were the reports on CNN, in The New York Times, on the news wire of The Associated Press? The AP had a fair number of inquiries by phone and e-mail as to when it would report the Edwards affair.

The answer for the AP and many other news media was simple: When it could be confirmed. And it never was confirmed to the AP's satisfaction or, apparently, to the satisfaction of others until Edwards himself owned up to the infidelity in an interview with ABC News.

"We began pursuing the story soon after it first appeared. But the standard for proof in this kind of intimate behavior is and should be very high," said Michael Oreskes, AP's managing editor for U.S. news. "Better to get it right even if we couldn't get it first.

After Edwards dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination, questions about his marital fidelity lost much of their relevance to the presidential race. Yet the affair still made news, even if he timed his confession for a Friday in August on the opening day of the Summer Olympics to soften the impact of a sex scandal.

Efforts had failed to find someone who could reveal the facts or to uncover a document linking Edwards to 42-year-old Rielle Hunter. No father is listed on the birth certificate, which the AP and other news organizations had obtained, and other evidence such as Edwards' political action committee paying her $100,000 for videos was only circumstantial.

That left little for reporters. The AP had been among those reporting in October 2007 that Edwards flatly stated that the Enquirer's initial story was false — a lie, he now admits. Still, the opening allowed news organizations to report what they otherwise stayed away from.

The process repeated itself a few weeks ago when the Enquirer reported that Edwards had paid a late-night visit to Hunter and her child. He called the allegation "tabloid trash" when a reporter asked about it on July 23 — not exactly a lie but certainly a description designed to deceive. Again, most news organization were loath to pick up the new Enquirer report, beyond the denial, and those who could have revealed the truth remained silent.

"I think the mainstream news media were responsible for not airing it and not printing it earlier. There really wasn't anything to report," Feldstein said. "If the story were false, it would be a tremendously hurtful thing for his family and professionally lethal to him."

Reporters looked for indirect ways to get at the story. The Raleigh News & Observer and others reported this week that the rumors and Edwards' silence about them were affecting plans for him to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Within days, Edwards broke his silence, an event sure to burst the dam that held back details about the affair, predictions for Edwards' future and criticism over how the news media got scooped by a publication they don't respect.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26099046