On September 27th of 2007, Daily Kos contributor Ben Bang linked to Sam Stein's piece on the then-alledged John Edwards / Rielle Hunter affair and let loose with a string of insults:
...And pretty much right after that, the article ends. What the fuck? How did that shit turn out, Stein? Did you not even take them up on their offer to show you those year old videos that you'd already seen and yet sought to make into some sort of international mystery scandal?
By the way, they probably insisted on being there while you view the videos to make sure that you do not copy them, you no-article-finishing, character-assasinating hack fuck.
After a couple of years of dedicated readership, the Huffington Post's prime spot on my bookmarks toolbar is in serious jeopardy. Apparently I'm not alone. The comments section of the article is brimming with disapproving commentators.
As John Edwards prepares to go negative on Barack Obama after Obama's big Iowa win, there's a looming spectre of a story that should be of concern to him and it seems to be.
This is a story that will not go away and it comes up again, as The National Enquirer and Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post first introduced a story asserting that former U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate John Edwards had an affair in 2006.
I wrote about it a while back , but focused on the Enquirer / Clinton angle. But I'm done with that as the story has massive legs.
Now, the Enquirer is reporting that the woman of interest as the supposed lover, Rielle Hunter is pregnant, and has a photo , shown here, to prove it. Now this is where the story gets even weirder. Because both the Enquirer and the Huff Post report...
Now, as the Enquirer has published photos of a clearly pregnant Hunter, she has gone on the record confirming that she is pregnant but denying that Edwards is the father. She claims that the biological father is Edwards operative Andrew Young, a married man who confirms both his extramarital affair with Hunter and that the baby is his. Hunter, who lived in New York, has recently relocated to a gated community in North Carolina near Young and his family. But, the Enquirer claims that Hunter is privately telling friends that Edwards fathered the baby.
That's the Huff Post's watered -down version of what the Enquirer reported, which is this:
The ENQUIRER has now confirmed not only that Rielle is expecting, but that she's gone into hiding with the help of a former aide to Edwards. The visibly pregnant blonde has relocated from the New York area to Chapel Hill, N.C., where she is living in an upscale gated community near political operative Andrew Young, who's been extremely close to Edwards for years and was a key official in his presidential campaign.
And in a bizarre twist, Young — a 41-year-old married man with young children — now claims HE is the father of Rielle's baby! But others are skeptical, wondering if Young's paternity claim is a cover-up to protect Edwards.
And what's interesting even more is that the Huff Post's original article by Sam Stein was taken down. But this Google search result will show that it was Sam Stein who gave more life to the story.
So let me get this straight. It's not Edwards, but an Edwards "oprative" -- who's marrried? Either way you spin it -- Edwards or Edwards operative -- the story seems, well, seemy at best with two married men behaving badly. Take your pick. And one things for sure : it's connected with John Edwards, one way or another.
It also brings up a question" will a John Edwards Presidency be like a Bill Clinton affair, all over again, with another sex scandal and a "Monica Lewinsky" running around?
"But there's a second way to divide the electorate that asks how the voters inform themselves. Do they rely on the traditional Mainstream Media (MSM), or do they get their political information from the Web, from cable news, from the tabloids, etc. This division may have once seemed unimportant, but it doesn't anymore--its seriousness is suggested by the MSM's impressive resistance to stories bubbling up from the blogs and the tabs that don't meet MSM standards (putting aside whether you regard those standards as high or merely idiosyncratic). "Rielle Hunter"--the woman whom the National Enquirer alleges was John Edwards' mistress--was the top-searched name on the MSN site at one point Thursday, I'm told. Meanwhile, in the traditional mainstream press, 'Rielle Hunter" was mentioned only ... well, zero times. Of the two ways to divide the electorate, the second is arguably more important. After all, even those who don't follow politics, will eventually inform themselves before the election.** But if the MSM/Web barrier remains as robust as it's been, those who inform themselves from the MSM will find out something different, when they finally tune in, than those who go to the Web and learn both the news and what might be called the "undernews."
But this thing -- this story -- is all over the blogsphere, and as Bloggers have pointed out as well , the CNN's and ABCs of the world are trying not to pay attention to it.
