This is going to require quite a bit of background, because apparently there’s a near-total media blackout on the “John Edwards might just have an illegitimate baby” story. Here’s what I’ve been able to piece together so far:

In 2006, former vice presidential candidate and North Carolina Senator John Edwards hired a filmmaker named Rielle Hunter to make videos documenting the run-up to his 2008 presidential campaign. The videos seemed oddly… worshipful. Even for an Edwards supporter! One video in particular seemed to indicate that we should all vote for Edwards because of how he looks in a pair of jeans:

Irony alert:

“I’ve come to the personal conclusion that I actually want the country to see who I am. Who I really am. But I don’t know what the result of that will be. But for me personally, I’d rather be successful, or unsuccessful, based on who I really am.”

But then the videos suddenly disappeared from his site in Sept. ‘07, according to Sam Stein at the Huffington Post. The Edwards campaign refused to release them or explain why they were pulled, but they still leaked out. (You can watch them here, at least for now.) Stein also found it exceedingly difficult to find any information on Hunter.

Then, last December, Edwards denied having an affair and an illegitimate child with Hunter after the National Enquirer spotted her, visibly pregnant, living in North Carolina. She had recently moved from New Jersey into a very exclusive gated community just a few miles from Edwards’ campaign HQ, in a million-dollar mansion rented for her by an Edwards employee named Andrew Young. (Correction: More specifically, Young was Edwards’ assistant.)

Young then stepped forward as the baby’s father. Some people questioned this, because Young lived just down the street from Hunter’s new house and even had her over for dinner with his family. Was Young her sugardaddy or her babysitter? (Babymamasitter?)

When ENQUIRER reporters contacted Young in person at his home on Dec. 12, he became furious — and denied he was Andrew Young.

He also denied knowing “any Rielle Hunter,” yelling at the top of his voice: “You don’t even know who I am!” But when his wife called him “Andrew,” he shot her a dirty look.

(Much more after the jump…)

Continue reading ‘The John Edwards Non-Scandal Keeps Getting Not-Weirder’