Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says a tabloid story that he had an extramarital affair is untrue.
''The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous,'' Edwards told reporters Thursday after he was asked about the National Enquirer report.
The supermarket newspaper reported that the former North Carolina senator had an affair with a woman who worked on his campaign. It did not identify the woman, nor did it name the source of the information for its report.
Dan McLaughlin openly says what a lot of folks are thinking:
the National Enquirer is retailing a story of Edwards supposedly cheating on his cancer-stricken wife with a filmmaker who was paid a lot of money by the Edwards campaign for work that never saw the light of day. The Huffington Post is likewise pushing the filmmaker angle as a "questions are being raised" story without explicitly mentioning the alleged affair. As with the Kerry story in 2004, the tale is plausible enough that it is of course possible that it is true, but the nature of the disclosures so far - and their sourcing - are more suggestive of a political hit piece that can't be verified but also can't be denied by Edwards without giving the whole ball of mud some credence.
So if it's a politically motivated hit job, and the people who logically stand to benefit are Hillary and Obama, that's where the media should be looking for the culprits...
Interestingly enough, the Enquirer's lawyer, David Kendell, just happens to be connected to, you guessed it, Hillary Clinton:
he began representing President and Mrs. Clinton in November 1993, in what was ostensibly a small savings and loan matter involving Whitewater Development Company, Inc. He went on to represent the Clintons in a variety of matters, including Independent Counsel, Senate, House of Representatives, FDIC, RTC, and bar counsel investigations, civil litigation, and the 1998-99 impeachment proceedings...His clients have included The Washington Post, Newsweek, National Enquirer (where he supervised prepublication copy review for over a decade and a half)...
I'd still like to know how this woman came to be paid $114,000 by Edwards' PAC to make web videos that were never used, but I realize that's a less sexy story, no pun intended.
Since there isn't a presentable source I don't care what a tabloid alleges.
As for linking it to Hillary, she wouldn't really be motivated since Edwards is way behind her in the polls. Hillary haters however do have a motivation for making her a potential culprit. This has also become an established MO for attacking Clinton.
I think G-Man probably sees it as hitting 2 birds with one stone.
Yeah I can understand how that type of stratagy is tempting for a Rudy supporter
Anyone think this type of tabloid stuff should be major news items? If there was solid sourcing for the allegations then I believe it's fair game but wiithout it's not.
A new InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll out of Iowa shows John Edwards leaping from third to first place in Iowa
The Democratic poll, taken from Dec. 16-17 of 977 Democrats who said they intend to participate in the caucuses, showed Edwards with 30 percent, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Clinton with 26 percent and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama with 24 percent.
The poll, which is an automated survey taken overnight, suggests the former North Carolina senator - who has been steadily trumpeting his anti-special interest, populist message - is resonating in Iowa. Other recent polls showed Obama overtaking Clinton, and Edwards stuck in third.
However, when the InsiderAdvantage poll’s sample group was narrowed to 633 Democrats most likely to caucus, Obama retained a 1-point lead. That poll gave Obama 27 percent, Edwards 26 percent and Clinton 24 percent. The tighter sample group had a margin of error of 3 percent, while the broader group had a margin of error of 2 percent.
Perhaps not coincidentally (given the tabloid's connections to the Clintons, noted above, and Edwards vaulting ahead of Hillary in at least one poll), reports are surfacing that "at least two news outlets are preparing to break new details" on the story the National Enquirer printed a few months ago alleging that John Edwards cheated on his wife with a campaign volunteer.
This little piece of stupidity pops up in right wing circles with regularity as it concerns John Edwards. That since he's rich, he can't possibly be in a position to help the poor. It's as if the people propagating this sound byte can't see past their own sociopath mindset and actually believe that anyone with means would actually look out for those less fortunate. Case in point:
To show just how low the bar can be lowered, Tucker decides that John Edwards’ large house makes for good political discussion. Never mind the fact that both John and Elizabeth came from modest means and built their wealth, they’re hypocrites because they’re liberals — you just can’t own a huge house and still care about people who are less fortunate — therefore, he’s not fit to be president.
What’s even more frustrating is to see Bob Franken and Slate’s Melinda Henneberger play along with this foolishness. Henneberger says that while Elizabeth Edwards is a wonderful person that everybody loves, she’s the one who wanted the huge house and boy, that really runs counter to the message that she and her husband are trying to put out on the campaign trail. Since Edwards’ campaign speeches have been about how we need to find ways to balance the great disparities between the very rich and those less fortunate and make sure that those who are less well off have the same opportunities to succeed as the wealthy, I’m missing where that goes off message.
It’s reported that Rachel Maddow is taping a pilot for a new show for MSNBC and I can only hope that she succeeds and replaces Tucker Carlson.
I guess it’s just dandy that Bush owns a big ranch in Texas and made millions of dollars off of the sale of the Texas Rangers, but John Edwards couldn’t possibly want to help people because he has a big house. Arggg.
So using that logic, only poor people may seek to help those who are poor?
What about FDR?
What about the Kennedy's?
LBJ?
what about philanthropists now and thru the ages??
It's kinda bullshit this argument I CONSTANTLY hear from people on the right, that if you're rich, then you must be insincere about helping poor people or you're somehow unqualified. If you use a car or have ever sat in a plane to get somewhere then anything you do concerning the environment is hypocritical.
It's as if they're trying to DISCOURAGE doing ANYTHING.
Let the status quo be, why bother? It's a head in the sand mentality and i'm pretty tired of it.
It's kinda bullshit this argument I CONSTANTLY hear from people on the right, that if you're rich, then you must be insincere about helping poor people or you're somehow unqualified.
Actually, I would say that the knock on people like Edwards is that there's a disconnect between their rhetoric and the reality of their actions.
Case in point: is just watched "This week" with George Stephanopolis and George Will. They played a clip of Edwards promising that, if elected President, there would be no one in his administration who'd worked as a corporate lobbyist or had financial ties to corporations.
It was an appealing populist message to democrat voters, they noted. However, Will pointed out, given Edwards past ties to corporate hedge funds, he arguably was disqualifying himself from his own administration.
Just as socially conservative Republican candidates render themselves vunerable to charges of hypocrisy if they betray "family values" by having affairs or being closted gays, populist Democrats who make money in ways they begrudge others come across as insincere or dishonest.
So using that logic, only poor people may seek to help those who are poor?
What about FDR?
What about the Kennedy's?
LBJ?
what about philanthropists now and thru the ages??
It's kinda bullshit this argument I CONSTANTLY hear from people on the right, that if you're rich, then you must be insincere about helping poor people or you're somehow unqualified. If you use a car or have ever sat in a plane to get somewhere then anything you do concerning the environment is hypocritical.
It's as if they're trying to DISCOURAGE doing ANYTHING.
Let the status quo be, why bother? It's a head in the sand mentality and i'm pretty tired of it.
we should help the poor and we should make sure that everyone can have some kind of health insurance.....but many democrats are indeed insincere about this. Edwards is full of shit. His idea of helping the poor is to tax the hell out of and squeeze the middle class and upper middle class dry till we are all poor except for the elite super rich class that he is a part of. If politicians really cared they would star regulating how much banks could charge on mortgages.... how much apr the credit card companies could charge.......tax the hell out of the oil companies and other fortune 500 companies......put limits on much ceos bonuses are and how much they can be paid....etc. etc.
Also don't let douchebag personal injury lawyers drive up the costs of insurance premiums when they win damges that are incredibly excessive and only end up hurting the whole country specifically the little guys that they are supposedly trying to protect like Edwards did.... he's a douchbag allright! *deep breath*
Another example of Edwards' actions seeming perhaps hypocritical: The New York Times printed an article about the "independent political groups [who] are using their financial muscle and organizational clout as never before to influence the presidential race, pumping money and troops into early nominating states on behalf of their favored candidates."
According to the article, Edwards seems to be trying to have it both ways, criticizing the groups, while accepting their assistance:
Mr. Edwards, in particular, has made tightening such rules a cornerstone of his campaign, putting him in a delicate position as he denounces expenditures coming indirectly from some of his closest supporters, like locals of the service employees’ union.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Edwards has called on the groups, known as 527s for the section of the tax code they fall under, to stop running advertisements supporting him. But he has said he will not ask them directly
Mr. Edwards is also benefiting from more than $1.5 million from the Alliance for a New America, which has primarily been running a radio campaign in Iowa. While most of the money has come from service union locals, one big donation of $495,000 that came in last Friday was given by a longtime Edwards supporter.
And it turns out that Edwards himself set up one of these independent groups:
Mr. Edwards’s One America committee[is] a 527 committee he set up to fight poverty.
Don't get me wrong. As a supporter of free speech I'm on record as opposing the regulation of these groups on First Amendment grounds. But if Edwards is going to make attacking these groups a cornerstone of his campaign he should be working a lot harder to distance himself from them.
…but the media ignores the candidate, does it really happen?
Glenn Greenwald looks at the media narratives that can’t say enough about McCain’s “rise from the dead” but ignores John Edwards’ rise completely.
Quote:
Aside from the fact that these endless prediction games completely overwhelm any substantive discussions, their guesses — which are really wishes — are almost always dreadfully wrong and plainly designed to advance their concealed agenda for which candidates they like and dislike. Why is any of that something that reporters ought to be doing at all? Is there any distinction between what a “reporter” does and what a “pundit” does covering this campaign? There doesn’t seem to be any.
As but one example, consider this new daily tracking poll today from Rasumussen Reports. At least according to this poll, it is true that there has been one candidate who has been genuinely surging in the last week or two among Democratic voters nationally — John Edwards [..]
Yet to listen to media reports, Edwards doesn’t even exist. His campaign is dead. He has no chance. They hate Edwards, hate his message, and thus rendered him invisible long ago, only now to declare him dead — after he came in second place in the first caucus of the campaign.
…I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.
You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don’t have lobbyists in Washington and they don’t get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.
I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.[..]
I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.
So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father’s words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.
I don’t know about you, but if I got a letter like that, it would be framed and on my wall where every visitor could see it.
Nice letter for Edwards. I didn't catch the SC debate tonight but read about it from various sites & I'm going to guess that he will probably come out of it looking pretty good. It sounds like there was quite a bit of unattractive fighting between Obama & Hillary.
John Edwards nailed the problem with his campaign. He should have singled out Chris Matthews as the guy has nothing but contempt for anything that might interrupt from endlessly discussing nothing but the novelty that is 'the woman VS the black man'. God love him, John Edwards smacks the media who insist on making the Democratic presidential race a two person one and treating him as if he doesn’t exist:
That Hannity bit at the end was priceless. Almost the entire audience says Edwards won and his only question for them is wanting to know who they think did better, Hillary or Obama.
I felt Edwards came off as a whiny bitch personally. I think the media treats it like a 2 person race because it is indeed a 2 person race. He doesn't have a chance.
Originally Posted By: The New Adventures of Old PJP
I felt Edwards came off as a whiny bitch personally. I think the media treats it like a 2 person race because it is indeed a 2 person race. He doesn't have a chance.
Yeah, that comment about a two person race seemed like whining.
With that being said, it's too bad for the Democrats (and good for the rest of the country) that they didn't get behind the Breck boy. I've seen clips of him speaking to rallies and similar events and he is a very good speaker outside of the Democrat debates. I'd actually be more afraid of my guys running against him as the 2008 nominee than either Clinton or Obama.
LETTERMAN: You know what I've noticed about Bill O'Reilly? And he's a marvelous communicator. But he doesn't really care very much about telling the truth.
EDWARDS: Yeah I've noticed.
LETTERMAN: Very entertaining. And I like when he's on the show. But if you say one thing...
EDWARDS: Most of what he says is full of crap.
LETTERMAN: I like how you think, Senator.
The audience was visibly (audibly) shocked, then slowly breaks into a good applause once they realize it's okay to tell the truth about O'Reilly.
Does anyone younger than 50 even know what Breck is?
BTW, thank you for underscoring my belief in Edwards as being the only really viable candidate.
Viable how? You obviously don't mean that he's winning.
He's one of the Dems that I gained some respect for, with his anti-corporate-special-interest populist message. Sorry to see him drop out, as long as he was a candidate, he could participate in debates, he could raise the issue of pushing back corporate influence.
And again, I don't see him as completely gone. As discussed before, he seemed in one primary debate to be aligning himself with Obama, and auditioning for Obama's vice president.
For the young'uns here, Breck is a shampoo, another reference to Edwards' pretty hair.
I doubt he'll be the VP nominee. He couldn't even win his own state for Kerry last time. Rumor has it that if Barack Hussein Obama wins he will make Edwards his attorney general, however.
John Edwards met secretly with Hillary Clinton and will meet with Barack Obama about a possible endorsement.
Edwards has been “in talks” with Clinton and Barack Obama “for weeks” about an endorsement but has not yet said who he will endorse or when he will do it.
The former North Carolina senator met with Clinton on Thursday and will meet with Obama on Monday. The campaign official described him as “very torn” in reaching a decision about which candidate to back.
Edwards dropped out of the race last month after placing third in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary. He said at the time that he had spoken to both of his former rivals and each had pledged to carry his anti-poverty message with them on the campaign trail and into the White House if one became president.
Clinton campaign officials would not comment on what took place at the sit-down or how it went, calling it a private meeting. But Clinton herself brought up Edwards’ name twice on Saturday during an event in Lewiston, Maine. First, she praised him on health care, then in a question and answer session, she told an ex-Edwards supporter that she and Edwards have a lot in common.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Edwards in the televised ABC debate a month or so ago aligned himself with Obama as a fellow "agent of change", in opposition to Hillary who he described as part of the Washington 2-party establishment. So to me it would be unnatural for Edwards to at this stage endorse Hillary Clinton. That would be a pretty clear backroom deal, inconsistent with Edwards' previous rhetoric.
Endorsing Obama would be consistent with what Edwards said prior, even though that would apparently be a backroom deal as well.
Although, after seeing both Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy give unprecedented endorsement to Barack Obama as the heir-apparent to JFK and Martin Luther King Jr., and having the people of Massachussetts still give the state's Democratic primary victory to Hillary Clinton over Obama, I don't know how much difference Edwards' endorsement would make, one way or the other.
Even as John Edwards was trying to appear sincere and apologetic in public, behind the scenes he was cynically attempting to manipulate the media in order to minimize the damage. He’s reportedly furious with ABC News for breaking the story of his extramarital affair early on Friday, instead of waiting for the Olympics opening ceremonies to start.
I, personally, don't think the fact he had an affair is that big of a deal, especially now that he's out of the race. However, it would appear to be yet-another example of his being a hypocrite:
John Edwards on Bill Clinton in 1999: “I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.”
Yes, it's a shame he didn't stand up for Family Values like Newt Gingrich did.
or Larry Craig. or David Vitter. or Ted Haggard. or Bill O'Reilly. or Mark Foley.
Darn those promiscuous Democrats for getting better-quality tail!
Did you even read my post before you started wanking and crying over it?
I said that I didn't care that Edwards had an affair. I only said it made him look like a hypocrite because he attacked Bill Clinton for doing the same thing.
as far as I know none of those guys were screwing around behind there wife who was dying. i could care less about the political side of it, i didnt care that bill was screwing monica(though perjury was another matter), but the fact that the guy would cheat on a dying woman says he is a piece of shit.
