Posted on 02/16/2004 8:00:23 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The name of the intern Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. John F. Kerry (D-MA) allegedly had a two-year extramarital affair with beginning in Spring 2001 surfaced over the weekend.
The Telegraph UK reported on Sunday that the name of the Kerry's intern is 27-year old journalist Alexandra Polier.
"This is not going to go away," said an American friend of Polier to the Telegraph UK. "What actually happened is much nastier than is being reported."
Polier formerly worked for the New York bureau of the Associated Press after graduating with a double major in philosophy and government from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and with a journalism degree from Columbia University in New York. She is currently living in Kenya with the parents of her fiance Yaron Schwartzman, who works for a company called FilmStudios. The couple met at Columbia University and plan to get married later this year.
Thus far, neither of them have publicly commented on the alleged affair that was revealed by Internet news web site The Drudge Report on Thursday.
As reported by Talon News on Friday, a source at one of the major television networks said they are specifically forbidden to talk about this story on the air until one of the other major television networks reports on it first.
However, Polier taped an interview with one of the major television networks at Christmas substantiating the alleged affair. The television network is trying to gather more proof of the charges made by Polier before airing what would be potentially damaging to the Kerry presidential campaign.
Polier has reportedly told friends that Kerry suggested she go to Kenya, as Drudge detailed in his exclusive last week.
A source close to the television network said Polier's story is compelling, but only if it can be proven to be true.
"She wants to tell her story," the source told The London Sun. "She has talked at length about her relationship with Kerry. But no one is believing her."
Kerry, who has been riding high as the front-runner winning 14 of 16 Democrat primaries, has distanced himself completely from the charges of infidelity.
"I just deny it categorically," Kerry told reporters in Wisconsin, where a primary election will take place on Tuesday. "It's rumour. It's untrue. Period."
On Friday, Kerry appeared on the Don Imus radio talk show and flatly denied the story regarding him and the intern.
"There's nothing to report," Kerry told Imus. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm not worried about it."
When asked whether he would mind having a thorough investigation into this alleged affair, Kerry said he has already been given a closer look since becoming the Democrat front-runner.
"The answer is no," Kerry said. "I've been pretty well vetted and examined from one side to the other."
Imus later told his national radio audience that Kerry's campaign is "dead" if these allegations are found to be true.
Kerry campaign officials believe the Republican Party is responsible for a "dirty tricks" campaign bringing up these claims that Kerry was involved with Polier.
To that end, Kerry said he is ready to take on President George W. Bush and the Republican Party in the general election regardless of the distractions.
"These guys will want to try to do everything to change the subject," Kerry stated on Imus. "But I think they're in for a surprise. I'm a fighter, and I'm ready to fight back."
Yet Polier's parents, Terry and Donna Polier from Malvern, Pennsylvania, acknowledged that Kerry had been involved with his daughter.
"I think he's a sleazeball," exclaimed Terry Polier. "I did wonder if she didn't get that feeling herself."
He added, "He's not the sort of guy I'd choose to be with my daughter."
According to the intern's father, Kerry asked Polier to "be on his reelection committee" but she "decided against it."
Twenty members of the media from around the world traveled to Malvern on Friday trying to obtain more information about the 1995 high school graduate and Kerry.
Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, told Elle Magazine that if her first husband was ever involved in an extramarital affair that she would "maim" him.
"I'll maim you," the ketchup millionaire heiress said at the time. "Not kill you, just maim you."
A Democratic colleague to Kerry in the U.S. Senate said Kerry should reveal the whole truth about this before it is too late.
"Kerry needs to come clean and be absolutely clear about this rumor and other ones now starting to surface," the anonymous source told Insight Online. "We need to know flat out if he's [fooled] around with women besides his wife."
Democratic strategists fear another sex scandal involving a Democratic presidential candidate will invoke memories of former President Bill Clinton, whose affair with intern Monica Lewinsky was front-page news after first being revealed on The Drudge Report.
The colleague added that he is concerned Kerry has raised the character question with Bush's National Guard service considering these alleged issues about his own character.
"This Red Herring over Bush's [Texas] Air National Guard records is just BS and John knows this but keeps the issue alive by not coming out and telling his supporters and party leaders to stop the nonsense," the Senate colleague told Insight Online.
A Kerry campaign staffer said the campaign is bracing for the difficult questions in the coming weeks and months.
"Did he cheat on his current wife? Did he cheat on his first wife? Has he used illegal drugs? What were the circumstances of his not completing his tour of duty in Vietnam?," inquired the Kerry aide to Insight Online.
He added, "These are the types of questions that now are fair game because John [Kerry] let the dogs out" accusing Bush of character flaws with his Guard service.
Furthermore, unlike Bush, Kerry has not endured an intense campaign into his past.
"Bush has undergone national attention and scrutiny by the press in a grueling [national] campaign once before and a very nasty race in Texas," the Senate colleague commented to Insight Online. "John has not gone through that and to hold himself out as a man of character at the same time his own troops and party are trying to throw mud on Bush is stupid."
And Republican strategists say they will not pursue the intern affair rumor, but believe the American people will be instantly reminded of Clinton if the rumor is found to be true.
"People's memories are not that short to forget the national embarrassment Clinton caused and compounded with lies," a GOP strategist told Insight Online. "We don't want to touch this one with a ten foot pole but it'll be interesting to see if the press pursues this further."
In the meantime, several news organizations have continued to research these allegations as well as other instances of alleged infidelity during Kerry's political career.
Matt Drudge reported on Thursday that a full-scale investigation into this is underway at Time Magazine, ABC News, the Washington Post, the Hill, and the Associated Press.
Former Democratic presidential candidate retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark was at the center of this controversy last Monday when he told a group of reporters in an off-the-record comment, "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." Although he later acknowledged making the statement about Kerry, Clark still chose to endorse the frontrunner on Friday.
Talon News also reported on Friday that Kerry has been linked to other alleged extramarital affairs in the past, including Morgan Fairchild, Cornelia Guest, Patti Davis, Michele Philips, Catherine Oxenberg and other young reporters.
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The television network is trying to gather more proof of the charges made by Polier before airing what would be potentially damaging to the Kerry presidential campaign.
(snip)
A source close to the television network said Polier's story is compelling, but only if it can be proven to be true.
These are so funny. Was any of the crappola about W's National Guard service ever proven to be true? What phoneys these people are.
(steely)
That's my favorite. It doesn't compromise their reporting, I'm sure. They were totally biased for him to begin with. Gee, I guess they would have special insight into whether the charges of infidelity are accurate.
I remember a White House correspondent having a cow on air when it was mentioned that the Lewinskey/ Tripp tapes named OTHER women Clinton had affairs with. Gave me the distinct impression she was a bit too close to the story.
The reason is that the "major tv network" is un-identified and if it is ABC, CBS, CNN or NBC, they will investigate until December, 2004 if Kerry loses and 4 to 8 years later, if he wins.
It's like the old game General Motors used to do - they would buy an invention that trumped their own comparable equipment and then never use it and keep their margins on the old GM stuff. In the fianl analysis, you just cannot trust the vast majority of the news media.
FOR ANYONE TO 'BELIEVE' HER SHE HAS TO TELL US HER STORY!!! FOR GOD'S SAKE LET HER TELL HER STORY!!! TELL US HER STORY!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But, disaster struck. It turned out that her family, while wealthy, was no where wealthy enough to enjoy some of the tax cuts that John had been complaining about. John likes woman with really humogous bucks and, alas, this young lady just didn't have them. So, John was forced to send her to Africa, destroy most of the evidence, and distort whatever facts surfaced. It is standard democrat stuff. No big whoop! Let's move on folks, there is nothing to see here!
"We don't hate it when we're scooped. On some stories, we insist on it!"
Everybody happily quotes him saying this. He was vetted by the Gore campaign. They passed, which sort of implies that he didn't.
That's where knowing the press has a dual standard in your favor is a "secret" weapon.
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