Note: As I was typing up my latest opus on this subject, the National Enquirer finally posted some of the photos everybody’s been demanding. Cry “Photoshop,” and let slip the dogs of denial!
There he is, allegedly, with his alleged baby. I think the pic in the lower-left corner is supposed to be from when the Enquirer guys, well, cornered him. Allegedly. Either that or he’s being shocked with defibrillator paddles. [Correction: According to a commenter at JammieWearingFool, the caption says: "Earlier this year, Edwards was seen wearing a similar T-shirt with a similar sweat stain at a workout in New York (left).] And the arrows there are comparing the curtains behind him with the ones in the Beverly Hilton. Curtains, how appropriate…
Boy, you skip a day on the John Edwards/Rielle Hunter non-story and you miss a lot of non-news. Let me try to play catch-up here:
First and Foremost: Slate’s Mickey Kaus, Rielle-Hunter #1, lists five good reasons to cover this. (Personally, I only need one: because the people who are supposed to be covering it aren’t.) Kaus slaps down the “He’s not a politician anymore!” argument, points out Edwards’ alleged hypocrisy, and much more. I only had one quibble with it:
If the scandal is true, it almost certainly means that during the campaign Edwards presided over an elaborate coverup involving at least a) having an aide wrongly claim paternity and b) having other aides go out and lie to reporters.
While I appreciate his choice of the verb “preside,” considering Edwards’ obvious White House ambitions, the past tense isn’t really appropriate here. As I’ve tried to show, almost every available scrap of background information on Rielle Hunter and her palm-reading buddies is currently being scrubbed from the Internet. The coverup is ongoing.
Speaking of the Coverup: Those dirty, nasty sleazemongers at the National Enquirer just keep ruining journalism by reporting easily verifiable facts that some people find unpleasant. According to DBKP, the latest issue of the Enquirer claims that Andrew Young, the purported father of 5-month-old Frances Quinn Hunter, has moved from North Carolina to Santa Barbara to be closer to mother Rielle and the child. And guess who he brought with him?
“Young had to pretend to be by [Rielle's] side — but he’s living in a separate home with his wife and young children. The word is that he’s sick of living this lie. His wife Cheri is particularly fed up,” said the source.
Young and his wife are still married, despite his claim that he fathered Rielle’s child, a claim that sources say is absolutely false and part of Edwards’ elaborate coverup.
Reminds me of that old song: “If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?” DBKP adds:
Now, a reliable DBKP source reports that Young is indeed in Santa Barbara, “living large with no visible means of support.”
If you believe the Enquirer’s earlier report that Young is getting at least $15,000 a month to continue the ruse, then yes, his financial support is indeed invisible as far as the mainstream press is concerned.
Of course, this information is coming from scummy tabloids and miserable blogs. Why would a single “legitimate” journalist in the whole country want to, y’know, check?
Cheri Young Is a Saint: Thank you to Deceiver readers “Fortunate Son” and the ever-reliable Kris for the tip about Cheri Young’s participation in Oprah’s Pay It Forward Challenge back in 2006. Cheri, along with 300 other Oprah audience members, was given $1,000 and told to use it to help the less fortunate. Within a week, she had raised over $35,000 for needy families in western North Carolina:
“You don’t have to look far to find someone in need. These people deserve our love and need our help. And with opening your heart and giving a little time, we can make a difference,” Cheri says. “We all have our ups and we all have our downs, and when you’re up, you reach out, and when you’re down, you allow others to help.”
So maybe it isn’t so hard to believe that not only has Cheri stayed with her philandering husband, but she’s actually uprooted her whole family and moved all the way across the country with him so he can be closer to his mistress and bastard child. When you’re up, you reach out. (But not to strangle the tramp who banged your husband!)
As you can see from the picture, Cheri is a lovely young woman. It would be unkind to place her side-by-side with the more, um, mature Rielle Hunter and ponder why in the world Andrew made the choice he claims he made. So I won’t.
Update: Radar Online says that Cheri may have been venting about the whole situation at the beauty parlor. Only her hairdresser knows for sure! Also: Yes, this is the same Cheri Young, as confirmed here.
It’s Funny Because It’s Alleged: Last week Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien scooped their own network’s news division on this story. And now it turns out Letterman did the same to CBS News. (I didn’t hear about it at the time because it was on Letterman.) Check out the #1 item on his Top Ten list for July 29, “Signs Barack Obama Is Overconfident”:
Update: There’s a good reason I hadn’t heard about this Letterman thing until yesterday. It didn’t air. It was cut for time and put on the Late Show site, and then somebody copied it to YouTube.
Leno made another joke about Edwards last night, according to Byron York:
…something to the effect of: “The National Enquirer reports that John Edwards’ mistress is receiving $15,000 a month in hush money. No word on how much the mainstream media is getting.” The audience reportedly got the joke.
It must suck for the big-time news guys to keep getting scooped by their own networks’ late-night clowns.
Not That They Have to Worry About the Competition: According to TVNewser, Fox News has provided the most coverage of John & Rielle so far, with a whopping four stories in the last two weeks. MSNBC has mentioned it twice, one of which entailed playing part of Letterman’s Top Ten list. CNN? Goose egg.
Bright Lights, Big Deal: Those nutty Wikipedians continue to struggle over the mere mention of a simple fact: the protagonist of Jay McInerney’s 1988 novel Story of My Life, Alison Poole, was based on his onetime girlfriend Rielle Hunter, then known by her birth name, Lisa Druck. (A fact we informed you about on July 28.) A Wiki person named AdamKesher has been making a sound argument for including this information in the book’s Wiki entry, and I’m not just saying that because he cites Deceiver’s coverage to back him up.
As reward for his efforts, AdamKesher has been threatened with banning.
Meanwhile, McInerney himself confirms the story in today’s Page Six:
“She’s a nice girl,” the author told Page Six. “She used to be a real party girl.
“When she wasn’t out at nightclubs, she was taking acting classes. We dated for only a few months, but in that period, I spent a lot of time with her and her friends, whose behavior intrigued and appalled me to such an extent that I ended up basing a novel on the experience,” McInerney recalled.
Which is of course completely irrelevant to the current non-situation!
And Finally: Let’s close today’s installment with a thought from Bill Wyman. Not the guy from the Rolling Stones, but the former arts director for NPR and Salon.com. With a resume like that, he hardly seems like the sort of right-wing fascist who could possibly care about a little harmless sex between consenting adults, huh? And yet he says:
Once the story hits the front pages, as it inevitably will, we’re going to hear all the excuses as to why reputable news outlets couldn’t find their way to telling their readers patently interesting news about a major political figure that was widely available on the web. This arrogance will help reinforce the perceptions in the audience that the media is not always looking out for their best interests and continue the move to alternative outlets. I’m as devoted a follower of the traditional media as can be, but this willful non-disclosure makes me want to scream.
Can I get an “Arrrrgh”?
Stay tuned, because this is not going away. And if you’re just joining us, you can check out Deceiver’s complete coverage, from the first shocking allegation to the latest clumsy deflection, here.
P.S. I knew I’d forgotten one… John Edwards’ Name Left Out of Police Report. The Beverly Hills police are referring to him only as “a political figure.” They must not read the Daily Kos, or they’d know he’s a completely private citizen who nobody cares about.
P.P.S. Lee “Banned from Kos” Stranahan returns to HuffPo with some rational, clear-headed observations, putting the blame where it clearly belongs: on the shoulders of Andrew Young and Rielle Hunter. Watch the commenters seethe with cognitive dissonance!
P.P.P.S. As I mentioned last week, one of the more bizarre footnotes to this story is that Jay McInerney’s Alison Poole character, based on a young Rielle/Lisa, also appeared in American Psycho. Bret Easton Ellis borrowed Poole for a scene in which the book’s “protagonist,” Patrick Bateman, violently raped her. It was his way of getting back at McInerney. (For what? Ellis says he can’t remember. Being a better writer, maybe? Coin toss.) Well, New York Magazine has some relevant excerpts from that, and from Poole’s appearance in McInerney’s Ellis’s later novel Glamorama. Nothing too graphic, except for the whole thing being incredibly creepy.
P.P.P.P.S. The Raleigh Telegram, an Internet-only newspaper based in Edwards’ hometown, is covering this as if it’s, like, a news story. Weird! Also, the Digital Journal went to the Beverly Hilton’s website and compared their curtains to the ones in the Enquirer’s pic. They look pretty darn similar to me. Oh, and: Edwards is now on a deadline.
Deceiver.com - America’s Finest News Source
Somebody please tell America!
So who owns the house Rielle Hunter was living in at the Governor’s Club Estates?
Any NBA players on this list? Huge Edwards Donors? Steven Bing aliases?
http://www.ginnyscommunitygc.com/index.php?pageId=49035
(As always, I have captured the list in its entirety and its screenshots).
Maybe Josh Chapman and Laura Martin of Excelms.com have the contact info of two other people who can tell you just how unhappy Cheri Young is:
As always, I’ve saved screenshots and the Adobe Acrobat file (pdf).
Apparently the Young’s moved to Governor’s Club in March of 2007 from another house in Raleigh and were so happy they recommended the service to two close friends.
“Cheri Young from Raleigh had a local move in thebeginning of March (2007).
She said, “It was a wonderful experience, and I was very happy”. Josh Chapman was the estimator,Laura Martin was the customer service repre-sentative, and Randy Peirce and his crew did an outstanding job as her crew. Josh Chapman has booked two more moves from Mrs. Young’s referrals. This is definitely the way to book more business!!!”
http://tinyurl.com/6mab4h
OR
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:hALjzLOEpsAJ:www.excelms.com/uploads/news/newsletter_vol1_iss1.pdf “cheri young” raleigh&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us
This was worth reading for the Mental as Anything reference alone!
Please, please please, please please, please Silky go into full denial mode in public.
Then….
*mouth-watering*
…Enquirer rolls out the higher resolution stuff….statements from former aides….angry wives…..credit card statements….
(excuse me - I need to be alone now)
Am i the only one who cannot get into the Enquirer’s website? I get a 404 error. It’s happened for weeks now!
Some in the MSM are saying they are not covering it because they do not want to hurt Elizabeth Edwards. I like Elizabeth, too, but I have a feeling she knows! It won’t make much difference now.
I wonder if by June of 2008 when Elizabeth Edwards was a speaker at the “Personal Democracy Forum” she had any inkling of John’s infidelity etc when she has the following exchange with the executive producer of the forum, Mr. Rasiej:
(See link: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/the-elizabeth-edwards-show/)
“…despite the wonders of technology, the connection broke up after about 25 minutes, so Mr. Rasiej hung up and called Mrs. Edwards back, a process that was visible on the screen to the audience. He asked whether YouTube might make politicians more aware of not exaggerating the truth because they could be so easily exposed.
(Elizabeth replies):
“After Bill Clinton, we still had Eliot Spitzer,” Mrs. Edwards said as the audience laughed. Politicians are not “easily trained,” she said, adding that perhaps exaggerating the truth or their role in an event “is just something ingrained in their personalities.” She said she is not as optimistic as she would like to be that they will change, “given the experience we’ve seen in recent years.”
Was Elizabeth “not as optimistic” as she would like to be that politicians will cease philandering because she knew some things all of us are only now realizing? Or, was she completely, blissfully ignorant at that point? I tend to believe the former.
I want to point out the the man in the picture with the baby has biceps. I have a picture of JE from the internet wearing a simiar shirt, a little more blue it it and less hint of green, his biceps are skinny and don’t even come close to filling our the arms of the tee shirt. The other picture might be him or not. He is holding a string in the picture. The picture is familar. I couldn’t swear to it but I think he is holding a balloon or a kite. He wears this shirt a lot at his home when he is playing with his kids. There are pictures on the internet. He also looks younger in this picture. Like it was taken 2-3 years ago. Inspite of everyone thinking he is so young looking, he has aged in the last 3-4 years. If this is him it was taken a few years ago. His neck has a lot of sun damage. It looks older now than it did a few years ago. His features are more defined and less round. These pictures don’t look real. With the invention of digital cameras a lot of people know how to doctor pictures and also recognize a doctored picture. There are thousands of pictures on the internet of Edwards. Some taken by professionals and most by people with their own cameras. They are taken from different angles and distances as well as in different poses. They all have one thing in common. You can tell without a doubt that the pictures are John Edwards. Are you trying to sell me the idea that photogs at the Enquirer or non professionals can’t take a recognizable picture of someone? I don’t buy it. This picture is vague for a reason. Inuendo not proof. Wheither or not he did what he is accused of I need better proof than photoshopped pictures. The body in the picture with the baby is not John Edwards. Too well developed. I’ve seen him in person. He’s skinny.
You’re dreaming Edith.
How fitting that the internet would be both the Edwards’ campaigns lifeblood and death.
Joe Trippi would’ve wanted it that way.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/01/america/edwards.1-106882.php?page=2
“After running a decidedly traditional race for the White House in 2004 and in the early stages of this contest, Edwards has quietly overhauled his campaign with one central goal: to harness the Internet and the political energy that liberal Democrats are sending coursing through it.”
“The Internet is the principal way we are communicating with voters right now,” Elizabeth Edwards said in an interview.
‘Elizabeth Edwards said she has been posting messages on the Internet since before there were blogs, and has increasingly seen its power as a tool in political campaigns.’
I agree with Edith. He’s skinnier in real life than in the pics. I know, because I met him about 8 months ago at a private political party hosted by a friend of my dad’s.
FS, that Trippi piece is gold.
Who is John Edwards’ money man?
Some speculation on the Usual Suspects: Fred Baron or Don Nelson?
1. Fred Baron - Edwards’ 2004 Finance Chair
===========================================
Exhibit A.
Fred Baron, retired founder of Baron & Budd, a Dallas law firm, was in 2006 referred to as “John Edwards Money Man” (http://tinyurl.com/6cxfqb)*
Exhibit B.
In 2007 “Not only is Baron a dedicated fundraiser for the Democratic party, but he is also an expert political strategist who has just purchased a home in North Carolina to better assist Edwards’ in his battle.”
http://jre-whatsnottolike.com/2007/01/08/fred-baron-bought-nc-home-to-be-near-edwards/
Could this be the Governor’s Grove home Rielle Hunter lived in?
2. Ex-NBA Dallas Mavericks Coach Don Nelson
============================================
Exhibit A:
The Enquirer reports “that the mystery donor who has been paying out $15,000 a month to Edwards’ purported mistress Rielle Hunter and an undisclosed sum to Edwards aide and fall man Andrew Young is actually “a rich retiree in Dallas, Texas.”
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/08/why-is-the-john-edwards-photo-so-sketchy.php
Nelson is a two time retiree. From the NBA after 14 years and from the Dallas Mavericks in 2005.
http://www.internationalspeakers.com/speakers/ISBB-5RBKAT/Don_Nelson/
Exhibit B:
Nelson has had HUGE legal battles lately with Mark Cuban and has needed a ton of legal advice from (who else), a trial lawyer. John Edwards is a trial lawyer.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/080108dnsponelliecuban.3e43f54.html
Exhibit C:
Nelson’s wife Joy is a cancer survivor, just like Elizabeth Edwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTfNvn3sNzc
*’http://tinyurl.com/6cxfqb’ =
“http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:ZYS5QO5YcPUJ:overlawyered.com/tag/dallas/ “john o’connor” “John edwards” trial&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us”
Edith Ann, I think you are grasping at straws. True, the picture isn’t very good, but the National Enquirer has decades of experience in being sued, and now runs everything past their lawyers. They’re not the Weekly World News faking photos for yucks, and they’re not Dan Rather falling naively for poor forgeries. They probably have a signed affidavit from whoever took the photo as proof, if they are ever legally challenged on it. And they probably have more proof they’ll dribble out for weeks, to maximize the publicity.
And if it is all a fake, isn’t it rather telling that Edwards isn’t suing for libel…?
And to Simon Scowl: Well done and very funny.
Glamorama is a Bret Easton Ellis book, not Jay McInerney’s.
Ellis write Glamorama.
The fact is the man in the picture has muscles. John Edwards doesn’t have muscles. I met him in January. He’s skinny. Also if the picture was clearer you could see some of the permanent age spots on his face. All I’m saying is if he did this, why isn’t there a better picture? Even I can take a picture that no one can dispute. It is easy to take a picture you can identify with out a doubt. Especially as close to him as they were. Any expert can verify this isn’t him. Hell, I know it isn’t him. Most of the people blogging on Huffington Post know it isn’t him. Get glasses. The picture is vague to contine this story and to sell papers. I’m not buying an Enquier. I stopped after Dianna was run off the road.
You know one of the men on RH’s web site, the younger one not the old one, may have had muscles. I don’t have the picture any more. This picture looks staged. Question is did the Enquirer do it or RH and Co? This picture was taken in the hotel room. Who took it. The drapes were closed. Surly a planted camera could take a better picture. Or a person standing in fornt of him could. If this is the best “Spy Camera” has, no wonder the GOV. can’t find WMD’s.
I watched 2 lawyers on Fox (only by UTube) talk about a law suit. They gave the pros and cons but bottom line they agreed this would be a very difficult case to prove and all it would do would be to keep the story going. Neither one felt it was a win situation. The bar for public figures is very high. They thought his time would be better spent with his family considering his wife’s illness.
Maybe MSM doesn’t go with the story because they don’t want to be laughed out of town by accusing JE of an affair then show photoshopped pictures as proof. I’m not saying this proves he didn’t do it. It’s just that these pictures are laughable. The story on MSM ought to be proving or disproving these stupid pictures.
D’oh! I always get my shallow ’80s novelists mixed up. Thanks, guys.
That’s not John Edwards. I know, because I had an affair with him last year, and he’d never wear a t-shirt like that.
Not in a million years.
And he’s only remaining dead silent about the whole story because, the only thing he hates more than free publicity is opening yet another lawsuit.
So stop talking about this story and get a life.
I used to belong to Daily Kos–I say used to, cos I can’t figure out how to delete my f–king account. Banning posters because they talk about le scandale is moronic.
Damn, I actually owned a copy of The Story of My Life and liked it. (What can I say, I was in college.) Not any more. Not because of the JE-adultery angle, but because The Babymama Formerly Known as Lisa Druck (which was the name I had always heard associated with the AP character) is such an annoying, new-agey bint.
* * * * *
For anyone actually interested in flipping that Ellis/McInerney coin, I’d say that Ellis’s most recent Lunar Park was a pleasant surprise. Not only decently written but willing to make fun of his public persona. McInerney’s books aren’t bad either, but his social-climbing tendencies are often rather painfully on display.
Right, Book Time (TM) now over, thread back on topic …