Last December, The National Enquirer reported on an affair between presidential candidate John Edwards and campaign photographer Rielle Hunter. Edwards immediately and repeatedly called the story a lie, and for the past eight months no other major media outlet has published the story. But on July 21, the Inquirer reported that it spotted Edwards visiting Hunter and her young daughter at a Los Angeles hotel, leaving just after 2 a.m.
Once again, Edwards condemned the story, but it sparked the events that culminated in Edwards’ public admission last Friday on ABC’s “Nightline.” While he admitted to having an affair with Hunter, Edwards downplayed it as short-lived, described it as an affair, and definitively rejected claims that he was the father of Hunter’s child. Meanwhile, his wife, Elizabeth, posted on her blog that she had forgiven her husband and asked for privacy for their family.
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Edwards’ television performance will go down in history. It’s hard to find a way to emulate that. He admitted to “narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want, that you are invincible, and that there will be no consequences.” We knew that. But what is even more surprising is that Edwards was displaying the same indomitable, narcissistic feeling in his supposed confession!
Edwards told Nightline that his goal in meeting with Hunter was to try to prevent her from exposing the affair. But this does not hold up for a number of reasons. While Edwards told Nightline he would gladly take a DNA test, Hunter said Saturday she would not participate in the testing. Meeting at the hotel apparently required a great deal of planning, and Hunter was with a friend and rented two rooms so she could meet with Edwards privately after allowing him to have contact with the child, the Enquirer reported. What was that?
Hunter’s entire living situation is – and still is – shrouded in mystery. She originally moved from New York to North Carolina, near Edwards’ headquarters, until 2007 (Edwards claimed the brief relationship ended in 2006). She has since moved to California, and is said to be in close contact with Edwards’ friend and long-time partner Andrew Young and his family, who have also moved to California. This is startling news, as Young admitted to being the child’s father, even though there is no father listed on the North Carolina birth certificate.
Edwards’s entire arrogance in imagining that he could run for president while keeping this issue secret—a secret he was supposed to keep if he was elected president (and if his wife died of cancer)—represents astonishing selfishness. But it seems entirely possible that he made this very late announcement about the affair as part of an attempt to cover up his ongoing involvement with Hunter. Edwards, for example, claims that she had no idea how Hunter supported herself, that she lived in California, and any relationship she had with Young! Meanwhile, The Enquirer reported that Edwards had several assignments with Hunter in California.
If there is any truth to these allegations (and both The Enquirer and ABC have promised to reveal more about the situation), Edwards telling the public as much as he should while withholding other information — and claiming to be completely honest — represents an even greater level of arrogance, self-referentiality, and psychotic distortion. More realistic than ever has been the many political figures who have blazed through their sexual urges as the just deserts of their political prowess, from Gary Hart to Bill Clinton. , to Eliot Spitzer. (See my previous posts on sex and politics, Sex Addicts Anonymous: Politicians Divided, Why Politicians Are More Sexy – The Low Road to the High Life, and Reckless Sex and Power 3: The Seven Most Important Kennedy Sex Scandals.)
