John Edward admits to affair. Says the kid is "not mine"

[anon38216271]

John Edward admits to affair–video

[quote]Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has admitted to having an extramarital affair, but has denied fathering a child by the woman. The affair has been reported in recent weeks in the tabloid press.

Alex Chadwick speaks with NPR Senior Washington Editor Ron Elving about the political implications of the revelation.[/quote]

Generally, I don’t care about politicians and who gets into their knickers. Yet, this one really disturbed me since he had it while his wife was at the lowest point a person could go in their life. What makes this interesting now is the media is begnning to peek into the McCain marriage rift, speculating on that, but no word on the Obama marriage. Not all men cheat, but there hasn’t even been speculation on Obama’s sexual whatever/past.

So, how important is it for the public to know about candidate’s sexual and marriage habits, aside from the obvious reasons (intergity, etc.)
And how will this impact Edwards future political runs, especially Obama?

[Vorkosigan]

Edwards was really stupid. He just should have initiated widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens, overturned the 4th amendment, invaded a foreign power that had caused us no harm to the tune of hundreds of thousands of death, done nothing about global warming, permitted income inequality to skyrocket, reduced or eliminated regulatory oversight, and done nothing about the drift of our jobs overseas. Then the media would have loved him, and would have been elected President twice.

[MikeN]

Hmm…didn’t the wing-nuts spend the last two years mocking Edwards for being a faggot ? (their word)

So he’s a fag who runs around with other women, just like Obama is a muslim who belongs to a black nationalist church.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

[Okami]

Edwards was really stupid. He just should have initiated widespread surveillance of ordinary citizens, overturned the 4th amendment, invaded a foreign power that had caused us no harm to the tune of hundreds of thousands of death, done nothing about global warming, permitted income inequality to skyrocket, reduced or eliminated regulatory oversight, and done nothing about the drift of our jobs overseas. Then the media would have loved him, and would have been elected President twice.

Classic case of BDS in a thread about that crook Edwards.

How Edwards didn’t get laughed out of not one of 2 presidential campaigns is mystifying to me. The fact that Kerry picked him as his running mate spoke greatly to his and Shrum’s lack of ability for the presidential prize.

[Dr_McCoy]

Corruption, murder, cronyism, incompetence, torture, war profiteering, and stupidity are one thing. Infidelity just won’t be tolerated. (Unless McCain does it.)

[MikeN]

Plus ca change…

“Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?
Gone to the White House, haw, haw, haw.”

Republican campaign slogan aginst Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in 1884.

To counter Cleveland’s image of purity, his opponents reported that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo.[73] The derisive phrase “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha.” rose as an unofficial campaign slogan for those who opposed him.[74] When confronted with the emerging scandal, Cleveland’s instructions to his campaign staff were: “Tell the truth.”[75] Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who claimed he fathered her child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland.[73] Halpin was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland’s friend and law partner, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was named.[73] Cleveland did not know which man was the father, and is believed to have assumed responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them.[73]

Remarkably, he went on to win the election.

His opponent, James G. Blaine had his own problems:

Cleveland’s supporters rehashed the old allegations that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad and the Northern Pacific Railway, later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies.[71] Although the stories of Blaine’s favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier, this time Blaine’s correspondence was discovered, making his earlier denials less plausible.[71] On some of the most damaging correspondence, Blaine had written “Burn this letter,” giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry: “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine, ‘Burn this letter!’”[72]

Ah, the good ole days, when politics were civil.

[MikeN]

At least now we know what Edwards campaign song would have been:

“Billie Jean is not my lover
She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one,
but the kid is not my son”

[Chris]

[quote=“MikeN”]At least now we know what Edwards campaign song would have been:

“Billie Jean is not my lover
She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one,
but the kid is not my son”[/quote]

Damn…you beat me to it. I was going to ask if the woman’s name was Billie Jean!

[Jaboney]

[quote=“Chris”][quote=“MikeN”]At least now we know what Edwards campaign song would have been:

“Billie Jean is not my lover
She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one,
but the kid is not my son”[/quote]

Damn…you beat me to it. I was going to ask if the woman’s name was Billie Jean![/quote]Except that she was his lover, and she isn’t saying that the kid is his.

[Screaming_Jesus]

I was thinking more along the lines of Bob Marley:

“I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy, no no no…”

is about as exonerating as

“Okay, I did have the affair, but the kid is someone else’s.”

[jdsmith]

What a selfish bastard. Taking the spotlight from Obama…

[the_average_white_ma]

Here’s the best (out of context and unintentionally funny) quote to come from all this:

“One of the great things about John Edwards is that he’s so open and willing to try new things and do things in new ways.” – Rielle Hunter (fashion.ie/aggregator/gossip … nspiration)

LOL!!! Tells us more about John Boy than most of us ever wanted to know… But hey, at least he keeps to his ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ agenda, apparently even in the boudoir. (Cheap shot, I know, but all’s fair in love, war, politics, and public humiliations of prominent people.)

[jdsmith]

You can’t hurt him any more than he’s hurt himself.

[Jaboney]

[quote=“Surly”]What a selfish bastard. Taking the spotlight from Obama…[/quote]No, no. The latest spin is that he cost Hillary the nomination. Take him off the ballot, she either wins or at least doesn’t come in third in Iowa. At least, that’s the spin out of Hillaryland.

[quote=“FiveThirtyEight.com”]Howard Wolfson tells ABC News that, were it not for John Edwards, Hillary Clinton would have beaten Barack Obama in Iowa:

Obama won 37.6 per cent of the vote. Edwards won 29.7 per cent and Clinton won 29.5 per cent, according to results posted by the Iowa Democratic Party.

"Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people," Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. "They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama." [/quote]

[jdsmith]

If Hillary broke the story of her being a lesbian, she’d still be in the race.

[MikeN]

Way to keep it classy, Rush:

Limbaugh later added, “It just seems to me that Edwards might be attracted to a woman whose mouth did something other than talk.” Limbaugh went on to say in a subsequent segment: “my theory that I just explained to you about why – you know, what could have John Edwards’ motivations been to have the affair with Rielle Hunter, given his wife is smarter than he is and probably nagging him a lot about doing this, and he found somebody that did something with her mouth other than talk.”

[jdsmith]

Comparing/connecting Rush to Edwards doesn’t make either one of them less scumbaggy, ya know.

[Jaboney]

Silly Rush, if that’s all it came down to, how’d she get preggers?

[MikeN]

@Surly

Comparing/connecting Rush to Edwards doesn’t make either one of them less scumbaggy, ya know.

Oh, I know. I agree, anyone who sneaks around cheating on his sick wife is a scumbag.

[Chewycorns]

In this case, the National Enquirer got it right from the beginning, didn’t they? First he cheats on his wife who is dying with cancer, allegedly knocks up the lewd New York debutante [some say the baby is his] and now it looks like he might have used PAC contributions to hush her up. I wonder what kind of job they would give Edwards in the dock? Haircutter?

@Independent

The affair which ended the political career of John Edwards may eventually land him in the dock, after federal investigators began examining allegations he used campaign funds to pay “hush money” to a mistress.

A contender for the Democratic presidential nomination eventually won by Barack Obama, Mr Edwards admitted at the weekend that his political action committee is under scrutiny for transferring more than $100,000 (£67,000) to Rielle Hunter, shortly before their relationship was exposed. In a carefully-worded statement, Mr Edwards insisted that no money was used improperly by his campaign. “However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true,” he said. “We have made available to the United States both the people and the information necessary to help them get the issue resolved efficiently and in a timely matter.”

The investigation will focus on money paid to Ms Hunter’s production company by his committee, ostensibly for producing a film about global poverty, which followed Mr Edwards on a campaign visit to Uganda in 2006. Ms Hunter’s firm received $100,000 during a four-month span in 2006, and another $14,000 on 1 April 2007.

Investigators will examine whether any of the payments were either related to the couple’s affair or intended to prevent Ms Hunter going public with details of their fling. Using money donated to a political action committee for personal use is a federal crime.

Mr Edwards, who had been John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, finally acknowledged a long-running affair with Ms Hunter in August last year after months of vigorously denying tabloid reports about the scandal. She gave birth to a daughter in February 2008, but Mr Edwards continues to deny reports that he is the father and a former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has claimed paternity.

Meanwhile Mr Edwards’s wife Elizabeth, who is terminally ill with cancer, is about to release a memoir. In it, she reveals that learning of the affair made her vomit, and also describes Ms Hunter as “pathetic”.

independent.co.uk/news/world … 79007.html