Another Friday on the John Edwards story, another emergency room visit (”dehydration”) for your old pal Simon. But while I’m sprawled out here in Admissions, I can tell you about some of the interesting stuff Deceiver’s super-awesome commenters have been digging up. Primarily:

Rielle isn’t the first woman who’s embarrassed the Edwards campaign. Trusty ol’ Fortunate Son points out that two Edwards campaign bloggers, Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, had to resign in early ‘07 because of some silly stuff they’d said on their personal blogs. (That darn right-wing smear machine!) So, Edwards’ vetting process for his bloggers was almost as good as the one for his videographer. And they didn’t even get a consolation prize like Rielle did…

I especially appreciated this Edwards quote about the blogger flap from his 4/6/07 interview at Salon.com:

“I think bloggers in general are a very healthy thing. I think it’s good for democracy…”

Couldn’t agree more. He continues:

“Bloggers by nature, as you know, are right at the edge. That’s how they operate. It’s how they get their message across and how they get heard.”

Glad you understand, John. No hard feelings! And what’s the Web’s most important function?

“Getting information out there that’s not getting out there any other way.”

Oh, you betcha.

Keep in mind that this interview was less than a week after his last payment to Rielle for those cruddy campaign videos almost nobody got to see. Which was at least three months after Rielle claims she was fired. Now that Edwards’ stated timeline of the affair has fallen to pieces, it seems likely that he was still seeing Rielle at the time he gave that interview, or soon would be again. And there he was, praising the information-disseminating power of the Web. I almost admire his chutzpah.

• It’s also worth noting that on April 9, three days after that interview, Elizabeth made an uncharacteristic personal attack against a “rabid, rabid Republican” neighbor of theirs in Raleigh. Was this an attempt to deflect possible media scrutiny of the affair? Purely speculation, of course. (FS again.)
• FS also points out that Fred Baron and Lee Rohn are both board members of something called Public Justice. Of course, these days people are more curious about what those two attorneys have been doing in private…
• FS is also questioning the timeline put forth by Newsweek’s Jonathan Darman, questioning the practices of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, and questioning the sudden, unexplained exit of Edwards media consultant Marius Penczner in Sept. ‘07.
• Fellow Deceiver supercommenter Kris gets in on the action, pointing out the close ties between the Daily Kos and the Edwards campaign. (No wonder Lee Stranahan was kast out.) Kris also delves deeper into Edwards’ alleged financial subterfuge here, and has some further questions about those campaign videos here.

That should be enough to hold you guys for a little while, right? This story keeps developing, seemingly by the hour, so feel free to post any relevant links in the comments. Or, you could go outside and get some fresh air. Maybe fly down to St. Croix…