video Every single person involved in the John Edwards story is awful. But People magazine is still Team Elizabeth, and gets Elizabeth Edwards' PR team's spin reaction to the GQ Rielle Hunter interview. And the Today show dug deeper. (more...)

video In case you missed it, here are some key concepts surrounding this bizarre story: presidential candidacy, baby dady, mistress, sex tape, cover-up, terminal cancer and mastermind. The players? John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, Elizabeth Edwards and Andrew Young (former staffer to the Edwards presidential campaign.) Yesterday, Geraldo Rivera interviewed Young about the existence of the so called steamy sex tape, a video of which follows. (more...)

And now for a political corruption story that, by some miracle, does not involve any New York politicians. According to the Pulitzer Prize eligible National Enquirer a Federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards: "'John is terrified that he's going to be indicted,' a friend told The ENQUIRER." Emphasis the Enquirer's. Also, Elizabeth may be helping to send him to jail, though they don't actually provide detail on this front...and really, who could blame her if this happens to be true. From the Enquirer: (more...)

Politics is a dirty business, but even among the thickest of thick-skinned folk there have been few scandals as stomach-churning as the John Edwards sex scandal. A man who was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency had a lovechild with a staffer and pinned the blame on a loyal subordinate. The wife had cancer at the time; the lover, barely a political type, was a walking hippie stereotype with a history in astrology. The National Enquirer broke the story. The subordinate wrote a damning tell-all book. The whole tragedy was impossibly stranger than fiction. Out of all this irresponsible suffering, Newsweek has found an unlikely hero: Rielle Hunter. Columnist Jonathan Darman argues that it is in her silence throughout the entire ordeal that the public can see her true "dignity," and that she is unlike most mistresses of the modern era in that she has not used her new-found fame for financial stability or to generate more fame for its own sake. (more...)

video Just like last week, former John Edwards aide Andrew Young was back on cable news to talk about the latest revelations in the Edwards soap opera, including reports the former Senator may now be engaged to Rielle Hunter. But that's not all! Young was on Fox & Friends this morning to discuss everything Edwards-related. (more...)

Well, tis’ the season, evidently, to heap vast amounts of shameful detail on sleazy politicians who, so far as we knew, were long ago buried alive in vast amounts of shameful detail.  Not a week after Andrew Young, the malleable former aide to John Edwards, released The Politician, his account of the sordid exertions Edwards involved him in in the course of concealing his affair with a campaign videographer, Rielle Hunter, the New York Daily News has reported that Staying True, a memoir by Jenny Sanford, the soon-to-be ex-wife of the disgraced satyr-governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, will come out this Friday. (more...)

That's the question poised in Clark Hoyt's public editor column in the New York Times this Sunday, as Game Change tops the paper's nonfiction best-sellers list. The "racy" stories of "dysfunctional" relationships are captivating, but led Hoyt to a question of journalistic ethics: "How do you deal with a talker of a book reported in a way that the paper’s own standards do not permit?" (more...)

video

Last night's 20/20 featured an exclusive interview by Bob Woodruff with Andrew Young, a former John Edwards aide and author of the upcoming tell-all The Politician. 8.1 million people watched, the highest-rated 20/20 in nearly three months. If you missed it, we've got a clip from the show, detailing Edwards' reaction immediately after the National Enquirer caught him at the Beverly Hilton visiting Rielle Hunter and their child.

(more...)

It's with some trepidation that I continue to report on the sick, sad, can't-make-this-up story surrounding John Edwards. I never liked the guy, he's no longer a public figure, he'll never be a public figure, and all of this ugliness occurred when he was a private citizen, albeit one running for the most powerful position in the world. Nevertheless, I know I'm not the only one who can't look away from this story. So here's what's breaking in our Tar Heel Soap Opera: (more...)

I guess this can be called the first iPad news dump. ABC News is reporting that John and Elizabeth Edwards have officially split, which is only shocking in so far as it took this long to happen: (more...)

slideshow Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann joined Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in discussing their best-selling and oft blogged about book. Halperin mentioned during the event that the authors are in discussions with HBO about making a film version of their best-selling book. Their dreamcast? Meryl Streep playing Hillary Clinton and Will Smith playing Barack Obama. (more...)

Game Change, the dishy, exhaustively researched, and occasionally overwritten new book on the 2008 election by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, has dominated both political gossip and book publicity for the past week. It’s produced a small political scandal, a New York magazine cover story, and innumerable blog chatter. The book has been number one on Amazon since the day before its release, and the print run has reportedly already been increased twice. Nevertheless, the book is difficult to acquire in some parts of the country. For example, in lower Manhattan, the first four bookstores I checked had all sold out all their copies. The Strand had placed twenty-nine back orders for it, while the Union Square Barnes and Noble—where the woman in front of me was also asking for it—had placed about one hundred. With this in mind, we at Mediaite want to give you everything you’ll need to keep up with the chatter on Game Change, without your needing to read it. (more...)

That's the provocative claim (the web loves reactions -- and clicks!) made in Emily Miller's column for Politics Daily, entitled "Does the National Enquirer Deserve a Pulitzer for Breaking the John Edwards Scandal?" Well, Ms. Miller, what does the paper deserve? "I believe the time has come for us to recognize the Enquirer's political investigative reporting," she writes, fairly.

Though I don't know the other nominees for the 2009 investigative category (the deadline isn't until February), and I'm sure there are many worthy entries, it's clear to me that the Enquirer deserves consideration for what remains the highest honor in American journalism.

With the press overflow well on for 2008 campaign memoir Game Change, and an Edwards-specific excerpt in this week's New York, the Rielle Hunter/baby daddy is back with an adulterous vengeance -- just in time for journalism's award season. And as Miller writes: "Despite the legwork reporting done by the National Enquirer, there's little evidence that any of the reporters covering the Edwards campaign were interested in ascertaining if the accusations were true," so maybe it is a time to teach that status quo Washington press corp what's what. In this particularly egregious example, they were scooped for nearly a year, Miller argues. Sure, it sounds link-baiting, but Miller's argument isn't as crazy as it sounds and her analysis and background are trenchant -- deserving of a full read and legitimate consideration. "The TV networks and many print outlets have dismantled or cut back their investigative teams," she writes, "while the Enquirer continues to incur the expense of putting reporters on months-long stakeouts and paying them to literally knock on doors in search of sources." Why not give them a nod of recognition? Does the National Enquirer Deserve a Pulitzer for Breaking the John Edwards Scandal?

video A DC local news station, WJLA, has gotten into hot water in some quarters for airing a bare-breasted, unpixelated guide to breast self-exams. Critics say it's a salacious ratings ploy, but defenders say it's a valuable public service. Could it be a little bit of both? (more...)

Ten days ago the New York Times ran a A-1 takedown piece on John Edwards that included a number of shocking allegations which, combined with the placement the NYT gave the story, pretty much ended any chance Edwards had of making a return to the political world. Not that there was much chance left, but still. (more...)

The New York Times is not going to be scooped by the National Enquirer anymore! The Times is running an A-1 story today about the latest developments in the John Edwards "drama," which according to the story's opening graf is "moving slowly but deliberately to its conclusion." Slightly less slowly and perhaps more deliberately after this piece! Reading between the lines, it seems the New York Times got its hands on a hot book proposal and rushed its contents to press before anyone else was able to beat them to the punch, or, for that matter, go on record about it. (more...)