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:
- Fortunate Son says: “John Edwards remains the second most searched term on the NYT, thanks to the unattributed research of Deceiver.” (You’re welcome, Serge.) And as usual, FS has plenty of other interesting stuff in the comments.
- Robert S. McCain (no relation) says Rielle is thinking small-time.
- Brilliant at Breakfast is “appalled and disgusted” at Edwards, but doesn’t understand why it’s news.
- I alluded to it the other day, but I only just now read this 1992 Sports Illustrated story about how over 20 expensive show horses were killed in the ’80s and ’90s by a guy named Tommy “The Sandman” Burns so their owners could get the life insurance benefits. Burns was basically a horse-hitman. And Rielle, then still known as Lisa Druck, was integral to the story:
Burns’s preferred method of killing horses was electrocution. It had been so ever since the day in 1982 when, he says, the late James Druck, an Ocala, Fla., attorney who represented insurance companies, paid him to kill the brilliant show jumper Henry the Hawk, on whose life Druck had taken out a $150,000 life-insurance policy. In fact, says Burns, Druck personally taught him how to rig the wires to electrocute Henry the Hawk: how to slice an extension cord down the middle into two strands of wire; how to attach a pair of alligator clips to the bare end of each wire; and how to attach the clips to the horse — one to its ear, the other to its rectum. All he had to do then, says Burns, was plug the cord into a standard wall socket. And step back.
“You better get out of the way,” says Burns. “They go down immediately. One horse dropped so fast in the stall, he must have broken his neck when he hit the floor. It’s a sick thing, I know, but it was quick and it was painless. They didn’t suffer.”
(And it didn’t leave a trace, so it looked like the horse had died of colic.) According to a follow-up piece by Lester Munson, author of that SI story, Henry the Hawk was Rielle/Lisa’s horse, which she had ridden in show-jumping competitions as a teenager in Florida. And she found the horse right after Burns killed it:
…Lisa Druck was in the back of a pickup truck with her then-boyfriend, Louis Whelen, when Burns slipped into Henry the Hawk’s barn with a handbag filled with his deadly equipment…
After Burns finished his work with Henry the Hawk, he packed up his wires in the satchel and left the barn. From the pickup, Lisa and her boyfriend saw Burns stealing away and chased after him, but The Sandman managed to escape. When the two returned to the barn, they found Henry lying dead in his stall. Lisa confronted her father about the killing of Henry, and he never denied orchestrating the grisly affair for the money. McInerney related this episode from Lisa’s — err, Alison Poole’s — life, in his roman à clef [Story of My Life, 1988].
Move along, folks, nothing to see here. Nothing at all notable about this woman’s formative experiences…
- ABC News has a story today about Edwards sending out a fundraising letter for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee just a few weeks ago. It was mailed on July 21, which is another fun coincidence. (And no, I’m not linking to the ABC News story. Call it my futile protest against their research-stealing ways.)
*Since I keep doing this and nobody’s bothered to ask why: In mixed company, I always spell out dirty words.
Cheater’s Rap
John Edwards talked about Dad’s mill,
While sleeping with a chick off the pill,
He lied and fibbed to the MS press,
And, awoke early to preen and dress.
His wife, Elizabeth, knew the lie in 2006,
But supported John in Iowa while sick,
They stole Hillary’s honest votes daily,
And laughed on cue, and hiding Rielle.
Why did John lie like a cheatin’ rat ?
No “New Deal” for the average Democrat,
While Obama and Hillary fought on the stump,
John Edwards watched Rielle grow a bump.
Now John’s love child is common news,
And Fred Baron has money to lose,
Rielle, now nursing, has jetted away,
Even Geraldo has joined the fray!
John’s affair has hurt his poor kids,
More than Clinton’s cigars ever did,
A sordid tale that some call a crock,
The only winner, a loser named Barack!
Like dogs in heat, Edwards did pant,
Defined forever, just like Hugh Grant,
Tabloids paid to get the sleaze,
Is it John’s baby, mister please?
See Barack in Hawaii like Bobby Vinton,
Unaware the DNC plans to elect a Clinton,
Edwards may face time from the tax man,
But not if a pardon is part of Obama’s plan.
While Elizabeth cries over her brood,
Baby mama with John was not a prude,
Gone the innocent days of Tom Sawyer,
John gettin’ love like a real trial lawyer.
the s***-eating grin that Edwards wears in practically every picture we see of him really just makes me want to knock his teeth out a little. is that wrong? do I have anger issues, or do other people have the same automatic reaction these days?
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08152008/news/nationalnews/edwards_ally_explains_14_000_payment_to__124617.htm
That’s some explanation, all right….
I’m very proud of you, I really am. I think you’ve done a monster job with this story, but. BUT. I really don’t give a sh*t.
I realize it’s going to be hard to get back to the plebian bullsh*t the lowest common denominator enjoys (that’d be me) but I really look forward to it. This is boring. Politics suck.
Once again. You done good, even great. I’m thrilled to know you and I’d buy you a drink if I ever met you. But this doesn’t interest me.
Thanks.
You’re welcome. And thanks for caring enough to tell me how little you care!
I learned about your site through the John Edwards’ mess. And I’m glad I did. You’re doing a great job digging all this up. Please continue! It’s great to read all this info. This is my go-to site for finding out about him. My only concern is for Elizabeth and their children. But maybe she will exorcise herself of him.
I wanted to find Elizabeth Edwards’s old interviews from post-2006 pre-Nightline. She did one for Salon, and her response to the question below seems, well, unlikely, if she had in fact been told (perhaps in one installment) about the affair.
Salon– Well, you must wonder: Why isn’t it equally big news that Rudy Giuliani blew off his Iraq Study Group meetings to get paid much more to give his speeches, which weren’t about poverty? Why doesn’t that story follow Giuliani around?
A number of reasons. There’s just a lot less investigative reporting on political campaigns than there should be.
Some John Edwards quotes:
Americans believe in the importance of community, responsibility, and, most of all, family. We need to strengthen this institution that–for most of us– is the central work of our lives and the foundation of our own and our children’s success. The first financial cushion we need is a stable family, and the first lessons we learn about responsibility are learned in our homes.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/John_Edwards_Families_ _Children.htm
Teens are profoundly influenced by the attitudes & behaviors of adults. All of us need to send an unambiguous message to the young people in our communities. We need to clearly say that it is wrong when young men father children but do not support them. And it is wrong when girls & young women bear children they are not ready to raise.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/John_Edwards_Families_ _Children.htm
We believe that public policies should reinforce marriage, promote family, demand parental responsibility, and discourage out-of-wedlock births.
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/John_Edwards_Principles_ _Values.htm
Is John Edwards baby named after his second largest donor?
(This has been mentioned before, most recently by Outraged at DBKP)
From a July 18, 2004 WSJ article, entitled:
“Edwards & Co. Kerry’s No. 2 isn’t the worst kind of trial lawyer, but his backers are.”
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005367
How would I hide my mistress if I was a millionaire, part 2.
(Part 1 is here: http://deceiver.com/2008/08/07/john-edwards-actually-used-to-like-the-internet/)
As mentioned before, “Plaintiff’s lawyers employ a lot of private detectives, and if I was to guess, I’d guess that these steps were being carried out by a private detective agency that has worked for Fred Baron before.” (http://deceiver.com/2008/08/13/yet-another-rielle-related-site-vanishes/) run all my cover up operations.
Maybe a private detective who was also a highly recommended former federal law enforcement official with a lot of experience on tracking down paperwork… and avoiding leaving any paperwork to be tracked down.
Maybe a guy like this:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/0109/125_2.html
Disclaimer: All commments above are purely speculative and for entertainment purposes only.
Jack Trimarco, the former FBI Unit Chief in LA believes Edwards is lying, in particular when he shakes his head ‘no’ as he says he would be willing to take a paternity test.
Another thing I noticed on rewatching the Edwards’ confession video is that CONTRARY to what has been widely reported in the media he doesn’t deny that he was in love with Rielle Hunter.
When asked by Bob Woodruff:
Q. “I know this is a very difficult question, but were you in love with her?”
Edwards never even addresses the question, of whether he was in love with Rielle Hunter, rather he delivers a very carefully worded script about Elizabeth Edwards:
A. “I’m in love with one woman. I’ve been in love with one woman for thirty one years. And, uhh, she is the finest human being I have ever known. And the fact, that she is with me, after this having happened, is a testament to the kind of woman and kind of human being she is. There is a… a deep, and abiding love that exists between Elizabeth and myself, its always been there, and in my judgement its never gone away.”.
Why does Edwards refuse to say he wasn’t in love with Rielle Hunter?
I’m guessing the Enquirer has a bomb they are about to deliver that is related to videotape taken on his March 20, 2008 meeting at the Beverly Hilton on Hunter’s birthday where he wore the blue shirt, something devastating, and similar to Edwards stating:
John Edwards: “You know I have always loved you, Rielle!”
http://www.usmagazine.com/fbi-profiler-john-edwards-likely-lied-during-nightline-interview
I find this paragraph haunting.
“I was a lawyer before I went straight and became an investigative journalist, but there was one thing my law practice did teach me. Not to sound judgmental, but where some people go, trouble seems to follow, and in wrapping his arms around Lisa Druck, John Edwards found more than his share.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=munson_lester&id=3533725
Picking up from Snakewriggle, here’s my favorite:
Too bad John was born the son of a poor millworker.
If he’d been born into a rich community, this never would’ve happened.
In a way, John is just a victim of poverty. And Elizabeth stands behind that.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/Ending_Poverty_Families_ _Children.htm
More than one week after his admission,
John Edwards remains the second most searched term on the NYT, thanks to the unattributed research of Deceiver.
Yeah, no one’s interested in this. Its not relevant and there’s definitely nothing to see here.
1. michael phelps
2. john edwards
3. olympics
4. august 3, 2008
5. china
6. obama
7. bigfoot
8. gymnastics
9. opening ceremony
10.georgia
Fox News implies the $14,000 paid in April 2007 may have been paid directly to Rielle Hunter, not Midline Groove productions, and that the campaign already owned full rights to the 100 missing hours of footage.
If I was to guess, I would guess this information came directly from Mimi Godfrey Hockman (aka Mary Hockman), Rielle Hunters former business partner.
The check did not go to Midline Groove Productions:
Why the $14,000 payment was unlikely to be for video rights:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404861,00.html
Two weeks before his admission, Edwards was still mailing out US Senate Fundraising letters.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5587380&page=1
I’ve never liked him… there was always something creepy about him. I feel so bad for Elizabeth. The woman is dying as we speak and this is how she’ll spend her last days. What an a@@. He should get what he deserves. No office whatsoever. A plant job would suit him well.
I don’t care what John Edwards did. Why does everyone say his political career is over because he cheated? John McCain still has a political career; Newt Gingrich was Mr. Family Values yet he served divorce papers to his wife in the hospital while she had cancer AND was a dead beat dad to boot.
Bush is about as immoral as you can get. Lies that got us into an unnecessary war; beat and torture policy; Alberto Gonzales (he was just horrible in general); scorched earth environmental policy. And the biggest Bush deceit of all? His claim that he’s a “Christian.” What a joke. All presidents/politicians lie at one time or another, but GB2 will do down in history as the BIGGEST DECEIVER of them all.
Just because Edwards had an affair, it doesn’t mean he cares less about the poor, national healthcare, and the environment. What a country we live in that deems one’s political career over because of sex. We are a bunch of simple-minded puritans who cannot hold two-opposing thoughts in our minds at the same time.
And what happens between Edwards and his wife is nobody’s effing business! Democrat or Republican, a leader’s personal proclivities and foibles has no bearing on how he or she governs.
Leave Edwards and his wife alone and pay attention to the filthy deceiving weasels who run our country now.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404946,00.html
Baron is hot water in Texas too…
Give me a break! Of course this matters! Would you want such a deceptive (and stupid) person as Edwards in a position of authority? The reporting on him has helped the country. Do you want someone who actually thinks he can cover up this Rielle mess dealing with the Russians, the Iranians, the Israelis? I don’t think so.
Yes, Bush is bad news too. But we don’t need a Democratic Bush leading the country, do we?
Maybe attention being paid to this will help raise the caliber of people voted in to office. … I doubt that will happen, but at least Edwards’ actions serve as an example of how not to act if you want to be president … or attorney general…
We need more of this type of reporting, not less.
“I don’t care what John Edwards did.”
You mean you only care about what he SAYS - even when he’s revelaed to be a phony?
People loved and believed in what Jimmy Swaggart had to say, too. According to some news stories, Edwards was a guy whom the Dems had trouble trusting from the get-go. As he admits in his own book, juries wouldn’t trust his case until they trusted HIM. And to that end, he will tell pretty-iffy stories about himself and his noble life to gain their trust and sympathy. He is a sociopath. Just look up what he told Kerry about his own, dead son (twice!) to promote himself. Disgusting!