Friday, August 08, 2008

Do You Have John Edwards In The Can?

Well, I see that John Edwards, finally feeling the weight of public pressure after Rabe Ramblings blew the lid off his illegitimate child scandal yesterday (okay, maybe there were some other people reporting it too), has now admitted an affair with Rielle Hunter, but insists he's not the baby's father.

So let's think this through a little bit.

First, the media. Will they admit now that they were utterly wrong all along to be suppressing this story? It's the headline story at every media outlet right now--even the Los Angeles Times. Will they apologize to the National Enquirer? Why did Edwards find the allegations compelling enough to respond to, while the media didn't even find them compelling enough to report in most cases?

Second, what about baby-faced liar John Edwards? He denied the affair for months and now admits he was lying the whole time. But he claims the child is not his. Is he lying again? The evidence is strong that he is. Edwards claims that the baby could not be his because the math doesn't work out with the baby's birth on February 27, 2008. He says the affair ended before he could have been the father. He also, according to ABC, made a special point of saying that the affair took place before his wife's cancer recurrence.

Elizabeth Edwards' cancer reoccurred in March 2007. Assuming normal gestation, this child would have been conceived in May 2007. If that child belongs to John Edwards, he's the world's biggest cad, and as a politician he knows this. It's over for him. So he claims that the affair ended in 2006. That's convenient if it's true. Yes, it makes him a jerk who cheated on his wife, but at least he's not a complete jerk who cheated on his dying wife.

But does that claim withstand even a moment's scrutiny? If the affair ended in 2006 as he claims, why was John Edwards in his "former" mistress's hotel room at 2am a couple of weeks ago, which he now admits? Why was he photographed in his former mistress's hotel room holding some other guy's baby? Why didn't his wife know about it, as he also admits to ABC? And if it's important to him that we know his wife didn't have terminal cancer when he had the affair, did she have less terminal cancer when he decided to visit his former mistress in California last month?

And perhaps the biggest question: as a trial lawyer worth tens of millions of dollars, is this really the best this clown can come up with?

UPDATE (5:31pm): Edwards has now released a public statement. It's a lot of fun. Here's a sampling:
Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough.
Get it? John Edwards is 99% honest! Why, that's almost perfectly honest! The only thing he lied about was cheating on his dying wife. He's only a little bit of a liar. 99% honest is a wonderful thing. Is that kind of like how his mistress was only a little pregnant?
In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.
Gee, you don't say. I think that comes as a stunning surprise to all of us. How much did that haircut cost again?
If you want to beat me up – feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself.
Oh, I'll bet I can. Self pity is a nice note to strike when you've just been busted cheating on your dying wife and lying about it, though. And his statement still contains no explanation for why he was in Rielle Hunter's hotel room 2:40am only 2 1/2 weeks ago if the affair ended in 2006, and he says he will answer no more questions on the issue.

Well, I beg to differ, because I think the missus is going to have quite a few questions. "No, honest, honey. I broke it off two years ago, just like I told you then."

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