Bzzz… on Edwards
by WonkoKevin
Rumors are beginning to show up in Wonkosphere today that hint of a possible John Edwards’ affair. We’re not giving credence to such rumors here–but it is an emerging story in the political blogs and obviously it has significant implications. True or false, this is a story with legs. Yoshi at the Western Standard has a good summary of the rumor and who’s been talking; it’s only fair for me to point out that Yoshi does not appear to be a John Edwards fan…
Most of the speculation swirls around a woman named Rielle Hunter (a forty-four year-old filmmaker, formerly named Lisa Druck). A few weeks ago, Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post began asking questions about the odd disappearance of a series of web videos that she directed for the Edwards Campaign - making $114,461 in the process.
All of this is interesting in that it ties back into a brief item that ran on Page Six in the New York Post about a month and a half ago:
WHICH political candidate enjoys visiting New York because he has a girlfriend who lives downtown? The pol tells her he’ll marry her when his current wife is out of the picture.
…
So, what we have here is circumstantial - but it strikes me as pretty strong.
1) We have rumours of an affair going back sometime. The first public hints appear as far back as August.
2) What circumstantial details we have - New York, meeting in a bar, wife anticipated to be out of the picture - match up here.
3) We have a strange and rushed effort to cover up these entirely innocuous videos - with the Edwards campaign attempting to control access to them.
4) We have a mystery party archiving these videos and then later anonymously releasing them - indicating that someone knew enough about something to decide to keep a copy of these things lying around just in case.
I have a feeling this is going to spread like wildfire this afternoon and tonight.
UPDATE:
MyDD carried a statement by Ms. Hunter: “The innuendoes and lies that have appeared on the internet and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous. My video production company was hired by the Edwards camp on a 6 month contract, which we completed December 31, 2006. When working for the Edwards camp, my conduct as well as the conduct of my entire team was completely professional. This concocted story is just dirty politics and I want no part of it.”
Meanwhile, the National Review Online is putting an interesting pro-Edwards, anti-Clinton spin on this (note the story broke in the National Enquirer): “One of Hillary Clinton’s lawyers from Whitewater was in charge of reviewing copy at the Enquirer?! What are the odds of that?”
