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See the August 8, 2008 Update to this story: Updated : Confirmed - John Edwards: Just Another Lying, Cheating Democrat Caught Red Handed Doing Something He Claimed Not To Be Doing

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UpdateII:The MSM almost picks up the story as the LA Times covers it in the blog section of the paper. But wait, don’t run there too fast because the link went down almost as fast as it went up. (Note, the link was returned after some time in oblivion)

Still, no proof of an affair but stories that have a lot unexplained cross cutting side stories tend to stay active longer than ones that don’t. Americans love a good conspiracy. Is this a Clinton hit job? Did Edwards really have an affair? Why are web sites disappearing all over the place? Why did Edwards hire a woman with an idea she came up with in a bar and no apparent practical experience to following him around with a camera? All good questions.

Update: (and bump to top) This story gets a little more interesting this evening. Here is the denial from the woman in question:

“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.” - Rielle Hunter according to MyDD

Now the interesting part of this denial and the story is that the Huffington Post has been reporting that Rielle Hunter was hired to do a video documentary about Edwards and did in fact follow him around on the campaign trail. But for some reason the video and Rielle’s website inexplicably disappeared.

A set of short documentary film “webisodes” made for former Sen. John Edwards prior to his presidential candidacy continues to weave a curious web, this time involving the filmmaker.

The videos, which cost Edwards’ One America Committee $114,461, were produced in 2006 by an aspiring actress/producer named Rielle Hunter, who proposed the idea to the senator in a bar in New York City. The objective was to give viewers - and presumably voters - an authentic look at the North Carolinian. But shortly after Edwards declared his White House aspirations, the footage all but disappeared from public view. After the Huffington Post wrote about the webisodes, the videos resurfaced, both on YouTube and Webcastr.com, although the anonymous individual who reposted them (user name: “MissingVideos”) has not responded to emails.

Little was known about Hunter as well. Despite working in the movie business, she had virtually no Internet presence save for an article in Newsweek about her filming of Edwards and an uninformative IMDB entry for her work on the short film Billy Bob and Them (2000).

This anonymity, it turns out, wasn’t always the case. The Huffington Post has uncovered a deleted website that formerly belonged to Hunter. Titled “Being Is Free,” the site was last updated on April 22, 2007, roughly twenty days after Edwards’ One America Committee made its final payment to Hunter’s company, Midline Groove Productions.

There is virtually no mention of filmmaking or politics on the site. And there is little indication as to what Hunter did professionally - beyond an involvement in various spiritual quests - before she and her partner, Mimi Hockman, started Midline Groove Production in the spring of 2006. As Colin Weil, a consultant to the Edwards webisodes told the Huffington Post: “Neither of them had done tons and tons of stuff before hand… The whole [Edwards' taping] was pretty organic.”

On the deleted pages, the 44-year-old Hunter (formerly known as Lisa Druck) discusses her former hard partying days, her search for enlightenment, and her issues with drugs and debt. There is a 2005 interview she did with one-time boyfriend Jay McInerney, in which the celebrated novelist reveals that Hunter was the basis for Alison Poole, the main character of his book, Story of My Life.

A lot of things are not adding up about this story. Sure, this could all be a bad coincidence and I don’t even know for sure if the MyDD denial is legit (what on MyDD is?) In any respect this looks a bit worse for Edwards than I originally thought. Before it was just a story based on a flimsy e-mail. But now the situation seems to be getting downright ugly, missing videos, disappearing websites, drugs, debt…. Hmmm.

Original Story Below
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It doesn’t take long for the press to come out with all cylinders running when a Republican is accused of any sort of sex crime, be it the stall to stall romancing of Larry Craig or the nighttime madame phone calls of David Vitter. Yep, the newsrooms of the mainstream media have plenty of boilerplate material for such stories. Put the shoe on the other foot such as the allegation that Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards had an 18 month affair with a former campaign worker however and you can pretty much expect that more important items take precedent.

Take for example the Washington Post front page article and video coverage of Muslim athletes that endure the demands of fasting during Ramadan. The New York Times is too busy giving face time to the anti-semitic Jimmy Carter so he can bash the U.S. even more in his current anti-Cheney tour. (side note, Carter appeared on CNN yesterday with Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room to counsel us on the dangers of bombing Iran). The La Times covers the self made “controversy” over the new Star Trek movie.

The stars are pretty much aligned for a press club that exceedingly displays its one sided agenda; a mission to distort the news rather than do something novel such as report the news.

Yes, the source of the story on the John Edwards affair is The National Enquirer and many will play that down. But the story is not about the platform of the exposes’ but rather that a back to back Democratic Presidential candidate with a penchant for expensive haircuts is alleged to have had an 18 month affair on the campaign trail. Imagine that.

Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign, The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

Sources have come forward to charge that the “other woman” previously worked on Edwards’ campaign and followed the 54-year-old candidate on trips across the U.S.

A source close to the woman, whose name is being withheld by The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, says that she confessed to having an affair in phone calls and emails, saying that her work with Edwards soon exploded into romance. The shocking allegation — if proven true — could devastate the Democratic hopeful’s campaign, especially because John’s devoted wife Elizabeth is locked in a desperate battle with breast cancer.

“The affair started about 18 months ago,” a friend says the woman confessed to her. “When they met at a bar, sparks flew immediately.

I see nothing in the Enquirer piece that points to any concrete evidence. But I do find it interesting that the woman making these claims is a former campaign worker for John Edwards. Usually former co-workers and subordinates are allowed a bit more latitude in the credibility of their claims, at least if they are the type to claim that a future Supreme Court Justice with a tendency to lean conservative is harassing her.

Only time will tell if this story bears fruit. Don’t expect the major media to do any footwork on it though; after all, we’re not talking about an end run on Rush Limbaugh. I think we need something a little more concrete than the flimsy evidence of a woman’s e-mail to her friends otherwise it is nothing more than a smear job. Let’s wait and see what the MSM comes up with, enquiring minds want to know.

See Also: South Dakota Moderate

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