John Edwards Caught Visiting Mistress and Love Child in LA

This is huge news and devastating for Edwards.

It looks like the MSM is trying to bury it as much as they can.

Any word on Bigfoot ?

Well, I have some friends who swear they've seen something in the woods, but they aren't saying much, and I have no idea what they were on at the time.



This isn't a made up story.

Geez Louise.

You mean that this reporter has been trailing him for months, cornered him several times in the hotel and didn't get one photo?

Seriously?

What kind of reporter is that?

Brittney drove by right at the crucial moment, disturbing his priorities...

This one tastes like chicken.

the enquirer... okay....

That's some fine police work there, Lou....


Let's see, Larry Craig has survived soliciting anonymous gay sex in a public bathroom, and this is going to sink Sentator Edwards?

Pull the other one.

it still sucks for his wife if it's true... and I'm only saying IF it's true.....

cj I'm just wondering how you can be so disgusted and appalled by John Edwards but so approving and admiring where Ted is concerned....

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/01/204237.php

Ted owned up to it. And he's not a politcian - not yet anyway. I'm sure that will be a difficult decision for reasons such as this.

What John Edwards Scandal? (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)
The Gawker | July 24, 2008 | Staff


If you want an efficient, capsule summary of why you haven't read anything in newspapers or seen anything on major network news about how John Edwards ran from National Enquirer reporters in a hotel parking garage, about how he hid in a bathroom for 15 minutes, and about how he was holed up overnight with his alleged mistress and love child ?- an awesome, amazing story ?- parse these three revealing sentences from Washington Post "gossip" columnist Roxanne Roberts, in response to one of many persistent questions about the scandal in an online chat yesterday:

The Enquirer is not going to sell papers with nuance or sensitivity. I need more reporting from a credible source before I'm prepared to pass judgment. I'm not sure Edwards is a real candidate for the VP job, but if so will have to address this one way or another.

It's important to keep in mind, when reading this odd answer, that traditional news media used to have something of a lock on the dissemination of information, and allowed themselves to be convinced that they had a bizarre duty to filter even accurate information of interest to their audiences, and to do so in the service of reinforcing various social institutions and norms, even though their jobs, their Constitutionally-protected jobs, were to do just the opposite, to disseminate information and challenge long-cherished moral codes.

This self-shackling, this corruption of a trade, has become fundamental to American news media, and in the quote above we see Roberts concisely showcasing her own deep-seated instincts.

First, there's a dig at the Enquirer, the implication that the publication threw aside the nuanced truth to sell newspapers. This sort of reflexive swipe itself lacks nuance, and ignores history. In 1994, the Times declared that, on the OJ Simpson story, the Enquirer "stands heads and shoulders above [any other publication] for aggressiveness and accuracy." Slate's Jack Shafer in 2004 offered support for the tabloid's standards, if not its presentation, in "I Believe The National Enquirer/Why Don't You?," noting, "if you correct for stylistic overkill, you find a publication that is every bit as accurate as mainstream media."

Granted, the supermarket tabloid has stumbled, including with a 2006 libel case involving Kate Hudson, which it lost, and a retracted story involving false allegations that Cameron Diaz was cheating. But so have plenty of other publications, many with fewer than the Enquirer's 1 million readers.

The there's Roberts' line about the Enquirer lacking "sensitivity." With five reporters scrambling to ask Edwards about his alleged affair, the Enquirer was certainly showing sensitivity to the truth in all its shades. Or maybe she's saying the tabloid should be sensitive to Edwards' feelings by ignoring the story, as the Washington Post and Times and others have done, as though the truth can be kept bottled up at whim, and as if it's a newspaper's role to help perpetuate a lie, to keep Elizabeth Edwards in the dark until ?- what? ?- until she passes away?

And what's with the notion that the Washington Post needs to "pass judgement" before it reports the story? Here we see most clearly how news decisions can be poisoned by social pressure. Ostensibly, the Post, like other papers, at least tries to remain objective in its news columns. Passing judgement is the last thing a reporter is encouraged to do. But when a story actually becomes interesting, say by breaking a taboo on talking about sexual infidelity, or by breaking a taboo on criticizing the government during wartime (to pick an entirely random example!), suddenly a moral justification is needed in order to publish. Because, you see, newspapers like the Times and Post still control what information we, the isolated, childlike, reading public, are exposed to! This is a very contemporary, factually accurate and democratic view of the world.

Those who do buy into the bankrupt notion that the news media are morally freighted info-arbiters can still find reason to support coverage of the Edwards scandal. As Slate's Jack Shafer argues in "Why The Press Is Ignoring The Edwards 'Love Child' Story," Edwards' marriage is fair game in the tortured calculus of media relevance because Edwards deployed his wife aggressively in the service of his campaign. In fact, covering the scandal is a moral imperative, since Republicans were quickly hit with news stories during similar scandals of the recent past (Larry Craig is cited). See how slippery things get when news editors start trying to cast moral judgements on the news?

Finally, Roberts argues there is no reason to cover the "love child" scandal unless Edwards is a viable VP candidate, because again you need an excuse to write interesting stories. Again, Slate provides a rebuttal, this time from Mickey Kaus, who points out that Edwards was in fact on the shortlist for Attorney General under would-be president Barack Obama. It is supremely arrogant for news editors to assume they have the knowledge to definitively rule out the relevance of a story that is as interesting as the Edwards affair.

At least partly for the reasons outlined by Roberts, a large number of news organizations have elected to ignore the Edwards story as of this moment. Kaus compiled a list that includes not only the Times and Washington Post but also the newsweeklies, network newscasts and even the Huffington Post ("and it's their story!").

That's actually fine ?- totally their prerogative. Perhaps some are even even readying Edwards stories at this moment, and just wanted to give him time to issue an official statement (beyond this non-denial on Drudge: "I don't talk about these tabloids. Tabloid trash is full of lies.") and to do more of their own reporting. Wonderful.

But to the extent the silence is due to publishers, like Roberts, intent on dictating news interest to their readers, so much so that they will ignore certain hot topics, these news organizations are mortgaging their future, and in many cases ceding valuable ground to competitors already eating deep into their profit margins.

On the bright side, for the rest of us, this process does have a way of weeding out news outlets that are all-too-eager to suppress news stories rather than publish them.

Why the Press Is Ignoring the Edwards "Love Child"
Why the Press Is Ignoring the Edwards "Love Child" Story
A double standard is at work.
By Jack Shafer - Slate
Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Everybody had a good laugh last August when Roll Call broke the story about Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, getting arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for playing footsies in a toilet stall. The late-night talk show hosts mined the material for days; Slate produced a re-enactment of the bathroom ballet; and newspapers, magazines, and cable channels shredded Craig.

The angle taken by most reporters and commentators wasn't that Craig's restroom conduct was particularly shameful. The press doesn't object to same-sex sex at all, nor should it. Craig's true offense, said the press and the clowns, was hypocrisy, which they consider an inexcusable crime. Craig had supported both federal and Idaho bans on same-sex marriage, had opposed hate crime legislation that would extend protections to gays, and had earned a perfect 0 rating (PDF) from the Human Rights Campaign, a gay lobby. And he had denied and denied any and all gayness while trying to recruit some action in a bathroom!

Although the Craig story and the John Edwards story, currently unfolding thanks to the National Enquirer, aren't directly analogous, they have a bit in common. Edwards, too, may be a sex hypocrite. The tabloid called Edwards a cheater last October and the father of a love child in December, and last night the Enquirer posted a story about Edwards' visit to his alleged mistress and child at the Beverly Hilton on Monday night.

When the original Enquirer story about the affair with Rielle Hunter came out, Edwards categorically denied the relationship, stating: "The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous." As he rejected the Enquirer's charges, Edwards was making his wife and their marriage a central component of his campaign. If Edwards had had no affair, he wasn't a hypocrite, not then and not now.

But if Edwards had an affair and lied about it, shouldn't he suffer scrutiny akin to that of Craig? At least three-dozen daily newspapers in the United States published the Craig news the day after the Roll Call scoop, according to Nexis, but this morning not a single U.S. daily mentioned the Enquirer piece.

Now, as I've already said, the two stories aren't completely analogous. A cop charged Craig with a misdemeanor, and he pleaded guilty. There's no denying the police blotter is always news, and there's no denying that Craig deserved the hypocrisy scrutiny. Edwards, as far as we know, is guilty of nothing beyond running away from tabloid reporters in a Beverly Hills hotel stairway in the wee a.m. after visiting a female friend in her room. Also, all of the Enquirer's published "evidence" of an Edwards affair comes from unnamed sources. And I should mention that an Edwards political operative, Andrew Young, claims that he is the father of Hunter's child. (Young is married with children of his own.)
Yet, if the press craves consistency, it owes its readers some sort of assessment of Edwards. Is he, like Craig, a public hypocrite? Edwards is still very much a public figure. As Drudge notes today on his site, as recently as June the Associated Press reported that he was a vice presidential short-lister.

If Edwards had no affair and fathered no love child, it should be easy to erase the hypocrisy charge, and the press owes him that, pronto. If we give Edwards the benefit of the doubt, which he deserves, visiting the woman who recently gave birth to the out-of-wedlock child of a married campaign aide is completely OK. But meeting her at a Beverly Hills hotel in the early hours of the morning and running from tabloid reporters when approached and hiding in a hotel bathroom for 15 minutes, as the Enquirer reports Edwards did, is not completely OK. Not if he wants to avoid the hypocrite label.

So why hasn't the press commented on the story yet? Is it because it broke too late yesterday afternoon, and news organizations want to investigate it for themselves before writing about it? Or are they observing a double standard that says homo-hypocrisy is indefensible but that hetero-hypocrisy deserves an automatic bye?

That's my sense. Consider how the press treated Jesse Jackson when he admitted to having fathered a daughter outside of his marriage. The baby arrived in 1999, but Jackson didn't go public about it until 2001, after the National Enquirer scheduled its story about the little girl and her mother. Jackson, who loves preaching to others about their morality, suffered less than two seconds of opprobrium from the press after his admission.

It's hard to top Jackson for hypocrisy. In late 1998, while Karin Stanford was carrying the reverend's child, the two visited President Bill Clinton in the White House. Bill was "recovering" from the Lewinsky scandal, and Jesse was there to "counsel" him.

Who says Edwards ran and hid, though? Or was even there at all?

Just National Enquirer reporters?

There was far more solid evidence re: Larry Craig -- I don't think it's just the hypocrisy angle.

I have no idea at this point whether it's true -- I don't trust the National Enquirer but it's possible that their aggressive pursuit of Edwards yielded something. There just doesn't seem to be enough actual evidence yet, though, and I think it's more responsible for newspapers to wait for that rather than just repeating every little allegation on the off-chance that it's true.

it would eliminate him from consideration as veep for sure.... don't need that kind of heat... and it would be awful for his sick wife.... aside from those two things... who gives a ****?

Let's just say it's true-- then what is at issue?

Unlike Eliot Spitzer or Larry Craig there is no great hypocrisy going on-- he cheated on his ailing wife. Not good, but not scandalous, either.

He seemed virtuous, too. Makes me think somewhere in the future we'll be hearing about B. Obama's mistress.

Criminal complaint filed...
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/update_john_edwards_affair_criminal_complaint_filed/celebrity/65209

LA Times bloggers told not to discuss...
http://www.slate.com/id/2195914/#latedict

Account confirmed by hotel security...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,391426,00.html

Not so much, according to your third link:



Which of course brings us back to -- the National Enquirer is the National Enquirer. This may be legitimate or it may not be, but the NE is hardly a bastion of journalistic integrity. Nor is Fox, of course, but that at least moves it slightly more towards the realm of possibility. We'll see.

JOHN EDWARDS' HU$H MONEY TO MISTRESS
A NATIONAL ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered John Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter - the mother of his "love child" - has been secretly receiv­ing $15,000 a month as part of an elaborate cover-up orchestrated by the former presidential contender.

The money is being funneled to Hunter by a wealthy colleague who was closely tied to the Edwards' campaign. This same man is also shoveling cash to Edwards' pal and former aide Andrew Young - who tried to take the heat off the ex-Senator by claiming he is the father of Rielle's baby.

And The ENQUIRER is also exclusively revealing that Rielle's baby is a girl named Frances Quinn Hunter and was born at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.

"A super-rich pal - who was closely involved with the campaign finances - is helping John. It's likely this man doesn't know all the dirty details of John's extramarital affair, but is acting out of loyalty and is not asking a lot of questions - only writing the checks," revealed a source very close to the situation.

A year-long ENQUIRER investigation exploded spectacularly into the open on the night of July 21 when our reporters caught Edwards making a secret late-night visit to Rielle, 44, and their infant child at Los Angeles' Beverly Hilton hotel.

Edwards, 55, was confronted by ENQUIRER reporters, but refused to answer questions and instead hid in a public men's restroom until security escorted him off hotel grounds.

The Beverly Hilton meeting between Edwards and Rielle was pulled off with the help of Rielle's longtime California friend Bob McGovern, who drove Rielle to the hotel from Santa Barbara, and booked two rooms under his name. Rielle and Edwards met in one of those rooms.

Edwards has refused to comment on The ENQUIRER's account of that evening and has avoided reporters' questions.