Posted on 05/06/2009 8:12:23 AM PDT by presidio9
The news that federal prosecutors are investigating John Edwards' presidential campaign payments to his mistress brings a sense of satisfaction. The phoniest man in American politics is finally getting the comeuppance he so richly deserves.
With his $400 haircuts and investments in predatory lenders, all while saying ending poverty was a "moral issue" and the "cause of my life," Edwards set new standards for hypocrisy as he sought the Democratic nomination. His contrived compassion was a joke among rivals.
And that was before we learned he had an affair with a campaign aide.
Yet any sense of justice served is complicated because the saga involves his feisty wife, Elizabeth. Bad enough she was betrayed by her husband. She also has incurable bone cancer.
She was battling breast cancer when she learned of his affair in late 2006, just days after he announced his candidacy. Recall she lost her first son in a car accident years ago and the temptation is to shout, "Leave the poor woman alone."
That's easier said than done. After all, Elizabeth Edwards helped to perpetrate a fraud on voters, namely, that her husband was fit to be President.
She knew better and now says she told him to drop out because of the affair. He didn't and she tried to get him elected, raising money and stumping with and for him. She excoriated the media for giving "the Cliffs Notes" of the truth about candidates.
If only we had known the truth she was hiding.
Beyond the investigation, all this matters because Elizabeth Edwards is putting herself back in the spotlight. Her book, "Resilience," is hitting the market with an excerpt in Time, and an interview with Oprah Winfrey is scheduled to air tomorrow.
She tells Oprah, according to an excerpt, she has "no idea" whether her husband is the father of the mistress' baby. John Edwards has denied he is, but he's not credible.
Indeed, Elizabeth Edwards writes that when he told her of the affair, he insisted it was a one-night stand. More than a year later she learned that, too, had been a lie.
Before publicly admitting to the affair in the summer of 2008, John Edwards repeatedly denied National Enquirer reports of a romance with Rielle Hunter, a blond videographer hired by his campaign. She was paid $114,000, an exorbitant sum for a dopey product that was barely used.
After Hunter gave birth, she moved to California where she was supported by a wealthy man named Fred Baron, the finance chairman of Edwards' campaign.
By then, Edwards was out of the race. In the TV confession, he insisted to ABC News that "I had nothing to do with any money being paid, and no knowledge of any money being paid, and if something was paid, it wasn't being paid on my behalf."
Baron, now deceased, said he provided "assistance" to Hunter and an Edwards' aide who claimed to be the father, without Edwards' knowledge.
That's likely to be tested in the federal probe, which could result in a grand jury hearing testimony from Hunter and perhaps even a paternity test. In addition to private donations, Edwards' campaign accepted millions in public funds.
Already, readers' feelings are intense.
"He's a cad in the worst sense. I only wish I hadn't been stupid enough to support him and contribute to his campaign," a reader wrote to the Daily News online yesterday. "That campaign should've never been run."
But Elizabeth is not spared.
"Her illness has put a halo over her head and it doesn't belong there," another reader posted. "If she were not sick, there would be far more criticism of her for hiding this kind of news . . . By participating in his charade, Elizabeth is mighty guilty herself."
Me? I second both emotions.
ending poverty was a “moral issue” and the “cause of my life.
Let me fix this for Johnny Boy.....
Ending “John’s” poverty was a “moral issues” and the “cause of my life”.
......he insisted it was a one-night stand.......
He did not lie. The affair took place on the night before groundhog day.
Another example of the decline of NC
Stand? I’m guessing it was more horizontal than vertical.
If there is any justice this ambulance chaser will be looking out through bars!
I can see the point on Mrs. Edwards pepetuating a lie, but if she believed it was a one night stand she did not have the full story. I’d have kicked my husband to the curb publicly and left him to answer the questions, but that’s just me. We’d have to ask Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton how they felt standing next and supporting their husbands when they knew they were cheaters. I suppose we’d hear that Kennedy and Clinton “were the best hope for our country, best men for the job, yada, yada...”
My only defense of Elizabeth would be that she was extremely vulnerable when her husband admitted the supposed one night affair. Her health was bad and she had to make a decision, and it may be one she regrets but given that she has limited time left with her children, I don’t know if admitting this mistake is high on her priority list. Perhaps she has said she’d make the same decision again in her book? I don’t know.
I have empathy that Elizabeth had to even make this decision, but even more I have sympathy that she is probably questioning everything her husband has ever “stood for” - as it is apparent he stood for nothing but himself. Of course this is speculation on my part.
I have always seen John Edwards for what he really is and I (like many others) have been proven correct - he is a self-centered, egotisitical, pompous, money grubbing ass that has betrayed not only his wife and kids but millions of supporters. That he was a trial lawyer is no accident.
He was the “product”, she was the “enabler”.
Sound familiar?
The “it’s for the children” card doesn’t play for Elizabth Edwards. She was the one who decided to leave them and go out campaigning for her husband even though she told us she was dying.
It’s all about the Benjamin’s!
I'm sorry she is sick but she has been right along with him through his ambulance chasing and lying in his campaign. She would have kept quiet about all of it if he had won. She's cut from the same cloth he is.
Don’t forget that Elizabeth is the person who tried to trash Dick Cheney’s daughter thinking it would cost Bush/Cheney the election when she told the world that his daughter was a lesbian.
She is no better than John Edwards. She is a nasty person!
Mrs. Edwards need to just shut up and stop dragging the dirty laundry out of the closet.
She’s making it much worse.
That is why I said empathy and sympathy, not understanding. I don’t condone the decisions she made, but I am putting myself in her shoes knowing what little I do about the actual circumstances.
I’ve never liked Elizabeth Edwards but I wish her peace in her last days.
What’s that?
What “last days”? She’s been “dying” since before the 2004 elections. This is starting to look a lot more like “surviving.”
Peace? She's going out on a book tour. She isn't even looking for peace for herself. (However, you do seem to be a kind person).
Even when the story broke, the media pretended it didn’t exist. So in what year did the media learn of the affair?
And how much effort did they make to keep Edwards viable in the primary to keep Hillary in a 3 way race for delegates?
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