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DETROIT - The wife of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says in a newspaper interview that the one-time North Carolina senator's extramarital affair has allowed her to focus on her children and issues such as health reform. "There's a lot of adjustment to make," Elizabeth Edwards told the Detroit Free Press this week. "When you mention trust, that's probably the most difficult hurdle." The Free Press interview, published Thursday, comes more than a month after her husband acknowledged in a "Nightline" interview that he repeatedly lied about having an affair in 2006 with a woman once employed by his...

Obama interview: How does it feel to break a glass ceiling? How does it feel to “win”? How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling? Who will be your VP? Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP? Will you accept public finance? What issues is your campaign about? Will you visit Iraq? Will you debate McCain at a town hall? What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech? Palin interview: Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders? Aren’t you conceited to be...

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How much did Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards’ wife, know about his affair with Rielle Hunter and when did she know it? Edwards has said that he told his wife about the affair “at the end of 2006” and that everything ended after that. Indeed, within days of the end of 2006, Web videos produced by Hunter about Edwards disappeared from his campaign Web site and from YouTube. Sources tell me that it was indeed Elizabeth Edwards who had the videos pulled down when she saw them. The theory among Edwards campaign insiders is that she finally put two and two...

"I can't believe no one has mentioned his philandering," a former political aide tells Radar, adding that she herself was subjected to Warner's advances in the late '90s and had heard "stories about Mark and many interns." "This can't be isolated. I have to believe this stuff is all over," a former D.C. consultant tells Radar.

When the story first broke that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards had cheated on his cancer-stricken wife and sired a baby with a bimbo on his campaign payroll, The New York Times [NYT] refused to run it. But when the news hit that not the president, not the vice president but the daughter of the vice-presidential nominee is pregnant, the Times ran five - count ’em, five - stories about it. In one day. Edwards dragged his sick wife through the Iowa boonies and paid his girlfriend off in campaign dollars, and the Times decides it’s not worth writing about....

Leadership Comparisons the MSM is (deliberating) ignoring in their vicious hatred: Sarah Palin has served in more executive positions than Edwards, Biden, Edwards was a first-term Senator when chosen as Kerry's VP candidate in 2000. Prior to that? Nothing significant: He was a lawyer specializing in Ob-Gyn lawsuits, wading in the afterbirths of lost babies to get money from the losing doctors. His primary strength (still is) good looks and lots of money from those lawsuits. (He, alone of ALL the democrat candidates, has at least "some" business experience.) Kerry wrangled an early out from Vietnam (you do know he...

#1 The media believes in Reproductive Privacy for John Edwards, but not for Sarah Palin #2: Sarah Palin knows how many children she has and with whom (a tip of the hat to FReeper Question Liberal Authority) #3: John Edwards would worry more about his hair at 3:00 AM (a tip of the hat to FReeper bahblahbah) #4: John Edwards thinks he is prettier than Sarah Palin (a tip of the hat to FReeper LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget) #5: Sarah Palin is NOT a lawyer (a tip of the hat to FReeper NonValueAdded) #6 Sarah Palin doesn’t channel dead girls (a tip of...

SALEM - Less than a month after a sex scandal sent former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in to political exile, the ex-North Carolina senator and his wife, Elizabeth, have pulled out of a speaking engagement at Salem State College. The couple had been scheduled to appear as part of the college’s popular Speaker Series on Sept. 23 to discuss the upcoming presidential election and Elizabeth Edwards’ battle with cancer.

Yesterday Tom Daschle told Wolf Blitzer that McCain's decision to choose Palin was "inexplicable". But back in 2000 Daschle had no problem giving the VP nod to John Edwards, who at that time had been a U.S Senator for only 17 months with no other government experience: MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, Ronald Reagan was governor for eight years, Bill Clinton governor for eight years, George W. Bush governor for five years. Mr. Edwards was a trial lawyer, a personal injury lawyer before 17 months in the Senate. Is that adequate preparation? SEN. DASCHLE: Well, Tim, I think it's the life...

Embarrassed presidential hopeful John Edwards promised yesterday to take millions of dollars of his own fortune out of a hedge fund tied to subprime lenders who foreclosed on victims of Hurricane Katrina. The populist candidate - who has denounced such lenders - invested $16 million of his $30 million in assets in Fortress Investment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported that 34 New Orleans homeowners struggling to overcome Katrina's aftermath faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress.

#1: John Edwards is prettier than Sarah Palin #2: Sarah Palin knows how many children she has and with whom (a tip of the hat to FReeper Question Liberal Authority) #3: John Edwards would worry more about his hair at 3:00 AM (a tip of the hat to FReeper bahblahbah) #4: Sarah Palin is NOT a lawyer (a tip of the hat to FReeper NonValueAdded)

Just weeks after former presidential candidate John Edwards admitted cheating on his wife, he's not shying away from public speaking engagements -- and his fee has gone up, his agent says. Edwards is due to speak at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Oct. 14. The agent for the former North Carolina senator has told the university student group organizing the event that Edwards is looking to add to his speaking calendar and that he's charging more, said university spokeswoman Robin Kaler. Edwards is to speak on "The American Dream," Kaler said. Tickets are free, but the student group...

RALEIGH, N.C. (Aug. 29) - In a return to the public stage, John Edwards has confirmed plans to talk politics a month after admitting to an extramarital affair. But his wife won't be at his side.

And of course, no sooner does he drop the tu quoque on Maverick than he qualifies it by noting, with exquisite remorse, that he doesn’t want to drag other people into this. Here too, as in so much of his past nonsense, he proves my favorite liberal right: Silky Pony is indeed a silky phony. Ironically, though, the McCain comparison explains why his career really isn’t over. Infidelity doesn’t kill political ambitions anymore; it sends them into a coma. He’ll wake up from it as the scandal recedes with time, unless the left decides that a guy willing to gamble...

WASHINGTON – John Edwards' political career is probably not coming back. But Fred Baron insists he is not going away. The Dallas trial lawyer, both celebrated and vilified as the King of Toxic Torts, made a handsome living confronting big companies on behalf of sick and some not-so-sick plaintiffs. He's a lightning rod again, after admitting he paid to move the presidential candidate's mistress away from prying tabloid reporters. He says political enemies will try to use the episode against his efforts to elect Democratic candidates in Texas....

RALEIGH, N.C. — Two weeks after a devastating revelation sent her husband into political exile, Elizabeth Edwards isn't getting the steady sympathy usually afforded to a woman scorned. Instead, she's faced criticism from dedicated Democrats who think she was too willing to keep the affair a secret to help John Edwards' political ambitions, as well as her own. At a time when she was expected to hold a prominent role in pushing an agenda of improved health care for Americans, she stands silent. While fellow Democrats converge in Denver to nominate Barack Obama for president, Edwards remains in seclusion in...

John Edwards, the Democrats’ 2004 vice presidential nominee who unsuccessfully sought the top spot on the party’s ticket this year, is like the man who never was among party leaders gathered in Denver. Edwards, the one-term North Carolina senator whose 2008 candidacy ended in January, admitted in early August, after a lot of tabloid disclosures, that he had been carrying on an extramarital affair with a campaign aide even as his wife, Elizabeth, was battling cancer. He also admitted that he had repeatedly lied about it. It still isn’t clear if he fathered an out of wedlock child during the...

DENVER - Texas Rep. Chet Edwards, who was on the four-person short list of potential Barack Obama running mates, said Sunday the front-page scandal involving former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards hurt his chances of getting on the ticket. “I would have to think that a bumper sticker that said 'Obama/The Other Edwards' might have been a bit difficult,” Edwards said Sunday after visiting a Veterans Administration hospital upon arrival in Denver for the Democratic National Convention. Chet Edwards (not related to the former North Carolina senator) said he was notified Aug. 10 that he was on Obama's short list...

Two weeks after a devastating revelation sent her husband into political exile, Elizabeth Edwards isn't getting the steady sympathy usually afforded to a woman scorned. Instead, she's faced criticism from dedicated Democrats who think she was too willing to keep the affair a secret to help John Edwards' political ambitions, as well as her own.

ExclusiveJohn Edwards calling former staffers asking for forgiveness By THOMAS M. DeFRANK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF Updated Tuesday, August 26th 2008, 12:07 AM   DENVER - John Edwards is burning up the phone lines, begging former aides and backers to forgive him for lying about his affair - but hearing their rage instead.As Democrats kick off their convention Monday, the onetime presidential contender is a man without a party - or a political future - trying to rebuild bridges through dozens of remorseful phone calls.It's proving a hard sell with onetime true believers. CLICK TO SEE A PHOTO...

Was John Edwards visiting his lover (and possible baby mama) Rielle Hunter earlier than thought? Remember: the National Enquirer’s big scoop was that they found Edwards in the Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 22 at 2:30 in the morning. Their reporters cornered him in a basement bathroom after he’d been visiting Hunter and her baby, Frances Quinn. Edwards later explained the meeting to ABC’s Bob Woodruff as a chance to discuss with Hunter how details of their association were coming out in the press. But now a very credible source tells me they ran into Edwards at the Beverly Hilton...

DENVER - John Edwards is burning up the phone lines, begging former aides and backers to forgive him for lying about his affair - but hearing their rage instead. As Democrats kick off their convention Monday, the onetime presidential contender is a man without a party - or a political future - trying to rebuild bridges through dozens of remorseful phone calls. It's proving a hard sell with onetime true believers. Many are bitter and disillusioned after swallowing his lies about his affair with a campaign staffer and vouching for his credibility with friends and journalists. Some ignore his plaintive...

In an interview with Todd Gillman, U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco says the antics of a similarly named, slick-talking, lying philanderer probably helped sink his chances of becoming Barack Obama's running mate. The other guy went on television to confess his pecadillos -- guaranteeing his status as a national laughingstock -- just about the time the Obama campaign was considering floating Chet Edwards' name.

When newly minted vice presidential pick Joe Biden arrives in Denver, he will be greeted by one of his most generous supporters, trial lawyer Fred Baron. Baron, the wealthy Dallas founder of the Baron & Budd law firm, headed the nation's trial lawyers association while Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. And before Baron sold his firm in 2002, lawyers there donated $108,100 to the Delaware senator, making the firm one of his most prolific contributors, according to a review by the Center for Responsive Politics. snip Baron said this afternoon that he is thrilled with Sen. Barack Obama's choice...

In an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box," billionaire Warren Buffett suggested that donors to the John Edwards for President Campaign might consider filing a class action lawsuit. "I think if I had given him money I'd probably be asking him for it back now" quipped the investor icon in a half serious, half joking manner. "I think if I were Edwards I might give up a haircut or two and return some of the money....if they (donors of the smaller amnounts) had known the facts they woudn't have sent him the money." Buffett's main problem with Edwards was the fact...

Wouldn't you know it? Turns out the politician who brags about his unimpeachable ethics isn't exactly squeaky-clean behind the scenes, and the starlet who tsk-tsks about bimbo culture is quick to pose half-naked in a magazine. With so many public figures, from Eliot Spitzer to Rush Limbaugh, behaving in opposition to their stated virtues, hypocrisy is always making headlines. The latest hypocrite on the public stage: John Edwards. Or is he?

John Edwards assured his mistress that they'd be together after his cancer-stricken wife died, according to a new bombshell report. Just before the former presidential contender confessed his adultery to ABC News on Aug. 8, he secretly flew Rielle Hunter and her 6-month-old child, Frances Quinn, from California to the US Virgin Islands, according to the National Enquirer, which first exposed their affair. And after the interview, in which he denied loving Hunter or fathering the baby, he called her to say, "We'll be together when Elizabeth is gone," the tabloid reported.

Some wives pick out their husband’s ties, while others, it seems, pick out their husband’s “favorite” film. DBKP found a video of John Edwards introducing the movie Dr. Strangelove, the “favorite” film he’d “chosen” for Turner Movie Classic’s series with politicians. In August of 2004 John Edwards had this to say about his “favorite” film, Dr. Strangelove, the movie he’d never seen : “I believe that one of the messages Kubrick was trying to send was that putting this kind of power and this potential holocaust in the hands of human beings, no matter who they are, is an extraordinarily...

The day prior to Edwards bombshell admission to an affair on ABC’s Nightline, Rielle Hunter and her 6 month old daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, were flown out of the US onboard a chartered Learjet. The private flight cost $50,000 and was paid for by Edwards’ pals. The Hunters were the solo passengers aboard the eight-hour flight. Destination: St. Croix in the Virgin Islands! THE ENQUIRER tracked Rielle to St. Croix where our reporters discovered Rielle and the baby stayed in a luxurious oceanfront home owned by controversial trial lawyer Lee Rohn, another close friend of Edwards. [snip]

It's been learned that a consortium of John Edwards supporters, not Edwards himself, have formed a consortium to purchase the National Enquirer with a promise to return the paper to its tabloid roots. Said a spokesperson, "The National Enquirer has begun delving into what they consider serious news. We feel the Enquirer belongs at the top of the supermarket checkout rack with other such notable tabloids as the Sun and the Globe. This is not an attempt to silence the Enquirer in any way and any inference to that end is misguided." "Stories which they are now printing involving well...

Let me see if I have this straight. Barack Obama and other Democrat bigwigs will not permit John Edwards to speak at their convention because he had an extra-marital affair and lied about it. But Bill Clinton will speak in prime time, notwithstanding his having several affairs, including one with Paula Jones about which he lied under oath, causing a federal judge to hold him in civil contempt of court for perjury and obstruction of justice. Go figure. - Damon Ball

[snip] Tomorrow they're printing a crisp crystal clear color shot of Rielle Hunter the mistress. Holding the child. Same baby. Different outfit. Same baby. So, since all babies look alike - how can anyone tell one from another? You're told "experts" enlarged, investigated, measured, tested, microscopically scanned the photo. So, since there exists Photoshopping - how can anyone tell this is the McCoy? You're told they'll prove it. And "a team of assorted individual plastic surgeons have reviewed both photographs, and without any doubt all pronounce this the very same baby." [snip]

Poor old John Edwards. Now the victim of scandal and looking more than ever like the charlatan he always was to us non-believers, he has had the additional bad luck to see his political career crash and burn at the very moment where his campaign theme about the "two nations" seems to have been vindicated. Of course he was wrong about what the two nations were. Rich and poor are ever more fluid categories, which is one of the lessons of this and other economic downturns. Many of those who were rich are now, at least, much less rich, while...

Brett Baier just reported on FOX news that John Edwards called the editor or the Charlotte Observer to ask he not print the story being put out that day by the National Enquirer because Elizabeth had cancer and this would be a bad thing for her cancer. He hastened to add that it was for Elizabeth that he made this request. Besides that, Edwards said the National Enquirer was tabloid trash. Edwards also pointed out that all of his friends in Norht Carolina read the Charlotte Observer.

I am sorry that John Edwards had an affair with a campaign worker. But I am not surprised. Men like to have affairs. Men like to have sex with new women. That's just how men are and always have been. I am not surprised that a major Presidential candidate and former V.P. nominee of a major party had an affair. Politicians are men and they have all of the yearnings and drives that other men have. They do not check their flaws and essential elements at the Capitol cloakroom. Nor is it a sign that Edwards might not have been...

America is disgusted by the behavior of John Edwards — but the jury is still out on his wife................ ----------------------------------------------------------- We seem to be developing two distinct schools of thought: Elizabeth as tragic/heroic victim and Elizabeth as down-in-the-mud-with-her-husband villainess. Bluebeard’s wife versus Lady Macbeth, as it were. Predictably, People has taken the lead on Elizabeth as tragic heroine. In a fairly skimpy article, various friends and relatives are quoted on her anguish and her dedication to her children. She’s being strong in the face of hardship, the argument goes, because she’s that kind of gal.........

.......John Edwards was having sex with the daughter of the guy who taught Tommy (the Sandman) Burns how to kill horses by electrocuting them! ......in 1982..James Druck, an Ocala, attorney who represented insurance companies, paid [Burns] to kill the brilliant show-jumper Henry the Hawk, on whose life Druck had taken out a $150,000 life insurance policy. The horse was owned and shown by Druck's daughter, Lisa who had competed on his back in shows all over Florida. Her father, a criminally minded lawyer and conniver started Tommy Burns on his grisly career as a horse killer. --snip-- Henry the Hawk...

A little infidelity never hurt U.S. Margery Eagan By Margery Eagan Sunday, August 17, 2008 - When John F. Kennedy was president, he slept with, among many others, a big-time Chicago mobster’s moll. Talk about blackmail opportunities. But barring some police action that made such indiscretions public, the press then did not report on adulterous politicians, even presidents. What they knew, they ignored. The personal was not political, and was deemed unfit to print. We were all better off. In the week since John Edwards confessed his affair with a woman once notorious as a cocaine-addled sex machine, the so-called...

Just gathering some old photos of Edwards on the campaign trail. Only now can we know more about what was going on with Johnny, and can appropriately caption them accordingly. People say he is "doing poorly" about now (repeated lying and cheating in the public eye is very stressful, 9 out of 10 doctors say), so I think it behooves us FReepers to try and cheer him up with some humor. If you can't laugh at yourself... From 6/19/07 in Iowa: From 10/30/07: From 11/7/07:

Edwards' Camp Funneled Money To Mistress' Firm Reporting Marcia Kramer NEW YORK (CBS) ― John Edwards and his associates went to great lengths to keep his affair a secret, even moving thousands of dollars in campaign funds around to keep things quiet. The latest questions surrounding the Edwards affair involve efforts to funnel money to his paramour, Rielle Hunter, months after she had stopped working for him. The Edwards campaign wanted the money to come from his political action committee, but the committee was out of cash, so the money had to be handled and manipulated carefully. In April of...

Now that it's broken out into the open, there's something about the Edwards-Hunter affair that makes it impossible to ignore. I know all the arguments about how the private lives of politicians should remain private, and that if it's OK with the spouse or spouses, why should we inquire. Truth is, it wasn't so long ago that I was making all those arguments myself. And I'm the first to acknowledge that as much as some of us in the media might like to claim that what's at issue here is not the sex but the lying about it (not to...

Democrats Won't Disavow Edwards Mailing In Letter to Donors, Now Admitted-Liar Edwards Railed Against Dishonesty By AVNI PATEL and JUSTIN ROOD August 15, 2008— Two weeks before he admitted to ABC News that he repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair, a Democratic campaign group mailed a fundraising appeal letter from former Senator John Edwards asking donors to "help America meet the great challenges left to us by eight years of gross incompetence and dishonesty." In the pitch, mailed July 21 by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Edwards urges Democratic donors to give "$150, $200 or even...

The party that opposes waterboarding our enemies has been busy Chinese water torturing the American public this week as details of the schedule for their upcoming Democratic National Convention painfully drip forth. Frankly, it all sounds rather boring. So I figured I’d make them a better itinerary, which they are free to use: Opening Remarks - Michelle Obama: “Do Elitists Spend Time Making Their Own Presidential Seal? Michelle Obama will explain why her husband is not the elitist right-wingers are trying to make him out to be. She will use slides to make her case: Obama bicycling around Chicago in...

On Sunday, as I was sitting in my summer cabin in Vermont, completely absorbed in a New York Times story about John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter, I began reading a paragraph whose message shot through me like a sudden bolt of electrical current. The story centered on Ms. Hunter's refusal to take a DNA test to determine the paternity of her 5-month-old daughter, but that was not what startled me. It was this: "Ms. Hunter was born in Fort Lauderdale. Fla., in 1964 as Lisa Druck and moved to New York City in her 20s, becoming part of a...

"I have this recollection of somebody asking me for lawyers in New York, and I remember naming three or four, and he must have been one of them," Mr. Baron said. Referring to Ms. Hunter, he added, "It was either her who called or somebody on her behalf." ...

LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!! NOT GOING TO HEAR IT!!! HANDS OVER MY EARS! That is the attitude of the KOmmies to another KOmmie who had the Kewpie Doll moment of posting that the Edwards scandal disaster is NOT going away as you can see in this THREAD titled "The Edwards Disaster Is Not Going Away." In fact, with the way the National Enquirer is releasing the information on this scandal, it threatens to overshadow the Democrat convention. The big money man at the center of the John Edwards scandal, Fred Baron, is also a big fundraiser for Barack Obama. Also this scandal...

WASHINGTON - John Edwards' political action committee paid his mistress $14,000 after she stopped working for it to obtain 100 hours of unused videotape she had shot for his unsuccessful presidential campaign, an associate told The Associated Press on Thursday. The woman, Rielle Hunter, already had been paid $100,000 for the programs. The explanation — which Edwards' advisers declined to discuss on the record — is the first effort to justify the payment in April 2007 to Hunter. That payment came months before Edwards' chief fundraiser quietly began sending money himself to the pregnant woman. Edwards last week acknowledged he...

snip-The revelations of ties among the lawyers emerged through public records and interviews with people close to Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter, which suggested that their affair went on longer than Mr. Edwards admitted and that the effort to conceal it by Mr. Edwards’s inner circle was much more extensive than has been reported. The review found that Mr. Edwards’s political action committee went to unusual lengths to make a final $14,000 payment to Ms. Hunter’s film company months after its contract with the committee had ended. The payment was issued while the committee was short on cash and could...

Via Tapper, a palate-cleansing Kinsleyan gaffe from Susan Collins confirming that everyone in America, from the checkout counter to the Senate, is on the same page vis-a-vis Silky. The exchange starts at 2:00. Meanwhile, Radar picks through the latest tidbits from the Enquirer (print edition only) and floats a familiar theory about who their super-secret source might be. Exit quotation: “Of course I love you. Don’t worry, we’ll get through this.”