Blind, rabid squirrels

Although John Edwards has admitted he had an affair with Rielle Hunter, I still stand by my earlier post on this matter. There was only the flimsiest of evidence supporting the story of an affair and the National Enquirer stories seemed especially shady because there was no video and there were not even still photos, untrustworthy as those may be. Therefore, I think the mainstream media did the right thing in refusing to lend credence to NE’s reports.

It now appears that NE had photographic evidence which it decided to withhold either to keep the story largely for itself or to keep the pot boiling. However much John Edwards may have deserved that particular form of cruelty, his wife did not and neither did any of his children.

The fact that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while does not mean we should encourage it to dig up the garden. Especially when the squirrel is rabid.

All the perfumes of Arabia

Prologue

On Thursday, March 6, 2008, Time magazine published an interview with Hillary Clinton entitled “One Day at a Time” which contained the following question and answer:

Time: Can you envision a point at which — if the race stays this close — and with the difficulties that everyone has analyzed in accumulating enough delegates to get any distance ahead where party elders would step in and say "Senators Clinton and Obama, this is now hurting the party and whoever will be the nominee in the fall. We need to figure this out."

Clinton: No I really can't. I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual. We will see how it unfolds as we go forward over the next three to four months.

Time: Could you envision it going all the way to the actual convention itself?

Clinton: I think we should take it one day at a time. I find that usually is a better policy in life and in politics.

There was no reaction whatsoever to Clinton’s statement in March.

Narrative

On Friday, May 23, 2008, Hillary Clinton met with the editorial Board of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Although none of the reporters traveling with Clinton were in that meeting, the meeting was streamed online. In the course of that twenty-minute meeting, Clinton said:

HRC: People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa.

Q: Why?

HRC: I don't know. I don't know. I find it curious. Because it is unprecedented in history. I don't understand it. Between my opponent and his camp and some in the media there has been this urgency to end this. And historically, that makes no sense. So I find it a bit of a mystery.

Q: So you don't buy the party unity argument?

HRC: I don't because again I've been around long enough.

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?

We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it. There's lots of speculation about why it is.

Q: What is your speculation?

I don't know. I find it curious. And I don't want to attribute motives or strategies to people because I don't really know, but it's a historical curiosity to me.

Most reporters who saw the video of the meeting did not find anything noteworthy about this clip. For example, according to Politico, “The Associated Press, in what looked at first blush like a classic example of what reporters call 'burying the lead,' had no mention of Clinton’s RFK remarks in its original dispatch on the interview.” The New York Post however seized upon her comments and promptly wrote a story that began, “Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.” The story twice mentioned Obama receiving threats and reported he had received Secret Service protection early in the campaign. It also reported the Obama campaign’s reaction:

"Sen. Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," Obama campaign spokesman said in a statement.

The original version of the Post’s story said that Clinton was “making an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama.” That version probably precipitated the Obama reaction but as Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s spokesman, pointed out (emphasis mine):

The Obama campaign did put out a statement almost immediately condemning the remarks. It was unfortunate and unnecessary, and in my opinion, inflammatory, for the Obama campaign to attack Senator Clinton on Friday for these remarks, without obviously knowing the full facts or context.

According to The Daily Howler, the Obama camp then spread the Post’s story to the press corps. According to Washington Wire, the story spread when it was picked up by the Drudge Report. The Politico story is not clear on this point but their chronology attributes the “no place in this campaign” quote to Bill Burton and goes on to say, “Soon enough, several websites and cable news outlets were giving the story trumpet-blaring treatment.” Considering what the Obama campaign would do on Saturday, I’m inclined to believe The Daily Howler’s version.

However the story spread, a firestorm began. As Clinton began making a speech at her next stop the reporters traveling with her began hearing about the Post’s story and the Obama campaign’s response. They asked for a clarification. According to Washington Wire:

... [T]he [Clinton] spokesman explained that Clinton had merely been trying to emphasize the point that Democratic primary fights had stretched into June in the past.

Later Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee offered an official statement, saying “any reading into it beyond that is inaccurate.” After a few more minutes he came back, suggesting that his quote should be amended to add “and outrageous.”

After finishing her appearance, Clinton herself returned to offer her own brief apology for the remarks.

Clinton aides pointed to the fact that she had made previous references to both her husband’s 1992 campaign and Kennedy’s 1968 campaign before to stress that these primary fights have pushed into June in the past. The Associated Press cited [the] March interview with Time magazine...

The Clinton apology referred to by Washington Wire was:

Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family.

Randell Beck, Executive Editor of the Argus Leader also issued a statement on Friday:

The context of the question and answer with Sen. Clinton was whether her continued candidacy jeopardized party unity this close to the Democratic convention. Her reference to Mr. Kennedy's assassination appeared to focus on the timeline of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.

Also on Friday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., issued the following statement:

It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June. I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband's 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June. I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense.

Despite Clinton’s explanation and the statements by Beck and Kennedy, the story grew and grew. If you want to see the range of coverage simply enter:

clinton kennedy assassination

into any search engine.

In a sort of grand culmination of all the outrage, Keith Olbermann devoted his Special Comment
Friday night to Clinton’s remarks. I find his comments contemptible but you can read - or watch - and judge for yourself. I’ll simply point out two facts. First, Olbermann presented a very truncated version of Clinton’s remarks thus making it more difficult for his viewers to judge for themselves what Clinton actually meant - and said. Second, The Daily Howler points out that despite Olbermann’s insistence that Clinton must not say the word “assassination” and must not invoke that sort of image, Olbermann himself - on March 3 and March 7, 2008 - managed to mention Clinton’s assassination quite casually.

Friday finally ended. There were two sequels on Saturday, May 24. It’s not entirely clear in what order they occurred but as far as I can tell, they happened like this:

Saturday morning the Obama campaign circulated Olbermann’s Special Comment via email to the political press corps.

Later on Saturday, after all possible damage had been done, Obama washed his hands of the matter with this statement:

”I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here," Obama said in a radio interview today.

“Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that.”

Aftermath

The Obama campaign’s distribution of Olbermann’s Special Comment went largely unremarked. To his eternal credit, George Stephanopoulos did raise this issue with David Axelrod on the May 25 edition ofThis Week:

Stephanopoulos: The Clinton campaign clearly thinks that the Obama campaign are part of that group that is deliberately misinterpreting her statements. And in fact, your campaign's original statement on Friday afternoon said that Senator Clinton made an unfortunate statement that has no place in this campaign. Do you think it would have been better to give her the benefit of the doubt?

Axelrod: Well, in fact, she—a few minutes after we issued that statement seemed to say she herself felt it was unfortunate and was misinterpreted. We accepted that, as Senator Obama said yesterday. She said, you know, that's not what she meant, and we take her at her word and, you know, it's—we're beyond that issue now, so certainly we're not trying to stir the issue up.

Stephanopoulos: Senator Obama did say that we should move on. You say you're not trying to stir the issue up. But a member of your press staff yesterday was sending around to an entire press list, I have the e-mail here. Keith Olbermann's searing commentary against Hillary Clinton. So that is stirring this up, isn't it?

Axelrod: Well, Mr Olbermann did his commentary and he had his opinion. But as far as we're concerned—

Stephanopoulos: But your campaign was sending it around.

Axelrod: As far as we're concerned, George, as far as we're concerned, this issue is done. It was an unfortunate statement, as we said. As she's acknowledged. She has apologized. The apology, you know, is accepted. Let's move forward.

Stephanopoulos: So your campaign won't be sending around any more commentaries like that?

Axelrod: As I said, as far as we're concerned this is—this issue is done. There's so many important things going on in this country right now, George, that people are interested in that we're not going to spend days dwelling on this.

Stephanopoulos’ questioning of Axelrod also received very little attention. One source that did mention it was myDD which also provided the best summary of this episode:

Typical Chicago smear politics. Change and Hope, my ass.

*****

Related links:

Thursday, April 24, 2008: Anglachel's Journal writes Olbermann Calls for Clinton's Murder

Did Hillary Clinton kill Benazir Bhutto? - From Anderson Cooper 360 Blog in December 2007. This is not directly related but references to Axelrod’s odd logic popped up on some blogs discussing Clinton’s RFK/June comments and it seems so terribly bizarre it’s worth mentioning.

The U.S. Election Season: Security Challenges and Conventional Wisdom - One of the aspects of the outrage over Clinton’s remarks that I find most odd was the insistence that Clinton was particularly horrible because Obama was particularly at risk for assassination. I thought at the time that Clinton as a woman was at least as at risk as Obama as an African-American. This piece from Stratfor presents some interesting - and surprising - thoughts along those lines.

The Daily Howler did a four-part, four-day series on Clinton’s RFK/June remarks and how the media handled (that is, “willfully misinterpreted”) them. I’ve referenced one of these posts previously but it’s worth reading through all of them in order:

May 27

May 28

May 29

May 30

The Daily Howler also addresses Clinton’s remarks in later posts in which he points out that some journalists are now acknowledging - as if it was a matter of no moment - that the media lied about the meaning of Clinton’s RFK/June remarks:

June 1

June 9

One tough cookie

[Comments are not allowed for this post. I’ve realized that some posts I do are in the nature of a cri de coeur and I would prefer not to see comments about them. You are certainly welcome to email me about this post.]

I loathed the Clintons for 16 years. Long before anyone had heard of Monica Lewinsky, a coworker asked me how I - a dedicated feminist - could so despise a genuine liberal like Bill Clinton. “Because,” I replied, “I went to school with guys like him. Now they’re all working as used car salesmen and sleeping with their secretaries.” Through all the years of his Presidency my view of him as fundamentally sleazy never wavered.

As for Hillary, my initial dislike was based on her having the bad taste to marry Bill combined with a disdain for her decision to subjugate her own brilliance and political connections to serve his interests. Not to mention her backing down from her decision to keep her own name when it conflicted with Bill’s political interest. My dislike grew into loathing when she so totally screwed up her universal health care assignment early in Bill’s first term. I believed devoutly in the importance of this issue and believed - still believe - that the secrecy with which she surrounded her effort was both wrong and impolitic.

What hardened my loathing for both of them once and for all was their destruction of feminism. True, institutional feminism had already begun to self-destruct with its embrace of people of color throughout the world who had suffered under the lash of white patriarchy. The inability of institutional feminists to see that this meant embracing male people of color who treated women worse than they had ever been treated by the white patriarchy made the political apparatus of feminism merely one more interest group that had outlived its ideals. That ideal, though, still had life and was still most accurately expressed in the original phrase: Sisterhood is powerful.

Then came Bill Clinton’s pitch-perfect Madonna and whore attitude toward women, updated for the 90s as a distinction between well-educated professional women and less-educated pink-collar women. The former were honestly respected as colleagues; the latter were sexual prey. This update was wildly successful as many well-educated professional women defended Bill against the claims of his “low class” victims. And, of course, at the head of the women in this well-educated professional defense brigade was Hillary. I found them both contemptible.

It was a member of that defense brigade of well-educated professional women that drove the final nail in the coffin of feminism. Molly Ivins went on the Imus show and mocked Gennifer Flowers by making fun of the low-class spelling of her name. To honestly believe Flowers was lying and say so would have been fine. To attack her on a class basis was despicable: if feminism did not mean that women stood together across the divides of class then it meant nothing. I turned to my husband and announced that feminism was now officially dead.

Then came the 2008 Democratic primary and I became one of those women who slowly, grudgingly developed a respect for Hillary Clinton. I suppose there was one earlier sign this could happen. When Hillary ran for Senator in 2000, I saw the portion of the debate where her challenger invaded her personal space. Like many others, I saw his actions as an attempt to intimidate. More important, though, I admired Hillary standing her ground mostly because I knew I would have stepped back. It was one very small “go Hillary” moment but it presaged what would come later.

In the Fall of 2007, however, I was in agony. It looked like the Republicans would nominate someone I simply could not vote for and the Democrats would do the same by nominating Hillary Clinton. Then came Iowa and my reaction was gratitude that the nominee apparently wouldn’t be Clinton and a “good for him” feeling about Obama’s victory. Then came the media’s response and my attitude changed.

The media seemed just a little bit too happy about Hillary’s defeat. Just a little too gleeful. Just a little too sneering. I still didn’t want Hillary as the nominee but I also realized I didn’t want her to go down to ignominious defeat. I didn’t yet articulate this feeling to myself in terms Cokie Roberts would later describe as that sense that here’s an older woman who has worked hard all her life and now some young guy is getting her promotion. I simply wanted Hillary to put up a decent showing. Call it team pride if you will. I couldn’t stand her but she was on my gender team so “go Hillary”.

Then Hillary cried. As I recall the incident, she was campaigning in New Hampshire, sitting at a large table with a group of people, and someone asked her how she was doing because she looked so tired, and she choked up. Instantly I was back in a meeting years ago. I’d been doing my first client installation, getting about 5 hours of sleep a night for what seemed like forever, getting no support from my company, and getting nothing but pressure and grief from the client. I held it together, though, and did my job with a stiff upper lip until I sat in a status meeting and someone said something nice to me. I choked up.

No, I still wasn’t a Hillary fan. But I’d been brought face to face with her honest humanity and that meant the media’s insistence that she had only cried because someone mentioned her appearance or she had cried as a ploy because no one as tough as her could cry honestly struck me as not merely sneering but bordering on vicious. So when Hillary won Iowa I cheered.

And that’s how it went from there. The more the media snarled the more I wanted Hillary to win. It wasn’t reaction to the media, though, it was admiration for Hillary. Again she stood her ground when I know I would have stepped back. For all her endless list of serious faults, this was one tough cookie.

If she had won the nomination, would I have voted for her in November? I honestly don’t know. I do know that sometimes when I look at the two candidates we have I find myself with the sinking feeling that Hillary would be far better than either. When the candidates talk about FISA or energy policy or taxation, I find myself wanting to hear what Hillary would have to say on the issue. And I find myself often missing her grasp of both detail and big picture, her complex humanity, and most of all her grit.

What am I missing?

On July 22, 2008, the National Enquirer reported than John Edwards had met his mistress and love child in a Los Angeles hotel. Ordinarily I would never have known this, NE not being on my reading list. However, three on-line sites I read and consider respectable and even thoughtful promptly picked up this story. I was - to put it mildly - flabbergasted. This is theNational Enquirer. As in tabloid. As in trash. Why on earth would any media outlet or website with any claim to honesty or decency touch this stuff?

Well, I figured, there must be something substantive to this. Maybe NE has done some solid reporting and the evidence is so overwhelming that no one can ignore it. So I did a little investigation. After reviewing everything I can find, I can confidently report that’s not the case. NE story is based on eyewitness testimony from a veritable army of NE reporters and “corroborating evidence” from countless unnamed sources.

Okay, I thought, maybe these honest, decent, respectable, thoughtful sites are talking about this in order to rail against it. After all, I’m writing about it. No, that’s not it either. They largely discuss it as if the reports were true. They - or their commenters - throw in the obligatory “if it’s true” from time to time but overwhelmingly the discussion proceeds as if the reports are known to be accurate.

One point made by the writers who are passing along NE’s garbage is that the amount of detail is impressive and they’re quite right. The NE story tells us:
- where Rielle Hunter (the mistress) drove in from
- who Edwards attended a press event with before their meeting
- what the topic of the press event was
- what time Edwards appeared at the hotel (“9:45pm”)
- what type of car he arrived in and the sex of the driver of the car
- what Edward was wearing and what he was carrying
- how Edwards looked around before entering (“nervously”)
- how he made his way upstairs (avoiding the lobby, “ducking” into a stairwell)
- what his route meant (“he went out of his way to avoid being seen”)
- what room numbers Hunter had reserved and whose name she reserved them under (no information on how NE knew Hunter reserved those rooms since they weren’t in her name)
- who was in those rooms (Hunter in one, baby and friend in another)
- how long Edwards and Hunter were out of the hotel together (“briefly”)
- what time Edwards attempted to leave the hotel (“2:45am”)
- how Edwards attempted to leave (sneakily)
- how Edwards reacted when he saw the army of NE reporters waiting for him (shocked)
- how long Edwards spent in the men’s room after seeing the reporters (15 minutes)
- who got him out of the restroom (security guards)

In response to all this detail, I can do no better than quote Elizabeth Peters. In her book, The Love Talker, the heroine comes across Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Coming of the Fairies. Doyle, desperate for validation of the Spiritualist beliefs he embraced following the death of his son, is attempting to convince the public that the Cottingley Fairies photographs are real. In discussing Doyle’s pathetic faith in the clearly contrived photographs of fairies, the heroine says, “Doyle went into laborious detail about how he was drawn into the case, under the commonly held but illusory conviction that detail constitutes scholarly proof.”

Of course, there may be a reason for all that useless detail. Perhaps it’s meant to distract the reader from what NE doesn’t have:
- there is no video of Hunter and the baby arriving at the hotel
- there is no video of Hunter and the baby in their hotel rooms
- there is no video of Edwards arriving at the hotel
- there is no video of Edwards and Hunter leaving the hotel briefly
- there is no video of Edwards attempting to sneak out of the hotel
- there is no video of Edwards barricaded in the men’s room
- there is no video of the security guards rescuing Edwards from the men’s room
- there is no video of Hunter and the baby leaving the hotel

There is no video. In all of Los Angeles, not one NE reporter could find a video camera. (Please note, video. Still photographs presented by NE are not going to cut any mustard with me. I’ve seen too many UFO abduction, alien baby, and half-man/half-animal photos to place much faith in still photography. And those appeared before digital cameras and Photoshop.)

So what am I missing? At what point did an utterly unsubstantiated report from the National Enquirer merit even being repeated much less taken seriously?

*****

Chronology of the Edwards “scandal”

Begin by reading the Wikipedia entry on The National Enquirer. This provides some background on NE’s past work and on the claims by some that it’s good at winning lawsuits.

December 25, 2006: Newsweek writes ”Politics 2008: John Edwards, Untucked” about short documentaries Rielle Hunter is doing for his OneAmericaCommittee Web site. A line from this article is the source of the “met in a bar” line that shows up in various stories about Edwards and Hunter: “The Webisodes are the brainchild of Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker who met Edwards at a New York bar where Edwards was having a business meeting.” That sentence is both weird and ambiguous. Edwards was having a business meeting with an unnamed party in a bar and Hunter crashed the meeting? Edwards and Hunter arranged to have a business meeting in a bar? Edwards had a business meeting in a bar and when it was over he was sitting there drinking and Hunter picked him up - or he picked her up?

September 26, 2007: Sam Stein at The Huffington Post writes
Edwards Mystery: Innocuous Videos Suddenly Shrouded In Secrecy claiming that webisodes made for Edwards’ One American Committee PAC have “disappeared”. It’s well worth skimming through the first page of comments for some alternate viewpoints.

October 10, 2007, 10:52am: Sam Stein at The Huffington Post writes
Scrubbed: Edwards Filmmaker's Deleted Website Raises Questions claiming that Hunter’s deleted (but recovered by Stein) Website is suspicious. This doesn’t seem to me to make sense unless you combine it with the National Enquirer story that came out the same day.

Again, it’s worth skimming through the first page of comments. My favorite is Grannyhelen. In the article, Stein asks, “Moreover, why did Edwards choose someone with limited film experience to document his behind-the-scenes campaign presence - ‘the real John Edwards’?” Grannyhelen comments:

Hmmm....so, why is a recent Dartmouth college grad (and I notice from the photo not an unappealing young man) given so much space in a prestigious post owned by Arianna Huffington? Why is an article with so little actual, factual content given so much play in a blog owned by an Older Woman?

October 10, 2007: National Enquirer writes PRESIDENTIAL CHEATING SCANDAL! ALLEGED AFFAIR COULD WRECK JOHN EDWARDS' CAMPAIGN BID citing a unnamed “friend” of the mistress as evidence of the affair.

October 11, 2007: The blog mydd.com writes National Enquirer, Wonkette, bullshit bucket quoting Rielle Hunter’s denial of the claims she had an affair with John Edwards. The post sums up, “Just a total bullshit story.”

November 29, 2007: The Daily News gossip section writes Tabloid's affair rumor dispelled, says John Edwards which is worth quoting at length:

The tab's [NE] editors have been promising a followup to The Enquirer's Oct. 10 story romantically linking the married presidential candidate with a female campaign staffer.

Edwards and the woman - identified on the Huffington Post and elsewhere as Rielle Hunter - denied allegations they'd had an affair. But one Enquirer source insisted that the tab would provide further evidence in the form of e-mails to a friend in which Hunter supposedly confided details about her love for the former senator.

But seven weeks after the first story, one Enquirer insider admits, "There's a lot of smoke" but "no smoking gun." Enquirer editor David Perel insists, "I never like to talk about what's not published, but we are still doing the story. The original story was 100% accurate."

Edwards himself has another explanation for the delay. "The story disappeared because it's made up," the Democratic candidate tells us.

December 19, 2007: National Enquirer writes UPDATE: JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD SCANDAL! claiming Hunter is six months pregnant and reporting that both Hunter herself and Andrew Young say Young is the baby’s father. Unnamed sources say this is a ruse to protect Edwards. (Boy, I’d like to meet the Mrs. Young who’d go along with this.) In this story, Hunter is living in “an upscale gated community” in North Carolina and seeing an obstetrician there.

December 19, 2007: The blog mydd.com writes Is this really happening? quoting a statement from Andrew Young’s lawyer confirming Young is the father of Hunter’s baby.

July 22, 2008: National Enquirer writes SEN. JOHN EDWARDS CAUGHT WITH MISTRESS AND LOVE CHILD! This is the story that started the current uproar. NE reported Edwards arrived at the Beverly Hilton at 9:45pm on Monday, July 21, and left at 2:45am on Tuesday, July 22.

A piece of information which didn’t make the NE article and doesn’t seem to have made it into many of the pieces written about the NE story is this from the Philadelphia Daily News (I love this whole article):

As Daily News TV critic Ellen Gray informed us from the Television Critics Association summer press tour, what makes the Beverly Hilton choice even more bizarre is that the place was crawling with reporters Monday night for the TCA, including newspaper people from the New York Times, USA Today the New York Daily News, the Washington Post, and us.

But no one but the National Enquirer seemed to spot John Edwards.

Ah, it's a big hotel, you say.

True, but the Enquirer says Hunter/Edwards friend Bob McGovern reserved rooms 246 and 252 at the Hilton. The TCA hospitality suite was down the hall in Room 234.

July 23, 2008: National Enquirer writes JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD revealing new “details” like the type of car Edwards arrived in and the fact that the driver took an automated parking ticket when he pulled into the lot.

July 24, 2008: National Enquirer writes JOHN EDWARDS AFFAIR: CRIMINAL COMPLAINT FILED. NE reporters have charged hotel security with various violations of the California Penal Code for their actions rescuing Edwards from the men’s room. The article notes that the reporters were guests of the hotel and refers to “one security guard [threatening] to break their camera”.

July 25, 2008: FOXNews.com writes Guard Confirms Late-Night Hotel Encounter Between Ex-Sen. John Edwards, Tabloid Reporters reporting than an unnamed (surprise!) security guard at the hotel is confirming the rescue of Edwards from the men’s room although he says he did not recognize Edwards at the time.

This report also says, “FOXNews.com could not independently confirm the Enquirer's allegations” about Edwards visiting Hunter. It further states:

Beverly Hills Police Sgt. Michael Publicker, meanwhile, confirmed Friday that an incident report was filed with the department by two of the tabloid's reporters. Publicker said that contrary to a published report, a "criminal complaint" was not filed and there are no charges pending.

"It will be looked into," Publicker said, refusing to say whether Edwards would be contacted as part of a formal investigation. "We're not going to comment on the investigation," he said.

Police department spokesman Tony Lee said Publicker told him that Edwards was not named on the incident report.

And remember that NE camera the security guard threatened to break? The FOX article says:

The Enquirer says it has videotape showing Hunter entering the room where she met Edwards, and shows Edwards leaving the same room. However, the Enquirer has thus far declined repeated requests by FOXNews.com to release any photographs or videotape evidence of the incident.

July 25, 2008: National Enquirer writes EDWARDS AFFAIR: ENQUIRER REPORT CONFIRMED! referring to the FOX story. NE talks only about the security guard not about the inability to independently verify, the police comments, or the video.

July 30, 2008: National Enquirer writes EDWARDS' HU$H MONEY TO MISTRESS quoting an unnamed source who claims both Hunter and Young are receiving payoffs from “by a wealthy colleague who was closely tied to the Edwards’ campaign”. The story also gives the baby’s name and reveals she was born in Santa Barbara. No word on why Hunter left her cushy house and her obstetrician in North Carolina.

As far as I can tell, that’s the sum total of the evidence for Edwards’ affair with Hunter: they met in a bar; the Webisodes are missing (or maybe not); unnamed sources and unverified reporters’ accounts in NE; and an unnamed security guard found by Fox who didn’t recognize Edwards during the incident (assuming it occurred). All the other posts about this (some of which I reference below) are just posters talking about this evidence or posters talking about other posters talking about this evidence.

I keep thinking I must have missed something. For example, I read quotes like this:

At first, I was skeptical of the National Enquirer story catching Edwards leaving the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel at 2:45am because there were no pictures and the tabloids aren't reliable. Now it turns out that Edwards was at the hotel, so was Ms. Hunter, and that he when he saw reporters he hid in the bathroom until security guards came and got him.

and all I can think is, “What has this guy read that makes him so sure about those facts? What did I miss? Where besides NE did he look for confirmation?” Oh, well, he does say he’s going to post his Internet research information on his Website. It’s not there yet but I’ll keep an eye out for it.

Then again maybe I haven’t missed a thing. In Christie’s The Moving Finger, Dr. Griffith is discussing his fears about the spate of anonymous (ahem) letters in the village: “I’m afraid, too, of the effect upon the slow, suspicious, uneducated mind. If they see a thing written, they believe it’s true.”


The Corner at National Review Online

The writers there posted about this repeatedly, especially Byron York. If you want to see everything, you can start with:

July 22, 2008, 6:33pm: Byron York writes Today Is Fitzmas for Mickey Kaus referencing the NE story, remarking that since money probably changed hands most media outlets won’t touch it but saying “it is good to learn what appears to be the real story.”

and work toward the present. I’ve cherry-picked a few of the posts where I have something to say:

July 22, 2008, 7:35pm: Byron York writes Re: Edwards raising the issue of Edwards being in the running for Vice-President, wondering whether any major media will pick up the story, and crediting NE with breaking the story of Rush Limbaugh and Oxycontin. This is a claim I’ve seen repeated elsewhere. It’s worth remembering that when NE reported this story, there was an ongoing criminal investigation and a named source to lend it credence.

July 24, 2008, 6:47am: Jonah Goldberg writes Tabloid Trash suggesting Edwards should be suing and claiming NE “is pretty scrupulous about its facts. They win lawsuits.” Goldberg raises an interesting point about Edwards suing but here’s the place to keep in mind the Wikipedia NE article’s notes about the difficulty of winning libel suits in the United States and the list of lawsuits NE hasn’t won. Keeping in mind the Wikipedia information about the Cameron Diaz story, it would be interesting to know if the Edwards stories are available in the Britain and Ireland and if Edwards (or Hunter or Young for that matter) would have standing to sue in those countries.

July 24, 2008, 11:02am: Byron York writes John Edwards and the National Enquirer answering a reader who objected to him equating the New York Times and NE. York contrasts NE’s stories on Bush drinking again, getting a divorce, and running away with Condoleezza Rice with NE’s stories on Edwards and concludes the former are bogus while the latter “is far different. Beginning with the original story in the Huffington Post, to this piece from the Enquirer last December, to the new one, it seems to me there's a pretty convincing body of evidence.” York does concede that no one has checked NE’s sourcing and mentions the possibility that NE “is fabricating material”. He concludes with “the Enquirer has been right quite a few times.”

The link York provides for the NE’s story on Bush’ drinking does not work. The correct one is BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS. He does not provide any links to NE stories on Bush’ divorce or on Bush running away with Rice and I was unable to find those stories.

July 25, 2008, 12:37pm: Ramesh Ponnuru writes "Tabloid Trash" which states, in its entirety, “I'm inclined to think that the National Enquirer story is that even if it's true.”

July 25, 2008, 1:07pm: Kathryn Jean Lopez writes re: "Tabloid Trash" in which she agrees with and expands on Ponnuru’s comment.


Slate - The XX Factor

The writers at XX Factor posted about this repeatedly. The first post I see is:

July 23, 2008, 11:45am: Melinda Henneberger writes Mickey's Dream Has Been Rielle-ized

The last is:

Saturday, July 26, 2008, 10:56am: Melinda Henneberger writes My Challenge to Emily and Mickey: Bag a Philanderer and Then Get Back to Me in which she asks:

Isn't cheering and leering from the comfort of the cheap seats on something like this (yeah, you go out and get that sleazo story that I personally would consider beneath my dignity) the journo equivalent of being a Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld-style chickenhawk? And isn't there a journalistic equivalent of the fruit of the poison tree?

I don’t have comments on any of what they’ve said but it’s worth paging through the XX Factor for an interesting discussion on the privacy issue part of this.


Slate - Kausfiles

Mickey Kaus is - in his own words - obsessing about this. (I’m a fine one to talk - look at the length of this post.) The first post I see (for this go-round - he’s posted about Edwards/Hunter before) is:

July 22, 2008, 8:09pm: Mickey Kaus at Kausfiles at Slate writes Busted referencing the NE story and wondering whether the MSM will pick up the story.

There is no last story since he’s still posting about this right now. If you want to get every possible drop of information in support of this story, Kausfiles is the way to go.

One note about an issue Kaus raises in a June 25, 2008 post and that I’ve seen raised elsewhere: why doesn’t Edwards just get a DNA test to disprove paternity? I don’t think Edwards can get a DNA test. Or rather, he can but he can’t compel the baby to. Only Hunter could do that.

Even if Edwards could persuade Hunter to have her baby tested, though, I don’t for a moment believe a negative result would quiet those who are avidly pursuing this story. They would simply claim that the results had been faked or that some mysterious Edwards associate had paid off the lab. In other words, it’s impossible for Edwards to present the “absolute proof” called for here:

Don Fowler of Columbia, a former Democratic National Chairman, agreed.

"Any kind of report like this, unless there is some absolute proof that it is not true, will be believed by some people," he said, "and the degree to which it seems to have credibility will be believed by more people. And when you select somebody to be vice presidential candidate the number one rule of everything is, you sure as hell don't want somebody who will hurt you."

And that means we’re giving the National Enquirer veto power over the candidates’ vice-presidential picks.

Stealing the silverware

David Mamet has a wonderful essay in The Village Voice, entitled ”Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal’”. Mamet points out the contradiction in the liberal view of the world - people are basically good at heart yet everything is always wrong; takes a second look at George W. Bush; re-examines corporations and the military; and rethinks the need for and value of government intervention. All in three short pages.

I recommend this essay highly and to whet your appetite here’s one of my favorite lines:

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches.

Sex with goats

I don't have much to say about this post - I just like it. The incident it refers to is the Jessica Lynch rescue so it's practically ancient. I do think Jane's Rule is worth keeping in mind during the elections as are Lileks' musings on the two different attitudes one can take toward one's opponent.

Untitled (From the desk of Jane Galt)

The Lileks post she quotes can be found here:

Untitled (From The Bleat)

Wheat, chaff, babies, and bath water

John McCain’s handling of the Phil Gramm comments drove me crazy. If Gramm was a great economic adviser yesterday he doesn’t suddenly become an economic dunce tomorrow. If your economic adviser says the recession is mental and there’s a lot of whining, don’t pack the guy off to Belarus. Say, “Phil Gramm is right about a lot of things. The economy is growing; we are in a great position globally; and fear of a recession can tip us over the edge into a real one. At the same time, however, we need a plan to be sure everyone participates in that growth and everyone can take advantage of our global economy. That’s the best way to make people stop fearing for their economic futures. As for whining, Phil’s right about that, too: there are people out there who took on more debt than they can handle and are whining about having to pay up and want the government - which really means all you taxpayers - to bail them out. But there are also a lot of people who work hard and live within their means and pay their debts but are hurting from problems like skyrocketing energy prices and we need a plan to help them out.” And when asked if you’re going to continue to use Gramm’s expertise, say, “Of course. I don’t always agree with him but he’s a valuable resource. I make the decisions but I listen to a lot of people before I do so. I can sort wheat from chaff with no trouble at all.”

And while I’m on the subject, could we also stop with the whole No Lobbyists As Advisers nonsense? Obama criticizes McCain for having advisers who are lobbyists for one cause or another - but Obama has lobbyist advisers himself. Now McCain requires all advisers to either resign or cut lobbying ties - as if those who cut their ties will magically forget the causes they once championed. For Heaven’s sake, grow up. When candidates are criticized for listening to advisers with ties to one group or another, they should say, “Sure, I know he sells widgets. But widgets are important and he knows everything there is to know about them. Why would I throw away a resource like that? It’d be like throwing out the baby with the bath water. I always remember he thinks widgets are great and will try to convince me that what the country needs is lots and lots of widgets. I’m smart enough to take what he says with a grain of salt and to listen to the anti-widget guys, too, before I make a decision.”

“I listen to a lot of people but I make the decisions” is a far more powerful statement than “I have to get rid of this guy because I’m so weak-minded he might convince me to do something wrong.” And acknowledging that even smart people with valuable knowledge have agendas and push pet projects is a lot more honest than trying to pretend everyone around you is - or must be - as pure as the driven snow.

*****

Sources:

McCain adviser talks of 'mental recession' - The Washington Times article that started the whole Phil Gramm brouhaha; you can read more of what he said than “whiners” and “mental”

While searching for a full transcript of Gramm’s remarks - which I didn’t find - I ran across a couple of posts that echo some of what I say here:

Phil Gramm post from The Corner on National Review Online

Phil Gramm is right - An interesting article from The Washington Post on “Campaign Econ”

Obama seizes on McCain lobbyist ties

No Ban on Lobbyists as Advisers for Obama