ABC News and the Washington Post‘s Pete Yost have jumped into the John Edwards extramarital-affair-and-fathering-a-baby story, and Edwards has admitted to an affair with, according to Yost’s report, a “42 year-old woman,” although her name is Rielle Hunter. The ABC story, written by Rhonda Schwartz and Brian Ross, names Hunter and says her age is 44.
Edwards, however, is denying he’s the father of her child. He “told ABC News that he lied repeatedly about the affair with a 42-year-old woman but said that he didn’t love her” and “said he has not taken a paternity test but knows he isn’t the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.”
I can understand an operator like Edwards lying about the paternity issue (if in fact he is lying, which many believe is the case) but to say in so many words that he doesn’t “love” Hunter strikes me as an inelegant and dismissive way to put it. It’s something a cad would say in this kind of situation. A guy proclaiming that he doesn’t “love” a woman he’s had relations with (and possibly fathered a child with) implies he doesn’t consider her worthy of a serious relationship and that he’s basically been seeing her for sex. That’s a pretty flagrant putdown.
Slate‘s Rachel Larimore has written that while she “may be proved wrong,” she’s not buying Edwards’ claim that he’s not the father. “He and Andrew Young, the ‘admitted’ father, both had an affair with Hunter? Possible, but yuck. And if Young is not the father, and Edwards is not the father, then who the heck is Young covering for? And why was Edwards visiting Hunter and the baby at 2:45 in the morning?”
Edwards won’t be going within 500 miles of the Denver Democratic convention later this month. And don’t expect every mainstream media publication to admit that this story was broken by the National Enquirer.