He's still lying about it:
"Edwards denied paying any money to Hunter to keep her from going public but said it was possible some of his friends or supporters may have made payments without telling him."

Very sad, on so many levels.

Not only for the Edwards family (especially Elizabeth), but for Democrats, those of us who believe that there are honest politicians out there, and those of us who support journalism and decry the National Enquirer-branch of media.

What a bleeping idiot! What is so hard about keeping it in your pants, honestly! I'm a gay man and I've never had that problem. Seriously!

Thorougly revolted by this, as I stated in another thread, this really strikes home for me, as I had an aunt die of cancer several years ago. My uncle waited on her hand and foot from the second they received the 6 month diagnosis. To hear this- disgusting!

I feel so sorry for Elizabeth!

And it kills his chances for the Vice Presidency I'd say.

I can't believe he even ran for President. What a clown. Imagine if he was the nominee right now? We'd be guaranteed a McCain win. He risked the whole country on his ego.

I wonder if he coordinated this with Obama's vacation AND the Olympics. I wonder how much effect this will have on the Presidential campaign given McCain's history. Edwards did endorse Obama though, so that could be somewhat of an issue.

I expect the GOP to hit it harder as an overarching condemnation of Dems in general.

Score one for the National Enquirer.

I wonder when Obama found out about this. Remember, Obama said he would be using Elizabeth Edwards to help him with his health care plan, but he said squat about John Edwards helping with anything...

Ah, maybe my tin foil hat needs loosening.

This is lousy on a lot of levels. In the short term the damage is the news cycles that will be eaten up in discussing it in the MSM. Because infidelity trumps anything as far as the MSM is concerned.

I just have to say... I like Edwards, but thank god he didn't get the nomination. Honestly, whether he kept denying it or not, it would've come out. And that would've been the end of his run.

I've been waiting for this admission.
He won't be AG now which is a damned shame.

He is the father and everyone knows it. JE just kissed his brief political career goodbye.

Bah! I've should've known better than to be an early supporter of his.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Feingold_Edwards_is_running_on_my_record.html

Now with the Edwards story off the list, maybe the media can find Vicki Iseman.

I feel the worst for his wife, even if she did know.

And as for judgments, what John McCain did to his first wife was no less despicable.

That ought to put an end to the "Breck girl" meme.

This is pretty bad...What is wrong with all southern men? Bill Clinton did the same thing, now, Edward follow suite. Wow!! Another talent wasted.

The conservatives will have a full day on this. I think this is good for Obama because it will distract McCain for the rest of the week while he enjoys his vacation

John Edward is a phony man and empty headed. He looks more like Bill Clinton now.

I feel sorry for Elizabeth as well. She's a great lady.

But I feel especially sorry for the country. This was pretty damn stupid on Edwards' part -- come on, John, the woman wasn't even attractive! --, but Senator Edwards was the only major '08 candidate who even came close to being a true progressive.

He would have made a great Veep and an even greater Attorney General.

A very sad day.

John is the father of that baby. I have no doubt in my mind. The guy is a loose cannon like Bill Clinton

It will be interesting to see how this is handled by the GOP. They can't really attack on it at all because the Dems could just throw McCain's past in their face.

I think this really could go away by Monday.

Transference is inevitable.

Expect the whisper campaign and push polling of "If Edwards, who finished 3rd in the Dem Primary and endorsed Barack, could have a love child why not Obama too?"

As far as I'm concerned, he's persona non grata. Being a leader is about judgment and Edwards has shown he's not a leader. It's bad enough that he had an affair, but he did so when he was essentially running for president. What does this tell us about him? In this age, with his high profile, he chose to have an affair and then engineered a lame cover-up and then lied about it when the story first broke. He was originally my first choice this time around. But he showed he doesn't have the judgment to run for dogcatcher, let alone president. Screw him.

After viewing the four missing webisodes on u-tube last year, I became strongly convinced that Edwards would have been a disastrous candidate for the Dems.

Edwards supporters should really google the "Edwards missing webisodes", and see for yourself. His girlfriend filmed these "spontaneous" videos, and it was a)clear he was having an affair b)with a bimbo c)displayed an extraordinary degree of vanity d)had absolutely no judgment evidenced by the fact that he reviewed these videos and posted them on his website.

Democrats ducked a bullet.

While this is interesting grist for the gossip mill and it makes for good scandal here in America, I fail to see the relevance and/or newsworthiness of the personal/private lives of American politicians who are no different than the rest of the population. Of course this is politically problematic and so forth but why? Because the United States is an immature, moralistic and hypocritical nation and that hypocrisy is nowhere as apparent as it is in politics and the media.

Why is this anyone's business? What really is the difference between this and simply celebrity gossip? It's all none of our business and has no bearing at all on the parts of Edwards' life or the life of any elected official that is the public's business. The "issue" here is purely a personal matter. It isn't illegal. When such an incident involves lawbreaking or glaring hypocrisy as in the cases of Craig or Vittert or Spitzer then it seems newsworthy to me. But a simple affair or infidelity (tawdry and sad as it may be) hardly seems to rise to the level of news in my opinion. There are far more important and interesting things going on every single day that ought to garner the attention of the media. Affairs and infidelity, in fact, are behaviors that are quite common in the lives of Americans of all walks of life and professions as we all know very well. In my opinion it shouldn't be news unless it has some genuine bearing on public policy or the public's genuine business. After all, professionals and business leaders of all types carry on affairs, marry and divorce spouses, get "trophy wives", etc... and it rarely is news, nor does it typically cost them their careers as it often does with politicians.

This situation with Edwards' private life, however, is nothing but gossip that is none of my business or yours. It is a matter for him and those directly involved to deal with. It is nothing that concerns the American public. It is sad that this sort of thing goes on in our public life and in our media and that it does not get loudly rejected by the American people as inappropriate and pointless. I also, by the way, believe similar publicity about the private lives of nonpolitical celebrities is just as unjustified and vile as this. The lurid and pointless speculation is an embarassment to us all.

Having an affair while your wife has cancer and your children are worried sick about the health of their mother is bad enough. But the guy ran for president knowing all of this was hanging over his head. He gambled with all of our future and our children's future. That's some big balls.

I never could understand the attraction to this ambulance chaser lawyer. Lack of experience, lack of substance, lack of character. He reminded me of a bad car sales man...too slick and my instincts were right on.......He is a nothing, with lots of money.

The real point is that John Edwards could have caused a terrible disaster. He is so lost in his ego and ambition that he ran for the Democratic nomination believing that he could get away with this and never thinking - or caring - that he could have destroyed any hope of ousting the Republicans. He's Bill Clinton and Roger Clemens rolled into one: "I'm so fantastic the rules don't apply to me."

And if Elizabeth knew all this before the primary season began she's just as clueless and awful. Sorry, I don't wish her ill, hope she regains her health, but they can go fuck themselves (for a change) after endagering the country.

Imagine if this came out after he'd won the nomination. Or imagine if this came out after Obama asked him to be VP.

What a moron.

Couple of thoughts

1. Very sad for Elizabeth. She has breast cancer and doesn't need this crap.

2. Angry at Edwards for putting the Dem party at risk because he had an affair. We went through Bill Clinton and this would have been a disaster if Edwards was the nominee.

3. Obama picked a damn good week to go on vacation. Not only will people in general be focused on the Olympics and Clinton drama but the political world will NOT be focusing so much on McCain's negative ads and "why isn't Obama higher in the polls" but now this WILL be the talk of the political world. Nobodies message will get heard for awhile including McCain's. So Obama got lucky in choosing this week to disappear.

4. I wonder if the media will take a closer look at McCain's affairs at all. McCain is a cheater himself but the media has never focused on this and Dems are too nice to even bring this up.

He broke his deal for me (to the degree that I ever would have given him a serious look) with his dissembling bullshit on gay marriage. As a fucking attorney running for president, you'd think he'd have read the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision, which vividly delineates a whole constellation of rights that are only afforded a couple through marriage, not through civil unions. His pseudo-soul-searching, heterosexually pseudo-superior pontificating on the subject has him on the one hand drawing, with fake earnestness, on his southern Baptist religious principles, yet he was flippant enough to state, on the Tonight Show, that he only knew about his wife's opposing view on the issue from having read it in the paper. How full of shit is this guy? I bet he's the father of that kid. Watch that kid part his hair on the right 10 years from now.

This is sad, but is it important? I wonder how many men and women have extramarital affairs ? In the elections I voted in, there have been rumors about Eisenhower having had a mistress during the war, JFK mistresses in Hollywood and other parts of the globe, Nixon, George I, Bill Clinton, and some say George II in his youth. The country seems to have survived these adultries, but it has not survived the really important news: loss of civil liberties, the collapse of the middle class, and the conversion of the Government into a corrupt operation. Would that ABC had devoted as much effort to covering the wireless tapping and its implication for our future. The same for TPM.

Obama picked a perfect week to go on vacation. This news should consume the Media for most of the weekend and then next week will be mostly Olympics coverage.

I do agree, this would have been a disaster had he won the nomination. I would like to think that someone running for President would have better sense.

He was my Senator. I really believed in him when he won in '98, and steadily my confidence waned. He's always been very self-centered in chasing his political ambitions (which put him on bad terms with many in the state party) - poor constituent service, announced late in '04, putting Bowles behind the 8 ball, etc. He's also an incredible phony, especially with the newfound faux populism.

It was easier for NC natives to see because we had "known" him longer. He always makes a good first impression.

John Kerry was perceptive to not trust him, and dumb to put him on the ticket anyway. Obama was perceptive not to kiss his ass as profusely as Edwards would have liked (or offer him VP).

His children are supposedly very nice people, and my heart goes out to them. Elizabeth, too - it must have been very hard to think rationally in the light of her diagnosis and this news. It wasn't good for the party that she pushed him to run and then not to drop out, but I think we need to cut her some slack.

If the media had any shame, they would tie this back into McCain's no less disgusting behavior.

Do not forget that Strom Thurmond fathered a child by a 16 year old African American maid in his parent's home, and when it came out almost fifty years later, The Republican Establishment did not utter one word of condemnation. If they try to make hay out of this Edwards affair, make sure to bring up how they covered for their old racist creep.

We have ALL sinned and fallen short of the glory. All of us....

I think the McCain camp should stay away from this as far as they can be. Since McCain cheated on his first wife with Cindy McCain which most Americans do not know this, it's best they just stay away.

Hell, Let's not forget that King George and his Condi still are secret in their affair! Isn't it true that Laura is moving out on her own to Dallas right after 1-20-09? It's true isn't it, Tena?

It is disappointing. But, I shudder to think of what this country would be like if we disqualified all the men (and women) who had sexual dalliances from their positions of leadership in our government.

It is worse to be a hypocrite (ala Gingrich, Hyde, Thurmond) than be a sinner; I refer you to the Sermon on the Mount and important principles in other world religions...

I am glad that he wasn't the choice even though he was my favorite candidate - because if this did come out during the general campaign it would have been devastating as our US culture still obsesses over sex but doesn't seem to care about Wars based on lies, or the government listening into your phone calls or checking your library records...

Karma:

"I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen."

-- John Edwards, quoted by the Raleigh News & Observer in 1999, on Bill Clinton.

Yes Cindy was the Other Woman, so what has John Edwards done that anyone else has not done, It is sad that this is how we think in this society, but we all just want to be happy. We really don't think of the consequenses; we just want to be happy, or to think we are happy. It is just so
ironic that this story would break now, this has been going on for a while, but just today it is out...hhhmmm I wonder who call the National Inquirer and had this done...sounds rep-tile to me...
I see no one is talking about te fact that some seem to have dementia and get confused sometimes and forget what he is talking about...
My prayers and all prayers should be with the Edwards family, this is so sad.

I bet this just makes the voters feel like Edwards is one of them. Many of them can relate to this. Men and women. Especially millions of married folks given the sky high divorce rate in this country.

Edwards is just a regular guy. At least he can bowl and drink beer with the fellas. Cause he is jsut a plain ol mill workers son.

Hasn't everyone been listening. The voters want someone 'like them' not a 'celebrity' but an asswipe like McCain who calls his wife 'c' in public. Thousands of Americans relate to this dysfunction BS and they would still vote for Edwards.

And they will excuse McCain because he is a Maverick and vote for him.

The right to lifers are happy too because she had the baby and Edwards looks just like the proud papa holding up his daughter in that Esquirer photo.

Typical, down home southern trailer trash saga.

Lots of folks relate to it.

Good thing he didn't get the nomination, then.

I am mainly being the devil's advocate here, but no one really knows what was going on inside the Edwardses marriage. It is possible that they were not intimate, but clearly still loved each other. Side effects of what Elizabeth's illness and treatments could include decreased libido. That coupled with the fact that they probably spend a lot less time together than the average couple, can definitely increase the risk of Edwards straying. Not to mention that he is a good-looking guy with very nice (and well coiffed) hair. I am not justifying infidelity, just trying to explain it.
On the other hand, it is monumentally stupid to run for public office, let alone POTUS, on a platform of change and honesty, and then act as most other politicians/people in power have in the past. At least put the trouser-snake away until after you have won something!

I knew Edwards was a dirtbag the moment he announced he was supporting Oilbama. Unfortunatly this is typical of the types of peoplem that are Oilbama supporters. How the Obamabots cheered when he announced his support for their Messiah.
Thank goodness he is not associated with Hillary or McCain.