Did Obama tell him to blame Bush?
The Obama campaign, and their aides in the media, needed to keep the Edwards campaign viable in early 2008 to keep Hillary in a 3-way race for delegates.
This did not come as a surprise to the candidates.
Bill Clinton complained about the media’s bias towards the Obama campaign and it was the Clintons friends at the National Enquirer that finally published this story.
It was always my theory that Obama originally considered Edwards for the VP slot, but when he found out about the affair turned to Biden instead.