Hunter, a recovered drug addict and videographer, was paid $100,000 by the Edwards campaign in 2006 to produce a series of videos offering an intimate look at Edwards during his campaign. As part of the investigation, the grand jury may ask questions that will help them determine whether Hunter was paid a fair market rate for her work.
The baby was born in February 2008. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, has denied being the father of Frances, though he has admitted an affair with Hunter during his failed run in 2006 for the Democratic nomination for president.
Hunter held Frances close as she followed two federal agents into the courthouse this morning. Frances wore a white dress and floppy sun hat that hid her face from cameras.A throng of reporters shouted to Hunter over a metal fence and across the back parking lot of the courthouse. She did not reply.
Andrew Young, a former Edwards aide who claimed paternity of Hunter's daughter, has pitched a tell-all book to a New York publisher. In his proposal, Young said he is not the father of Frances and that he earlier took responsibility for the child as a favor to Edwards.Edwards is married to Elizabeth Edwards, who is suffering from cancer.
Federal prosecutors have declined to confirm or deny an investigation into Edwards, but he acknowledged the probe to The News & Observer in May.
There is a lot to comment on, but lets focus on the sheer lunacy of a millionaire who wouldn't use his money to set his mistress up, but had to use donations as a slush fund, this is an unbalanced man and highlights the stupid choice of John Kerry.
It is ridiculous to blame John Kerry for choosing Edwards, when Edwards was by far the preferred choice of the media and most of the Democratic party powers.
ReplyDeleteThe Only thing you can blame him for was not listening to his own gut feelings that he did not trust Edwards according to Bob Shrum in his book written well before anything was known of this affair.
The fact is that any other choice would likely have hurt Kerry as the media was already claiming that if Edwards were not chosen, it would be because Kerry was concerned that Edwards would outshine him - a ridiculous claim as Kerry easily beat him in all but one primary even though Edwards got a huge amount of media praise. Go back and look at the coverage of the announcement. Even so, nearly every MSM source used it to speak of Edwards' supposed charisma and energy - and to diminish Kerry's.
To me, this was mystifying as Kerry's rallies were far more enthusiastic, interesting and he was a far more compelling speaker and a more charismatic person. Every Edwards rally on CSPAN seemed to be an exact clone of each other - down to eaach studied gesture.
Though Kerry had a gut feeling not to trust him - none of the others in the decision process did and, at that point, there was no substance to back it up. Kerry was told that Edwards was the person who could most help him in rural areas. It was a sensible choice given everything known at that point.
In fact, had Edwards enthusiasticly dove into the role of being a team player, it could have resulted in Kerry becoming President. Edwards was a pale boring version of his primary self in rallies, even his convention speech was way below expectations. For a top trial lawyer, his debate with Cheney lacked focus.
The worst thing was that he proudly refused to use the Kerry campaign slogan, "Help is on the way", substituting his own "hope is on the way". This led to accounts of the campaign having message trouble. In addition, he refused to do anything to defend Senator Kerry - even though VPs always do that.
It would have been better had Kerry said no to him, but given what he and the party knew and thought at the time the decision was made, not choosing him could have been the stupid decision. It also could have been extremely unfair because it was not based on much other than a story Edwards told him. Kerry likely did the right thing meeting with Edwards again.
But he did the make choice!
ReplyDeleteLook, Kerry could have chosen Sam Nunn, who gave Gore a run for his money and always had a certain gravitas as well as Charisma. Edwards was always a sleazy version of Mitt Romney and could have been a phony televangelist if not for law career.
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