Carolina Politics Online

The National Enquirer, the publication that broke the John Edwards / Rielle Hunter affair, is claiming today that a grand jury may indict the disgraced presidential candidate and former North Carolina Senator.  According to the source, Edwards has been under investigation for the misuse of campaign funds related to paying his mistress.

Edwards may get to live in two Americas after all.  The one he is in today and the one that exists behind bars.

So by now everyone knows about the John Edwards sex tape with Rielle Hunter that is in the possession of Andrew Young, author of “The Politician.”  At this point Young has refused to return the tape despite the fact that everyone now knows about it and his book is set to come out this month.  I am trying to figure out what this guy’s motivation is to want to keep the sex tape.  What purpose does it serve at this point to actually hire lawyers to defend him from having to return it?  What could he possibly even need it for and are we sure we even want to know?

If you haven’t heard, the Biggest Jackass of 2008 crawled out of his hole the other day to tell us the sun was hot, trees are green, and that, oh yeah… I really am the father of that baby girl I’ve repeatedly denied over the past two years.

Here are some of my favorite responses to this earth-shattering shocker:

-Jon Stewart from The Daily Show said it was part of Edwards’ plan to announce his new line of perfume: “‘Forgiveness’, by John Edwards. For the day she grows out of hating you for denying you were her father.”

-In a post entitled “Anyone Who Ever Voted for John Edwards Ought to Take the Next Election Cycle Off“, Jim Geraghty said that he’d “like to take this moment to remind my Democratic friends that a little more than a year ago, about a third of them or so tried to elect this man to the presidency. A man who is astonishingly reckless, a bald-faced liar, a colossal jerk of a husband, tirelessly duplicitous, utterly convinced that he’s wily enough and smooth enough to convince a gullible American public of supremely implausible falsehoods, and who, sadly, probably needs some work as a father.

-Jay Leno: “This is pretty sleazy. John Edwards’ former aide says in an upcoming interview that Edwards asked him to steal a diaper from the baby to do a DNA test. Apparently the test showed that both the diaper and John Edwards are full of crap.”

Like we didn’t know this already.

Sources have told WRAL News that they expect former U.S. Sen. John Edwards to admit that he is the father of his former mistress’ 18-month-old daughter.

WRAL

John Edwards marched toward the White House in 2006 seeking an arsenal of millions collected a little at a time.

He also gathered more ammunition, about $11 million, collected in larger chunks by nonprofit groups conceived and operated to further his aspirations. He also courted a girlfriend.

Federal investigators are trying to connect those dots, sifting through Edwards’ financial records to probe whether he used any donations solicited for his campaign to keep quiet his affair with Rielle Hunter.

Edwards, a Democrat and former U.S. senator, on Thursday acknowledged the investigation to The News & Observer.

“I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly,” Edwards said in a statement. “However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true. We have made available to the United States both the people and the information necessary to help them get the issue resolved efficiently and in a timely matter. We appreciate the diligence and professionalism of those involved and look forward to a conclusion.”

Edwards declined to discuss the matter.

The News & Observer

Surely a sleazy trial lawyer like John Edwards could worm his way out of this with some kind of creative story, no?

“Well, you see, if she would have gone public it would have destroyed my presidential future, so really, if you want to get technical, it was a legitimate campaign expense.”  I’m sure he can get them to buy that.  I hear the O.J. jury is looking for some work.

The memoir of Elizabeth Edwards, cancer survivor and wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards, hits bookstores May 12. “Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life’s Adversities,” is billed by publisher Broadway Books as “an unsentimental and ultimately inspirational meditation on the gifts we can find among life’s biggest challenges.”

One of those challenges was dealing with her husband’s admission of carrying on an affair. Elizabeth Edwards took the news hard; according to the New York Daily News, which has acquired an advance copy of the book, she writes:

“I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up.”

The LA Times

If I have to hear about John or Elizabeth Edwards again I am going to throw up too.  Talk about being one of the most sleaziest political opportunist couples in America.  John Edwards betrayed the people who worked relentlessly to try and get him elected and those who handed over money to aid him in his campaign.  I don’t particularly feel bad for those people.  If you were dumb enough to fall for Edwards’ rhetoric then you deserved to get bent over, but Edwards abused the trust and dedication of his followers and put his party’s opportunity at risk all for his own self-aggrandizement.

On top of that, I am sick and tired of his wife being painted as this poor, fragile victim.  That woman knew about this affair and she decided to keep it under wraps anyway during the campaign.  She was complicite in her husband’s infidelity towards her which I think makes her even worse than he.  Oh, but that’s right, I forgot.  We’re not supposed to express any ill feeling towards her. She has cancer.

The Federal Election Commission is expected to order former U.S. Sen. John Edwards’ presidential campaign to pay more than $170,000 for accepting excessive contributions and violating other rules involving his 2004 presidential bid.

The recommendation was part of the FEC’s staff audit of Edwards’ campaign, a routine practice for candidates who receive public money. Edwards, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008, promoted campaign-finance reform.

The FEC said at a November meeting that it would require him to pay the U.S. Treasury $154,000 for accepting excessive contributions from individuals, who were allowed to give $2,000 apiece. The FEC tests a sample of the donations to see whether givers exceeded the limit, and then uses a formula to determine the amount owed, so it is impossible to say how many contributors actually gave more than the cap.

The N&O

Damn. Now he’ll have to cut down on those $400 haircuts.

That’s the case Public Policy Polling is attempting to make with their latest report.  You can read it at their site. It’s interesting reading, although the question begged to be asked is what constitutes being a “moderate” these days?  Ideological labels get carelessly tossed around all the time and I don’t know that one person’s definition of conservative, liberal, or moderate automatically match the view of another.

For instance, we hear those on the left constantly refer to Bush’s failures as disastrous “conservative” policies and that seems to be the position many lefties put him in, but I would hardly consider George Bush to be a conservative.  Sure, on social issues there is little doubt he is staunchly conservative, but there is just as little evidence of that elsewhere.  He took 200 years of national debt and more than doubled it in eight, hardly the profile of a fiscal conservative.  He did cut taxes, however, which is a conservative position.  On the other hand, he orchestrated both the Wall Street and auto bailouts and partially nationalized our banking system which is jumping straight into Socialism with both feet.  He supported amnesty for illegal aliens, increased the nation’s long term Medicare committment, strengthened the Federal government’s role in education with No Child Left Behind, created the Department of Homeland Security and was behind the biggest expansion of Federal government in American history.  Yet, despite all of this, Bush is labeled a conservative without a second thought.  If anything Bush is a left leaning centrist whom Democrats should be fairly happy with and I’m willing to bet that if Bush had been a Democrat we’d have barely heard a peep out of most of the people doing the bitching.

Let’s also look at Bill Clinton, the bane of conservatives and possibly the most hated Democrat President by the right in the 20th century.  Republicans just as easily throw a liberal label on Clinton as the Dems do with Bush and conservatism, but just how liberal was Bill Clinton?  Think about it.  He signed off on NAFTA.  He cut the Capital Gains Tax.  He signed off on welfare reform.  He worked with a Republican Congress to submit a balanced budget.  He signed off on the line item veto, even though it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Nice going, Rudy Giuliani.  Yes, I am being sarcastic).  Does this sound like the administration of a full fledged liberal?

Neither Bush nor Clinton really fit the profile the public has given them, so how did they earn it?  It really comes down to party label.  Most people hear Republican they think conservative.  Most people hear Democrat they think liberal.  Many times that’s not the case.  I am an economic conservative, but a left leaning moderate on social issues.  What does that make me?  In my opinion, I am the true “moderate, ” but could I get elected running for statewide office in North Carolina?

Would North Carolina elect a man who is for cutting spending, eliminating most Federal programs, eliminating foreign aid, doing away with the Dept of Education, the Dept of Transportation, FEMA, massively cutting the income tax, supportive of school choice, scaling back military spending, turning away from the Monroe Doctrine, pro-life but for leaving regulation to the individual states, supportive of legalizing drugs, lowering the drinking age to 18, recognizing flag burning as protected speech, and opposed to a Federal marriage amendment?  That seems like a moderate agenda to me, a mixture of issues on both sides of the aisle, but when I think of the demographics of North Carolina, I can’t imagine a lot of that would fly with a voting base that is still conservative leaning.

Furthermore, how do we explain the continued reelection of former Senator Jesse Helms and the election of John Edwards, a far right Senator and a far left Senator?  What about Pat McCrory?  He is considered in political circles to be a moderate and had it not been for the Obama effect he would most certainly have won the governor’s race, but he ran as a conservative, not a moderate.  McCrory’s platform was to get tough on crime, control spending, and appropriately allocate the state’s resources regarding infrastructure, ending the current corrupt processes involved in the DOT.

I don’t think PPP analysis is as cut and dry as they make it sound.  I still believe that North Carolina, barring unusual circumstances as seen in this past election, would elect someone with the traditional American values of low taxation, less government, balancing cultural conservatism as to not over do it, and overall just getting out of our way.

John Edwards

There are jackasses. Then there are super-primo jackasses. Then there are those who do things that even jackasses find repulsive. It’s about right there, with the rest of the parasites living on the underbelly of jackassery, that you’ll find John Edwards, your choice for Carolina Politics Online’s 2008 Jackass of the Year.

Congratulations readers. You have made a fine choice indeed.

Some may accuse me of partisanship-inspired hyperbole, but I believe that John Edwards is such a truly loathsome human being that I can write until tomorrow and be unable to muster the words necessary to express just how much I detest this waste of protoplasm. It’s not simply that he has no redeeming value; it’s that on the whole, he’s a net negative to society. Because John Edwards exists, politics is a little more cynical, the legal profession is less noble, a doctor’s appointment costs a little more, and even sunsets lose a little bit of their splendor. Edwards just sucks the vibrancy and joy out of life like the overgrown tic he is. You, me, your family, and America are all worse off because of John Edwards.

There are so many reasons to detest this man, the hardest part about writing this is keeping it short while still explaining why he’s such a Jackass. I suppose we should start with the fact that because of John Edwards, expectant mothers across the United States have few doctors to help them and more costs to pay.

You see, Edwards made his name (and his fortune), suing obstetricians for causing Cerebral Palsy (CP) in the babies they were delivering. Edwards claimed that CP was caused by doctors waiting too long to perform C-sections. During his first big CP trial, he “channeled” the voice of a young CP victim during his closing argument. “She speaks through me”, he told the jury, who may have confused him with John Edward, that TV guy who talks to dead people and fellow nominee for Biggest Douche in the Universe. The channeling must have worked, because despite having no actual proof that the doctors did anything wrong, the jury found in his favor and awarded his clients $6.5 million.

The only problem with this is that it was all bullsh-t. Thanks to Edwards and other tics with law degrees, many obstetricians decided to cover their butts practicing “defensive medicine”- including ordering C-sections when they weren’t needed to ensure they wouldn’t get sued for not ordering one. Well, despite the resulting rise in the number of C-sections, the CP rate remained the same. There are no medical correlations between C-sections and CP. But John Edwards will never tell that to a jury he’s trying to snooker.

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I can’t imagine why anybody would possibly want John Edwards to come and speak to anybody these days, but apparently Indiana University was salivating at the prospect.  Naturally, the questions were pre-written, so there could be no surprise inquiries about his baby daddy situation, I’m sure.  I wonder how much of the students’ tuition money Indiana blew on paying Edwards to flap his gums.

Good. Maybe now he’ll go home, shut the door behind him, and we’ll never hear from him again.

Hofstra students and others hoping to watch former Sen. John Edwards take the stage with his wife Elizabeth will get only half the show next month.

Elizabeth Edwards was scheduled to join her husband, who has avoided the public spotlight since admitting to an extramarital affair with a campaign videographer, at a Sept. 8 speaking engagement at the Long Island, N.Y. university, reports Lorenzo Perez.

Under the Dome

He’s embarrassed her enough.  Why would she show her face anywhere with him?  What I don’t understand is how there are still people out there who want to hear Edwards speak.  It has been proven that the man is the louse and the cretin that people like myself have been telling you he is for some time now.  It has been quite apparent to those of us who never drank the “Two Americas” kool-aid from day one.  But, I’ve never been one to credit the American people with a whole lot of intelligence.

URBANA, ILL. – Less than a month after John Edwards admitted having an extramarital affair, the University of Illinois said the two-time presidential candidate has agreed to speak on campus in October.

University spokeswoman Robin Kaler said Thursday that a student group has booked Edwards to speak Oct. 14 on “The American Dream.” Tickets are free, but the student group is paying Edwards $65,000.

The N&O

Seriously… I’ll start taking up a collection. I’m sure we can agree on some amount of money that will convince him to never enter the public eye again.

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.

New York Daily News

I have never revelled so much in another man’s suffering as I have watching John Edwards’ fall from grace.  I just can’t think of a better guy this could have happened to.  Every time I saw him on television preaching his deceiving and deceptive rhetoric it disgusted me with every fiber of my being.  The chickens have come home to roost and what a glorious day it is.

Democratic officials in Western North Carolina praised Obama’s pick of Biden as his vice presidential running mate on Saturday, while Republicans said the seasoned Delaware senator only highlights the presidential candidate’s inexperience.

Buncombe County Commissioner and Democratic superdelegate Carol Peterson said Biden brings “decades of experience” and proven leadership to Obama’s ticket.

Asheville Citizen-Times

The problem is these years of experience Ms Peterson points out don’t gel with the change and hope message Obama has been pawning off on America since he began his candidacy.  While I personally like Joe Biden, he represents over 30 years of entrenched Washington interests, not something new and innovative.

In the end I don’t think Biden will do anything for Obama anyhow.  Historically, Vice-Presidential candidates do little to help the guy at the top of the ticket.  John Edwards being on the ticket for Kerry did nothing to aid him in winning North Carolina.

Many of those same hometown supporters already had gone to bed Friday night before ABC aired an interview on “Nightline” in which Edwards admitted to an affair two years ago with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.

They missed the former U.S. senator confessing that he had strayed from the values he learned growing up in Robbins. Edwards told ABC he had become “something different than that young boy who grew up in a small town in North Carolina.”

“Because that young boy would never have done this, never thought about doing it,” Edwards said, “to his family or to his wife.”

But as members of the national media took whacks at Edwards, Hancock and others in Robbins muffled their dismay with Sunday vows not to condemn him.

Charlotte Observer

I’m not surprised.  After all, the media covered it up for almost two years after it took place until a tabloid magazine broke the story.  In fact, just a few weeks ago the LA Times ordered its bloggers not to talk about it.

If this isn’t indicative of the very heavy left wing bias in the mainstream news media I don’t know how much more proof one can require.  If Edwards were a Republican do you really think the media would have sat on this story for so long until they were forced to report on it?

Elizabeth Edwards released a statement to the Associated Press concerning her husband’s recently admitted affair.

Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some most recently caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.

John made a terrible mistake in 2006. The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well. Because of a recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private. The pain of the long journey since 2006 was about to be renewed.

John has spoken in a long on-camera interview. Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do. I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame. The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown. But now the truth is out, and the repair work that began in 2006 will continue. I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.

There are a couple issues I have with this statement.  John Edwards is a formerly elected public official and a two time candidate for President of the United States.  They both know full well that there is no expectation of privacy when you enter public service.  The fact is she aided her husband in burying this incident during his recent presidential campaign and I don’t think that sheds any better light on her.  Was it the lure of the White House?

The other problem I have is the claim that Rielle Hunter’s baby is not his.  The Washington Post had an article on this today.

Edwards maintained in a statement that the affair ended too soon for him to have fathered her baby, Frances Quinn Hunter, who was born Feb. 27. Hunter and a former Edwards fundraiser, Andrew Young, have maintained that Young is the father.

“I would welcome participating in a paternity test,” Edwards told ABC’s Bob Woodruff on Friday. “Be happy to participate in one. I know that it’s not possible that this child could be mine because of the timing of events. . . . Happy to take a paternity test and would love to see it happen.”

According to their claim, the timing would be incorrect for Edwards to be the father.  Here is why I am skeptical that they are being truthful about this, though.  If the baby is not Edwards and he is not continuing this affair then why on Earth was he in Beverly Hills visiting Hunter?

Meanwhile, the editor of the National Enquirer, which broke the story of the affair and Hunter’s pregnancy, took issue with Edwards’s statement distancing himself from photos purporting to be him holding Hunter’s baby. Edwards admitted to ABC that he met secretly with Hunter last month at the Beverly Hilton to try and “keep this from becoming public.”

This week the Enquirer published a blurry photo of a man looking like Edwards holding a baby. The the tabloid said the photo was taken at the hotel.

“I don’t know if that picture is me,” Edwards said. “It could well be. It looks like me. I don’t know who that baby is. I have no idea what the picture is.

Yeah, ok………..

RALEIGH – Former Sen. John Edwards might have to move quickly to save his spot on the national stage.

With just two weeks before their national convention, a number of Democrats are saying Edwards needs to publicly address National Enquirer stories that have alleged he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby.

Democrats gather in Denver on Aug. 25 and Edwards, as the 2004 vice presidential nominee and a presidential candidate who won delegates this year, ordinarily would be locked in as a speaker.

Instead Democratic insiders say convention organizers will try to avoid the lingering questions if Edwards himself doesn’t talk.

Charlotte Observer

Let’s face it.  We are suppoed to be presumed innocence, but Edwards is looking pretty guilty here.  All he has to do is come out and deny the allegations if they aren’t true.  He hasn’t said a word on it, not a single word.  What else is everyone expected to believe by his behavior?

On Wednesday, however, the former U.S. senator, presidential candidate and 2004 vice-presidential nominee refused to answer questions that took a tabloid turn.

About a dozen reporters and photojournalists attended a speech Edwards gave to an AARP Foundation symposium on poverty and aging in Washington.

Afterward, he avoided a crowd of waiting reporters, at least some of whom wanted to question him about recent reports in the National Enquirer that alleged a sexual relationship between Edwards and a former campaign videographer and an ensuing coverup.

Citing unnamed sources, the Enquirer published a story in October claiming that Edwards was having an affair with a woman who had filmed a series of campaign videos, and that he had gotten her pregnant.

Charlotte Observer

I told you Edwards was an absolute scumbag.  Of course, that’s been obvious for far longer than the past couple of weeks.  Any objective person who listened to this guy campaign for President over the past four years could hear the sleaze in his very words and actions.

What kind of a man goes out and has an affair with another woman while his wife is suffering from a fatal disease?  People actually wanted this guy to be our President.  Scary.