After three weeks of sitting on the John & Rielle story, the n-e-w-s* is all over it like hair product on the scalp of a former North Carolina senator and presidential candidate. Between the tabloids and blogs that have been on it from the beginning and these pompous Johnny-come-latelies, it’s all an exhausted blogger can do just to keep up. Here’s an attempt at a Friday roundup:

• Looks like I jumped the gun on the Oprah.com “deletion” thing yesterday. Mea culpa. But hey, 4 proven deletions of Edwards-related Web content out of 5 ain’t bad! (Actually, 5 out of 6, if you count the Wikipedia shenanigans that originally roped me into this story. Thanks for the reminder, Macho Response.)
• I refuse to link directly to the thieving scum at the New York Times anymore, but between DBKP, Talkleft, and the NRO Media Blog, you can get all the details of the latest NYT story about Fred Baron. It turns out Baron has yet another connection to the story, besides throwing huge fistfuls of cash at Rielle Hunter and Andrew Young (not to mention the Edwards campaign): He recommended the two high-priced lawyers, Robert J. Gordon and Pamela J. Marple, who issued the statements from Hunter and Young asserting that Young was the baby’s father. Gordon and Marple each had a previous professional relationship with Baron as well. But initially, Baron claimed he had no idea how the two attorneys were hired. Whoops! That “innocent bystander” act of his really isn’t going over too well, is it?
• By the way, when you guys find out which blog NYT reporter Serge F. Kovaleski stole the preceding information from, please let me know.
• Speaking of media outlets at which an NYT hack would no doubt scoff: As the Oversneer mentioned, People’s profile of Rielle Hunter gives due credit to Deceiver.com for our part in the story. A big Deceiver thanks to Nicole Weisensee Egan and everybody else at People for that simple common courtesy. The latest issue is on sale now, so check it out.
• Our commenters are finding all sorts of holes in John Edwards’ timeline of the affair. Just go here and keep scrollin’. Short version: “It began and ended in 2006, and my family knew all about it” seems highly unlikely. And this photo at DBKP, showing Elizabeth and Rielle within eye-clawing distance of each other at an Edwards campaign event, hurts his claim too. (That is, assuming the photo’s Dec. 30, 2006 date is correct. Which seems plausible, considering Rielle still spoke for the campaign as of that now-infamous “Edwards Untucked” story in the Dec. 25, 2006 edition of Newsweek.)
• The Associated Press looks at Rielle’s final $14,000 payment from the Edwards campaign in April ‘07. After the $100,000 he’d already paid her for 15-20 minutes of amateurish video. Question for those few remaining “It was just sex!” holdouts: Do you really think the contributors to the Edwards campaign appreciate the idea that they might have helped him pay for it?

There’s probably a bunch of other John & Rielle stuff out there today that I haven’t been able to process yet. Please go easy on me. I’ve probably written more words (and more intensely) in the last three weeks than in the three months before that, so my brain feels like one of John Edwards’ tall tales: flat, muddled, and uninspired. But check out the comments, because those guys are unstoppable. Keep up the good work, Deceiver commenters!

P.S. I almost forgot: If you live in West Palm Beach and you see a fortyish blonde woman with a baby — at, let’s say, Bed Bath & Beyond or someplace like that — go ahead and be rude. Take a second look.

P.P.S. That is, assuming that by the time you read this she’s still a blonde.

P.P.P.S. Thank you to Justin Jouvenal at Salon.com for the nod!

P.P.P.P.S. Byron York: “From the Times’ perspective, why is this news?”

Still more postscripts:

Continue reading ‘The Longest Week of John Edwards’ Life Finally Comes to a Close’