John Edwards (The politician, not the psychic)

The bizarre story of John Edwards extra-marital affair with documentary film maker Rielle Hunter is far from over. John admitted he was an egomaniacial narcissist who figured since he was a big shot he could cheat on his terminally ill wife while running for vice-president and no one would figure it out. He further made a mess of his entire life and career by later running for President. I guess he assumed as President no one would look into any past indiscretions.

He should spend the next year personally calling every person who supported him and apologizing. Thank God he didn't win the nomination. Imagine another sitting Democratic President in the midst of a sex scandal? This is actually a much more interesting dalliance than former President Clinton's. It is more like a John Grisham (http://www.randomhouse.com/features/grisham/) novel than something that actually happened. If you've been living in a cave in Afghanistan you might have missed much of this story so I'll recap briefly.

In 2006 then Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards had an affair with a woman named Rielle Hunter. By all accounts they met at a bar in NY and proceeded to have an affair. In retrospect I imagine John would agree that this was a poor choice. The rumors were first reported in the National Enquirer (www.nationalenquirer.com), and in a stunning turn of events, turned out to be true.

Last week John was caught by Enquirer reporters leaving a Beverly Hills hotel at three o'clock in the morning after meeting with Ms. Hunter in the hotel.

Ms. Hunter currently has a baby girl and the paternity of the child is certainly in question. John Edwards insists he cannot be the father of the child and wishes to take a paternity test to prove conclusively that the child is not his. Whether the baby is his or not is almost irrelevant. If he is not the father then it simply because the timing was wrong. If he is the father the adamant denial of paternity coupled with the admission that he did not love Ms. Hunter is an indictment into the character of John Edwards.

Instead of admitting the affair and going away for a few years he said, "I would welcome participating in a paternity test," Edwards told ABC's Bob Woodruff on Friday. "Be happy to participate in one. I know that it's not possible that this child could be mine because of the timing of events. . . . Happy to take a paternity test and would love to see it happen." Why? If he proves he isn't the father does he somehow think it makes it better?

Andrew Young, another Edwards staffer, has claimed he is the father of the baby. He would have us believe he was sleeping with his bosses girlfriend at a time when it was entirely possible that his boss could wind up as President of the United States of America. Talk about poor career choices.

Since the baby was born the former head fund raise for John Edwards campaign, Fred Baron, has been assisting Ms. Hunter financially. Some reports have the amounts as high as fifteen-thousand dollars a month. Mr. Baron claims all funds were from his personal fortune and no campaign related money was used to assist Ms. Hunter.

John Edwards is a creep. I am morally certain anyone who cheats on their terminally ill wife is not someone to be admired. The worst part about it is it seems that Elizabeth Edwards has to deal with this as well as her illness.

As always the lesson to be learned here is that if you want to live in the public eye then everything you do is for public consumption. I don't understand why politicians, of all people, don't understand this. They take a poll to see what color tie to wear at a breakfast meeting, but somehow still haven't figured out to only sleep with the woman they married.

In other news the Olympics started and some swimmer won a gold medal, a nutcase Chinese citizen randomly attacked two Americans, killing one, and seriously wounding the other before killing himself. The US Women's basketball team beat some eleventh world country by six hundred. Their counterparts on the men's basketball team are getting ready to beat someone else by fifty-eight. I love the United States, but have to admit I've been actively rooting against the men's basketball team since Larry, Magic, and Jordan led the one and only true Dream Team to a gold medal. I wish they'd let the college kids play again., even at the expense of winning every year.

Until tomorrow---JK