Edwards’ career freefall took an unprecedented turn for the worse when Edwards was indicted a few months ago, but all signs point to him being disgraced and hated throughout his hometown long before his woes developed a legal nature. Cottle notes that a local bar famous for its photos of celebrities is regularly inundated with requests to replace his photo with one of his wife, Elizabeth, or at least relocate his to the bathroom. While there is sympathy for his children, residents speak of him as a pariah so scurrilous few will interact with him, and his disgrace is no laughing matter:

The first, inescapable fact on the ground is that the folks around Raleigh and Chapel Hill are not yet in a forgiving mood. While legal experts debate the merits of the Justice Department’s case against Edwards, the hometown crowd has issued its own, more personal verdict: Depending on who you ask, the man is “a snake,” “a scumbag,” or, as Betty Henderson, receptionist at the Edwardses’ longtime church home in Raleigh, eloquently put it, “a narcissist so in love with himself that he can’t see past his own desires.”

Even on his decline, there was a time, Cottle writes, when Edwards was a character to be ridiculed and not so sternly scorned. He became, to a certain extent, that guy at everyone’s local bar, flirting with college girls and drinking away his problems because there was nothing better to do. “Particularly during the period when Elizabeth kicked him out of the house and he was living in an apartment near the main drag where UNC students congregate, Edwards was a fixture at area watering holes,” Cottle notes, adding that, yes, people used to actually talk to him. The image she recalls most vividly is one of the stereotypical failed man of Hollywood– somewhere between Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas or an extra in an obscure 1980s Mickey Rourke movie. It is difficult to equate that man with a politician who could have been a heartbeat away from the presidency merely seven years ago.

Yet, somehow, who Edwards is now is even more tragic than he was while Elizabeth Edwards was still alive– the days of pathetic bar-hobbling seem to have been left behind to spend more time with his family. “According to cemetery staff, the senator comes frequently to visit his wife and son,” Cottle notes of Edwards, adding that, given the number of Confederate tombs in the area, historical tours often pass by. “Observes one staffer,” she notes, “’How humiliating it must be for him to be sitting out there with all those people [gawking and whispering.]‘”

Edwards appears far beyond the point of no return, at least when it comes to his political career, and having an ice-cold home such as this to limp back to makes prison sound slightly more comfortable, if at least an escape from the life Cottle paints for him. As his case proceeds through the legal process, Edwards will soon be back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and perhaps finally able to escape his hometown, though it may serve as a frying pan from which to leap straight into a burning media firestorm all over again.

Reports the Enquirer, quoting a “source close to the scandal”:

Elizabeth wanted to exact revenge against John for destroy­ing their 33-year marriage and family by cheating with Rielle.

It was Elizabeth’s idea to secret­ly record a video and tell what knew of the affair and John’s horrific betrayal.

The source added that Edwards then passed the video on to a friend, asking that it be sent to prosecutors in the case against her husband.

Last week, John Edwards pleaded not guilty following a federal grand jury’s indictment on charges he conspired to cover up his affair during his 2008 campaign by “secretly obtaining,” donors’ contributions and later misreporting these donations.

h/t National Enquirer

(UPDATE BELOW)

The Enquirer article isn’t exactly objective journalism:

“During the festive holiday getaway, the callous ex-senator introduced his children to Rielle Hunter – who had destroyed his 33-year marriage and gave birth to his love child, Frances Quinn, now 2 years old.

What’s more, The ENQUIRER learned that homewrecker Rielle made a shocking decision – to direct John’s young children to ‘Call me Mommy!’”

Still, they were right that last time and that was huge enough that outlets like the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Post have all ventured into the muddy waters. It’s a tough choice to make. If the Enquirer’s sources close to Edwards come through again, then this will be a huge story. If not, then everyone who wrote it up will get burned.

Only time will tell how this story ends up.

Update: Gossip Cop claims that the rumors are not true:

The National Enquirer’s cover story this week claimed that just three weeks after Elizabeth Edwards passed away, the former presidential candidate proposed to Hunter.

The report quickly spread to numerous outlets.

But today a spokesperson for Edwards informs the Daily Beast, “I can tell you that it’s not true.”

“I have no idea where it’s coming from. I wouldn’t begin to speculate about the Enquirer’s sources,” says the spokesperson.

Below is a video report on the story and speculation from CBS3 in Philadelphia:

Writing for the News Observer, Rob Christensen and Mandy Locke report:

Elizabeth Anania Edwards, who became a national figure in her fight against cancer and as a partner in her husband John’s political career, died today. She was 61.

Edwards spent much of her life as a little-known Raleigh lawyer and mother. But that all changed when her husband, John Edwards, entered politics as a U.S. senator and became a two-time presidential candidate and the Democratic nominee for vice president.

Her husband’s career put her in the spotlight as a smart, plain-spoken wife who was a key adviser to her husband.

She later became a figure of sympathy as she battled breast cancer and dealt with her husband’s infidelity. And, in the last few years, her public image shifted again: the scorned woman whose husband fathered a child with another woman.

Several journalists on Twitter are fondly recalling having spent time with Ms. Edwards, many pointing out that she forever changed the way spouses of politicians will forever be considered.

“It is not my experience that a third party wrecks a home,” Rielle Hunter told Winfrey. “I believe the problems exist before a third party comes into the picture.”

“So you don’t think you wrecked his home?” Winfrey asked Hunter.

“I do not believe I wrecked his home,” Hunter said.

We’ve made a short highlight reel, below, to catch you up in you missed what is hopefully (but doubtfully) the last chapter in the Edwards family saga.

Who: Julianna Margulies, Christine Baranski, Josh Charles, Archie Panjabi, Matt Czuchry, moderated by Matt Roush
What: “An Evening with The Good Wife”
Where: Paley Center for Media
When: April 21, 2010
Thumbs: Up

When Christine Baranski accidentally let a spoiler slip about “The Good Wife” episodes that have yet to air, the crowd reacted with a mix of laughter and discomfort. Our fellow members of the media frantically typed away on their phones or stepped outside to make what appeared to be important phone calls. And Baranski was visibly embarassed by the entire ordeal.

Baranski, without considering the implications of her comment, revealed that the main character’s husband – played by Chris Noth – moves out, to some of the audience’s delight and others’ dismay. Based on the crowd’s reaction to the news, this development seemed like a pivotal twist in the show’s story. It had the capacity to overshadow the rest of the night’s discussion. But we witnessed other (more deliberate) highlights that shouldn’t go overlooked.

Julianna Margulies is the star of this show about a family rocked by political scandal. Despite Margulies’ and the rest of the impressive cast’s years of TV experience, CBS wasn’t sure at the onset that it had a hit on its hands. Before the show got picked up and could afford to build its own courtroom set, the cast and crew shot those scenes at a courthouse in Queens. The cast seemed unfazed, though, recognizing not only the uncertainty to shows’ successes, but also what could be gleaned from being around a real courtroom; many of the actors spent time shadowing real lawyers to prepare for their roles.

It was obvious that the cast genuinely likes each other. Josh Charles, Archie Panjabi, and Matt Czuchry all had plenty to add to this panel, throwing in welcomed punchlines when applicable. Refreshingly, none of these actors seem to take themselves too seriously. Even when Baranski made her faux pas, her fellow cast members made light of the mistake. They credit the popularity of the show to the writers who brainstormed a show that keeps everyone guessing, and bracing for, what will happen next. Margulies says that people come over to her on the street and express their admiration for her character’s loyalty and devotion.

Even Elizabeth Edwards contacted CBS when the show first began to express how the show gets the character right. Margulies was quick to qualify that that call took place before the real John Edwards scandal came to light.

What They Said
“I just went online and looked at pictures of the wives before and after.”
- Julianna Margulies describes the extensive research that went into her role as a scandal-ridden wife

“I was pleasantly surprised when we killed [The Jay Leno Show] in the ratings.”
- Julianna Margulies is on Team Coco

“I found my cable show…it just happened to be on network.”
- Julianna Margulies learns it’s always in the last place you look

“What you see on television these days is episodic – formulaic with a beginning, middle and end – or reality TV.”
- Julianna Margulies is amazed by the writers’ abilities to surprise and break standard form

What We Thought

• Moderator Matt Roush did a good job combining professionalism with his own excitement over the show. With TV shows more than any other subject we cover, it takes a certain insider knowledge and personal obsession to bring out the best in the panel.
• We approve of the producers’ initial decision to cast the fallen politician as more of a Bill Clinton-type than an Eliot Spitzer.
• The show carefully intertwines elements of technology and social media into the plot of the show. This includes Twitter, Google alerts, and online polls. When Margulies punishes her children, she takes away their computers. It’s nice to find a show that tries to capture the lives of teenagers today in an honest and straightforward way.

PANEL RULES!
Some audience behavior seems to repeat itself panel after panel. We’ll be updating a running list of “PANEL RULES!” that will help ensure that you are not the dweeb of the Panel Nerds.

Panel Nerds don’t like…Stawkards
No matter how much the word “blog” has become mainstream, it still conveys a certain level of pause when you meet someone and her first words are “I run a blog.” And if you do lead with your blog, don’t follow that up with an off-hand remark that the cast shouldn’t be scared of you if you show up on their set someday. We don’t even know if you asked a question at the end of your short time with the microphone. We were just watching the panel struggle to keep half-hearted smiles on their faces while adjusting in their seats. For all our sakes, we urge you to stay off the mike next time. Also, please don’t find us.

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.

People reports John and Elizabeth officially split in January, and she was “just beginning to move on with her life when she read GQ‘s explosive interview with Rielle Hunter this week.” And what did she think? Well “friends” said she was “disgusted” but “still went about her day as usual.”

Meanwhile Hunter seems to have recanted a bit on her own personal outrage over the GQ pictures and reaction, telling NBC News in a statement “I understood what photos were being taken” and “I stand by this interview.” Either way, that whole “quiet dignity” thing appears to officially be a thing of the past.

And what about Andrew Young, who likes making cable TV appearances whenever he gets a chance? Norah O’Donnell reports he has “just signed with top Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel…who wants to turn his story into a movie.” Of course.

And look, Elizabeth Edwards has gone through a lot, but all you have to do is look to Game Change to get the feeling this People story has the making of a comeback for Elizabeth – and frankly, maybe even John Edwards.

There’s two Americas, folks, and in one America John, Elizabeth are teaming up with Rielle to put John Edwards on the 2016 presidential ticket, while Andrew Young thinks he’s going to be a star. Luckily, most of us live in the other America.

Here’s the Today segment:

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In the clip, Young lays all the blame of the conspiracy surrounding Edwards and Hunter’s child with John Edwards, pushing back from allegations that he was the “mastermind” behind duping the media into believing that he, in fact, was the father of the child.

Edwards, the disgraced two-time Presidential loser, is being investigated by the feds, including the FBI and IRS, for possible campaign violations related to paying his mistress Rielle Hunter.

The grand jury has been meeting since April 2009, and insiders say an indictment is imminent….”While he believes he’s done nothing illegal in trying to hide his extramarital affair with Rielle and their daughter, he thinks the Feds are going to make an example of him.”

For the FULL STORY with ALL the details you won’t find anywhere else – RUN – don’t walk – to get the new issue of The ENQUIRER before it sells out – on sale NOW!

I really feel like the New York Times should consider ending their articles with such lively instructions…I bet they’d see a boost in print sales.

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.

“Character comes out in a sex scandal,” Darman claims, and later argues that “for two years, she has behaved with more public dignity than any other figure in the Edwards scandal. In fact, she acted with more discipline and discretion than any mistress in the recent history of sex scandals.”

Yes, it is true that no one has heard a peep from Hunter since this began, but the reason that character comes out in a sex scandal is that the scandal itself is an indicator of character, or lack thereof. If anything, the one person that comes cleanest out of a situation like this is the one that everyone was trying to hide the sex scandal from: John’s wife, Elizabeth Edwards.

Darman disagrees, stating that Elizabeth “now looks like an artful manipulator, ruled by vengeful hysteria.” He does not offer much evidence to back this up, other than Elizabeth writing some unfavorable things about Hunter in her memoir and requesting that people not speak her name around her. This is somehow more morally reprehensible to Darman than having a lovechild with a man whose wife is undergoing cancer treatments, or criticizing the man’s wife for being responsible for getting cancer due to her “bad energy,” the latter something Darman states in apparent defense of Hunter.

There is a sense that Darman sees something in Hunter that the average media consumer does not, since the average person doesn’t see much of Hunter at all, and perhaps Darman is influenced by having met the subject (for a Newsweek piece in 2008, in which he described her favorably as well). It’s an intriguing piece to write (and read), and Darman brings up some interesting points.

Hunter’s silence over the time the scandal has lasted is deafening, but there’s no reason to give her a trophy for good behavior when she is at least halfway to blame for wrecking a family. The way he glorifies Hunter simply for keeping her head down is infuriating at times – after all, what can be expected of her? Unlike most mistresses, she has a child with her lover. Unlike most mistresses, her lover’s wife is gravely ill, and she has gone on the record insulting her simply for her disease. She has dug her own publicity grave, one that there is little crawling out from, and reviving this story simply to make what is probably the most sinister character in the story a heroine raises some delicate issues.

But that’s not all! Young was on Fox & Friends this morning to discuss everything Edwards-related.

Yesterday Young turned over the supposed sex tape featuring John Edwards to a judge, and now there’s a new lawsuit potentially on the table. “Andrew Young said Elizabeth Edwards has threatened to sue him for contributing to the downfall of their marriage,” reports the Washington Post. The basis would be the “alienation of affection” law in North Carolina.

“I think it’s very odd they filed this suit the day before my book came out, and they didn’t do anything for two years,” said Young to F&F’s Gretchen Carlson.

Before Young got to responding to the National Enquirer story about Edwards’ marriage proposal to Hunter, he brought along some new (“exclusive!”) voicemails. One, from Hunter, supposedly was a call to Edwards after he had just gotten off the air talking about Elizabeth on CNN. “‘My wife is my moral leader?’” said Hunter, repeating a line Edwards had said. “We’re all going to hell.”

As for the engagement story: “I have no idea if it’s true, me and my family did live with Rielle for eight months, if it is true I wish the Senator the best of luck.”

Andrew Young, best man?

Here’s today’s Fox & Friends interview:

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Given the circumstances, the memoir’s title achieves just the right ratio of mantra to retort.  Back in 2004, Sanford scandalized local Democrats by parading swine in front of the state legislature to make a point about pork barrel spending. A savvy career move, it turns out, if a rather unsanitary one.  Four years later, people were still talking about it, and Sanford, all of a sudden, was a plausible candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

That lasted about a month.  In 2009, Sanford, apparently in a more bipartisan frame of mind, scandalized everybody by parading his swinish exploits with a South American divorcee in front of the nation.  (Or at least, that was what eventually happened.  These things are never easy.  After disappearing untraceably for several days — he was in Argentina, we later learned, with his paramour — Sanford first tried to fob off a story about a ramble down the Appalachian trail on his wife and the public, a lie so amateurish in concept and execution it was almost charming.  Almost.)

In aftermath of all this, Jenny Sanford had options, alternatives.  Two, to be precise.  She could stand by her husband, privately distraught, publically well-groomed and underslept-looking.  That was option A, tried and tested by such overachievers in the field of spousal forgiveness as Hillary Clinton and Silda Wall Spitzer.  Then there was option B, which goes a little like this: separate with dignity from your husband; damn him with decorously understated criticism; titillate/pollinate the blogosphere with rumors of your maybe running for office; and publish a memoir.  After about eight seconds of agonized deliberation, Mrs. Sanford, one infers, went with plan B.

And, unlike others who have attempted the neat trick of parlaying a two-timing husband into celebrity status (see Elizabeth Edwards), it seems to be going rather well.  People like Mrs. Sanford, sympathize with her predicament, whistle with awe at her backbone.  There have been no cries, so far, of hypocrisy or scandal-profiteering.  Then again, perhaps we’d better wait to read the book . . .

Hoyt acknowledges the book’s newsworthiness, first by referencing Senator Harry Reid‘s apology for his racial remarks, but wonders how to represent these anecdotes from a book “written in an omniscient, novelistic voice, purporting at times to be inside the heads of players and recreating scenes and dialogue that the authors could not have witnessed.”

If you repeat some of the more salacious parts, like the supposed details of a fight between John and Elizabeth Edwards in an airport parking lot, are you just letting through the backdoor what you would never allow through the front? If you don’t, are you just burying your head in the sand while readers get the juicy stuff elsewhere?

After detailing John Heilemann and Mark Halperin‘s sourcing issues, Hoyt admits that the Times has “treated Game Change as news, but carefully,” pointing to the paper’s two reviews, multiple essays and reports. “None of the articles repeated the most titillating material,” he writes. In this instance, the Times seems adamant about maintaining its buttoned-up integrity, even though it may be sacrificing readers and page views, as well as appearing ethically conservative in an increasingly loose era of reporting on gossip.

Hoyt’s column also addresses Game Change‘s shots at the Times itself, refuting the book’s claim that op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd gave veto power on an explosive column to record mogul and big-time political donor David Geffen during the 2008 campaign.

It’s just Washington culture, everyone says of the book, and the Times is not immune to the dangers of anonymous sources. But interestingly, it’s not until his second-to-last sentence that Hoyt alludes to the paper’s own struggles with sourcing, writing that the paper “sometimes [gives] in to it more than I think they should.” That is, after all, part of the reason Hoyt has a job at all.

Secondhand Sources [New York Times]

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.

ABC also received a statement from Elizabeth Edwards in which she explained that she “believed Andrew Young to be the father of this child until her husband confessed his paternity to her this past summer.” This is an interesting revelation: Edwards told the awful truth to his wife months before he publicly ‘fessed up to what most of America already assumed. The show then plays a scathing voicemail she left for Young a year before she learned the truth. The voicemail says, “You are going to have to take care of your baby… And then you, your concubine, and your entire family can stay out of our lives.”

Check out the clip:

First—while this is not strictly new—my #1 mega-crush Mindy Kaling pointed out late on Wednesday night, Rielle Hunter (born Lisa Jo Druck, aka Lisa Hunter, Lisa Jo Hunter, and Rielle Jaya James Druck) is a truly crazy figure, worthy of your campiest beach novel or Lifetime movie. The wonderful helper elves at Wikipedia have aggregated a well-sourced, compelling article summarizing her full story.

Also, the New York Times today published an excerpt from former Edwards aide and claimed Hunter baby daddy Andrew Young‘s new book The Politician. The excerpt teases with three introductory grafs about the affair. Rielle and John kissed openly in front of certain staffers. Also, John hid behind the loathsome politico/attorney practice of never directly corroborating Rielle’s words, as if she were wearing a wire. When she would tell him that she loved him, he would say, “Me too.” “Do you miss me?” would be countered with “That’s correct.” What he hoped to achieve by all these circumlocutions is beyond me. Finally, he claims that Elizabeth knew of the affair for quite a while, having heard Rielle express her love over a cell phone, but delayed confronting John about it.

But that’s just the first three paragraphs of the excerpt. The rest is devoted to what Game Change describes as Young’s main role for the Edwardses, a glorified gofer. Young goes all Procopius on Elizabeth’s Empress Theodora, except about Christmas Trees and Playstation 3s and scathing late-night emails instead of, er, bizarre sexual performances. So most of the excerpt is more gripe-y and boring, though it reminds us that the Edwards staff did not admire Elizabeth’s interpersonal skills.

Last but certainly not least, ABC News is reporting that Rielle Hunter has more or less confirmed the existence of the rumored sex tape of her and Edwards. (Please, don’t spit up onto your keyboard. Take some deep breaths. Drink some ginger ale or chamomile tea.) Hunter has filed a temporary restraining order against the release of “a personal video recording that depicted matters of a very private and personal nature” that is in Young’s possession. “20/20″ will be reporting more on this tonight.

P. S. The rest of the Game Change Cliffs Notes that you’ve been waiting for since the first installment will be along shortly. Thanks for your patience.

As a torrent of fresh details from the scandal cascaded into the media today, a source close to Elizabeth Edwards told ABC News that she and John are now legally separated. Under North Carolina law they can’t get divorced until at least a year later. John Edwards is no longer living at their home in Chapel Hill, ABC News has learned.

I wasn’t actually kidding about the iPad news dump. The timing of the announcement was obviously carefully coordinated: Elizabeth Edwards is on the cover of this week’s People magazine announcing the split, something obviously organized in advance. However, People didn’t make the cover or article available on this site until 2 pm this afternoon. That said, another likely factor is Andrew Young’s upcoming tell-all, parts of which were leaked today. Sigh, can another Oprah interview be far behind?

We can only hope that HBO’s Richard Plepler can make that happen, though that would be a very dear production cost to line up that level of talent. As Halperin pointed out, it will take some real acting range to portray both the public and private personae of the politicians featured in the book.

So, here goes our suggestions of who, ideally, should play each role, and what better place to start than the first family:

The Obamas:

Barack Obama – Will Smith

Nobody is “cooler” than Barack Obama, with the possible exception of Will Smith, who has demonstrated amazing acting range and experience playing real life persona in Ali. Sort of a no brainer here.

Michelle Obama – Nia Long

This one is tough – Angela Basset has the gravitas and acting chops, but Nia Long wins in the likable category, and gets the part.

>>>Next up, the McCains>>>

We’ve divided the book into eight sections. Every few hours this long weekend, we’ll post a new update that gives you everything really important in the new portion of the book. We’ll tell you what happens, what important new information Heilemann and Halperin have uncovered, and the best scandalous claims that they include. We’ll also include an example of their purple prose, and a particularly funny moment. Let’s start with the first three chapters.

What Happens:

After a prologue during the night of the Iowa caucuses, the book flashes back to 2004 to mid-2006. Hillary Clinton is preparing her Presidential campaign, and Barack Obama, urged on by Senate elders, is beginning to think he might have a candidacy as well.

What’s New:

• Hillary seriously considered running for President in 2004, and didn’t only when Chelsea expressed reservations about Hillary abandoning her pledge to serve a full Senate term. (pages 15-20)
• Barack Obama was discussing the possibility of being President as far back as 1989, according to his brother-in-law. (page 26)
• Schumer secretly urges Obama to run, despite admitting that he’ll have to publicly support Hillary (page 37)
• The New York Times in 2006 was going to report that the Clinton marriage was essentially a sham. Good press handling by the respective Clintons press secretaries Phillippe Reines and Jay Carson resulted in a much more tepid story by reporter Patrick Healy. (page 47)

What’s Scandalous:

• Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald urged Hillary to join the race in 2004, offering to abandon Lieberman’s campaign. Clinton aide and future campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle says to her about their actions, “You know how terribly unethical this is?” (pages 16-17)
• Harry Reid’s now infamous “Negro dialect” comment (page 36)
• Mentions D.C. rumors that Bill Clinton was sleeping with Canadian MP and financier Belinda Stronach, wealthy divorcee Julie Tauber McMahon, and Gina Gershon, of Showgirls fame. (page 49)
• Hillary’s “war room within a war room” concludes that Bill is having a serious affair (pages 50-51)

Purple prose:

“And then it would hit them like a ton of bricks in their psychic solar plexus.” (page 37)

Funny moment:

“After enduring an unceasing monologue by Senator Joe Biden during a committee hearing, Obama passed a note to Gibbs that read, “Shoot me now.” (page 28)

We’ll be back with Part 2 in a bit – I’m not gonna lie to you, folks, this thing really is a page turner. So if you do read it, make sure you don’t have any other plans. It’s like The Da Vinci Code for the political set, with only slightly less guilt.

Nick Rizzo is a political consultant and writer. He lives in Brooklyn. You can follow him at www.twitter.com/nickrizzo.

“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? [Politics Daily]

The segment has found a formidable defender in Elizabeth Edwards, who has stage IV breast cancer and who criticizes her lack of breast health education for the unchecked progression of the disease early on (at the 2:00 mark in the Dr. Nancy clip below):

“We need to desensitize people about some things. This is the cancer most likely to strike women… For us to be squeamish about showing how it is we stop the attack on our individual bodies, I think, is foolhardy. We need to be prepared.”

But is a beneficial public health announcement tarnished if the local news station that runs it plays up its salacious elements (cf. the alarming red band warning on the video below; the Skinemax-ish synth soundtrack and electric pink background with which the series opens up) and tellingly holds off on running it until the beginning of Nielsen’s November sweeps, which run from October 29th to November 25th this year?

WJLA’s general manager Bill Lord frankly told The Washington Post that ratings were a factor in the station’s programming decisions: “‘People will say we’re doing it just for ratings,’ he said. ‘But we’re a commercial television station — we’re trying to get people to watch us. Yes, this is an attention-getting story, but it’s also an important story.’”

Speaking on Dr. Nancy, Dr. Robert Schenk made the point that even though the series and the buildup to it “clearly” seemed engineered to bolster WJLA’s ratings, that might not be such a bad thing: it would only ensure that a valuable piece of public health education would reach a bigger audience.

WJLA’s publicity and broadcast strategy is a free-market solution to a public health problem, but it’s got its issues. As compared with, say, Katie Couric’s on-air colonoscopy in 2002, which also drew big audiences, the station’s self-interest shines through a little too brightly. What’s worse, by playing off the ‘salaciousness’ of their subject matter, they inflame the social taboos that made it possible for a local TV network to get national attention for airing an uncensored breast exam.

Here’s a clip from the WJLA series in question (NSFW?):



And here’s the Dr. Nancy segment (via TownHall)



(h/t Doug Ross via Technorati)

The original article, which revealed among other things that Edwards had promised his mistress (and alleged mother to his child) Rielle Hunter that “after his wife died” he would “marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band,” relied heavily on revelations made in a book proposal (something I took great issue with) by former Edwards aide Andrew Young. Young was described in the piece as “once a close aide to Mr. Edwards, who had initially asserted that he was the father of Ms. Hunter’s child…Mr. Young, who has since renounced that statement.” Despite relying so heavily on his book proposal — which the NYT neglected to mention had been sold in June, a rather significant plot point — very little background was provided on Young beyond that initial description (readers were left to draw their own conclusions about a married father of three who would claim paternity to a child and then opt to rescind it later on). Well, fear not, Politico has done the dirty work!

Next: What Politico dug up on Andrew Young

The crux of the article is ostensibly that a grand jury in North Carolina is involved in a “novel” ongoing investigation as to whether “any crimes were committed in connection with campaign laws in an effort to conceal [Edwards'] extramarital affair with a woman.” But it is almost immediately apparent that the investigation storyline is merely a leaping off point from which to quickly delve into the more sordid, and anonymously sourced, details of the Edwards’ personal lives. Details which include whether Edwards’ former mistress Rielle Hunter will shortly be moving with her infant daughter to North Carolina “as people who know” Hunter say she might be. But also that, according to “associates” of the family, Edwards may be considering claiming paternity of Hunter’s daughter except that according to “friends and other associates” Elizabeth Edwards “has resisted the idea.” Also! Rielle Hunter may have given her daughter the middle name Quinn — according to “people who have spoken with her” — because “its resemblance to the Latin prefix for five was to proclaim that the baby was Mr. Edwards’s fifth child.”

Riveting stuff! Worthy of the best sort of checkout line chatter, if not quite the sort of material one expects to qualify for the front page of the Sunday Times. So why is the Times jumping in right now? Well it seems someone at the Times offices got their hands on a book proposal by one Andrew Young. Young, you may recall, is the married, former Edwards aide who initially asserted in a affidavit that he was the father of Rielle Hunter’s child. He has recently recanted this assertion. And since Motoko Rich, who covers publishing for the NYT, has a contributing byline on this piece, one assumes the leaked proposal must have come through her well-connected desk. In fact, the most damning — and probably repeated — elements of this piece are apparently derived from Young’s proposal. To wit:

Mr. Young, who has since renounced that [that he is the father of Hunter's child] statement, has told publishers in a book proposal that Mr. Edwards knew all along that he was the child’s father. He said Mr. Edwards pleaded with him to accept responsibility falsely, saying that would reduce the story to one of a political aide’s infidelity.

In the proposal, which The New York Times examined, Mr. Young asserts that he assisted the affair by setting up private meetings between Mr. Edwards and Ms. Hunter. He wrote that Mr. Edwards once calmed an anxious Ms. Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.

Wow right!? That is the stuff of TV movies. Also the sort of assertions from which Edwards, whose admitted behavior thus far has been rather sickening, will likely never recover.

However there is something slightly more worrisome than Edward’s alleged behavior. The Times is paraphrasing from a book proposal that is currently out to publishers, with little outside corroboration. Book proposals of the non-fiction type are more or less a pitch by the author to prospective publishers laying out in short form what the author wants to write about and what qualifies the author (and ‘qualifies’ frequently means “saleable’) to do so. Basically it’s a written “why I am worth your money and time” pitch (though for the very famous it’s often a verbal pitch sealed with a handshake…remember saleable!), which publishers then consider and make offers on. Since according to the NYT, Young “has told publishers in a book proposal” it is safe to presume this proposal has just recently gone out to editors and has not yet been purchased, which raises questions as to whether the proposal itself has been properly vetted.

An author is free to say many things in a proposal — he or she is trying to get the publisher’s attention (and money), after all. Also their seal of approval; self-published books do not elicit the same immediate trust that say, the Knopf logo does. At the end of the day it is the publisher’s responsibility to vet and fact-check the contents of the manuscript during the editing process — a process which has notoriously gone awry more than once in the past few years, most notably with James Frey, but more recently in the case of Margaret Seltzer.

So was the proposal vetted? It may have been. It’s in both the author’s and the agent’s best interest to make sure what they are officially submitting to publishers as the truth is in fact as close to it as can be reasonably expected. But it is not guaranteed, and there is no formal process to ensure it beyond an established good faith between agents and editors. Moreover, these are tough times in publishing and celebrity sells. Not to mention, Andrew Young, the author of this proposal has already lied to the public-at-large in the form of the affidavit he signed claiming paternity of Hunter’s child. That in and of itself sets off some warning bells.

The Times says it has “examined” the proposal, so perhaps it is enough to trust that for whatever reasons they feel the proposal is trustworthy. That said, the Times also provides scant evidence beyond some vague anonymous quoting to back up the assertions Young makes in his proposal, and indeed fails to make clear whether they attempted to speak to Young directly. What is clear is that the New York Times definitely did not wait for the National Enquirer to do all the dirty work for them this time around! Also, that Edwards may spend the rest of his life digging out from under this, if that is even possible anymore.

UPDATE: A commenter points out that Mr. Young’s book proposal was actually sold to St. Martin’s in June (also reported in Rush&Molloy, which exactly where you’d expect to read this sort of thing). Which makes it all that stranger that a) there was no mention of the sale in this article and b) that the contents of the proposal, which the Times reported it had seen in June, only now made it to light.