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Paterson’s Predecessor
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It Was a Very Good Year
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Radical Sick
March 19, 2009 | 12 comments
The Slaughterhouse
Get Rielle
At least no one ever called John Edwards’s flame a Breck Girl.
The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s
Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him
Down
By Andrew Young
(Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 301 pages,
$24.99)
Can there be anyone left on the planet who has not yet heard of the sex-and-money scandal involving the former North Carolina senator and über-ambulance chaser, John Edwards, and his airhead girlfriend, Rielle Hunter? The story, originally broken by the National Enquirer, titillating supermarket patrons for weeks before the mainstream media deigned to touch it, is now enriched with further lurid detail in the memoirs of Edwards’s longtime gofer, sometime Senate scheduler, “policy director,” and fullservice aide, Andrew Young.
Mr. Young, it will be recalled, stepped forward at the time of the original story in the Enquirer to claim that he was the father of a baby daughter recently birthed by Ms. Hunter, though there was already considerable evidence to the contrary. Indeed, at the time nobody believed Young except, ironically, Mrs. Edwards, who got this highly unlikely story from her cheating husband.
Since then the plot has considerably thickened, since during her pregnancy and thereafter Ms. Hunter received rather considerable sums of money from Edwards. The Justice Department is investigating whether these transfers involved a violation of federal election laws, as they might have come from Edwards’s campaign chest. In the midst of all this Young changed his story and denied that he fathered the child; Mrs. Edwards no longer believes her husband — who has rather tardily confessed the truth — and has announced her intention to divorce him. The latest installment involves the existence of a lurid sex tape filmed while Edwards and Ms. Hunter were, as they say, in flagrante. (Hunter is something of a camera buff, and originally met Edwards while filming a “documentary” of his presidential campaign.) Young, who claims to have come across the tape while emptying the Edwards family garbage, was holding onto it as his ace in the hole against his former boss. Alas, he has now been forced to surrender it to the FBI. Stay tuned for further developments.
Meanwhile, there is this book, which in spite of itself is of more than ordinary interest to students of American politics. The Politician is the story of two fiercely ambitious (and unscrupulous) men. One, Edwards, aspired to overcome his humble origins and amass great wealth, crowning his achievements with the presidency of the United States. The other, Young, a faceless young man on the make, thought to hitch his wagon to Edwards’s star. At one time the two were as close as brothers, and as Edwards’s prospects seem to brighten, Young was prepared to do anything — anything -- to advance both their careers. It started with driving the senator all over his state, moved to picking up his laundry and buying Thanksgiving turkeys for the Edwards family — even at one point rising before dawn three times a week to drive a young woman, a friend of Mrs. Edwards, to take lessons in how to drive a truck.
From these trivial tasks Young graduated to more meaningful assignments, for a time becoming Edwards’s gatekeeper (“scheduler”) in his Washington senatorial office. After a season in the capital he returned to North Carolina to run Edwards’s operation there. Sometimes he dealt with real policy matters, but not always. Much of his work involved the care and feeding of potential financial contributors, an exacting business requiring much tact and patience, as well as a willingness to suffer fools gladly.
But by the time of the 2004 presidential campaign Edwards had a far bigger demand to make of Young. He asked him to nurse his mistress through her pregnancy. As unbelievable as it may seem, Young forced his wife and children to accompany him — pulling his kids out of school, in fact — in order to babysit a petulant and intellectually vacuous young woman in various “safe houses” scattered about the country (the last of these in elegant Montecito, a very pricy suburb of Santa Barbara, California, courtesy of one of his wealthy trial lawyer friends) until the “miracle child” (as Hunter referred to her) was brought to birth.
The story of John Edwards and Andrew Young is really the story of Southern White Liberal Politics as it has emerged in the post-civil rights era. Both men were hatched from the same misshapen egg that gave us Jimmy Carter — a protoplasm that combines greed, power lust, hypocrisy, and sanctimony. The last ingredient is particularly cloying; more than once while reading this book I found myself reaching for my insulin needle. So much sweetness and light! So much dedication to the poor and underprivileged!
In truth, Edwards’s hackneyed campaign theme of “Two Americas” was not totally fictitious, but it bore little resemblance to the one to which he continually referred in his campaign speeches. Rather, one America is made up of ordinary working people, folks that (in Young’s telling) Edwards privately despises. The other is the America of gated estates, private jets, landing strips, and vast inherited wealth — where the White Knight of North Carolina (again, according to Young) feels most comfortable. Together with bloated trial lawyers, who saw Edwards as the surest protection against tort reform, these people were ready to write large checks to put their man in the White House. Alas, it all came to an end when Barack Obama entered the race, sweeping Liberal America off its feet.
Apparently it came to an end for Young as well. Exhausted at the end of the presidential campaign and at the ceaseless demands of Edwards and his wife — which by now included even perjuring himself by acknowledging a fatherhood that was not his — he expected to be rewarded with a well-paying sinecure at a “center for the study of poverty” which, he claims, was to be funded by Edwards admirer Bunny Mellon, a 90-year-old billionairess reputedly the wealthiest woman in America. When Edwards abruptly told his aide that Mrs. Mellon had backed out of her commitment, the relationship instantly soured. Stung by this unexpected turn of events, Young asks us to believe that this caused him to see the light and break with his former boss.
Perhaps. But one could be forgiven for speculating that the real reason that Edwards lost Young’s loyalty is that, like most wealthy (and non-wealthy) politicians, he expects other people to pay his bills. His lack of gratitude and his sense of entitlement proved to be his downfall.
The facts of the case are that the senator is a very wealthy man with assets in the neighborhood of $150 million, thanks to having won several sensational class action suits during his years as a trial lawyer. He could easily have sat down and written a large check to Young. In that eventuality Ms. Hunter’s baby girl might well have been baptized as one of Young’s children; and — assuming that the unfortunately loquacious Ms. Hunter could be persuaded to quietly wait out the death of cancer-stricken Mrs. Edwards so that she could eventually marry the senator — we would have heard no more of it.
Instead, we get this book, which is supposed to pay for Young’s accumulating legal expenses as he faces investigation by federal authorities. Given the lengthening developments that characterize the case, Mr. Young may soon experience the poverty he was so eager to study with Mrs. Mellon’s millio
About the Author
Mark Falcoff is resident scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (73) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Mark Falcoff
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Kenny| 4.2.10 @ 6:34AM
And what about the judgement of the man who selected a sleazeball like John Edwards as his running mate in 2004?
Imagine how close Edwards came to the White House.
And where was the drive-by media during all this? Oh, I forgot. They were too busy doing drive-by smear hits on Republicans & conservations to bother to investigate Edwards. .
Anthony| 4.2.10 @ 10:08AM
Kenny is right. This whole sordid affair was of no interest to the MSM, in fact, they steadfastly ignored it. Had it been Sarah Palin accused of having an affair......
I'm reading "Game Changer" now, (borrowed, not bought, I refuse to fund liberal publications) and my contempt for the MSM, which I thought could not get worse, has indeed gotten worse. They truly are lothesome and dishonest to the core.
Reading about Obama, the Clintons and the Edwardses during the 08 campaign is sickening. The authors, liberals both, do their best to tamp down the utter corruption, self absorption and vile ruthlessness of all three camps.
For conservatives, this book is hard to take, mostly because we know how the election ended yet the damage to America has just begun.
On this Good Friday, as one juxtaposes the sacrifice of Christ to these reprobates, I truly hope there is a special place in Hell awaiting them all.
Dai Alanye | 4.2.10 @ 12:30PM
But Sarah WAS accused of an affair. Did you forget? But the Dems and media couldn't make the slur stick, and it soon died.
As for the Edwards, they deserve—both of them, because Elizabeth is as poisonous as John—all the bad luck they now enjoy.
Anthony| 4.2.10 @ 5:19PM
Dai, You are correct, although I don't recall the MSM actually doing this. I do recall the nutroots attempting this smear, however, as you point out, the MSM could find absolutely nothing to keep the story going.
However, the MSM being what they are, they nonetheless managed a few smarmy swipes at Gov. Palin that alluded to this, by of course, hiding behind the nutroots. And let's not forget their reprehensible attempt at claiming Gov. Palin had an abortion rather than the still birth procedure.
Sickening, just sickening. And the Left and Obama wonder why we are upset. I heard parts of Obama's speech today in N.C.; his mocking arrogance is an in your face moment. These Leftists and our mocking post partisan president are really enjoying rubbing their arrogance in our faces. I get the impression they are begging for a fight. So be it.
P.S. I erred, it's Game Change.
Alan Brooks| 4.2.10 @ 9:36PM
"Rather, one America is made up of ordinary working people, "
Yes, but remember, rednecks work hard but their morality is often low-- how many of you would want truck drivers to date your daughters or granddaughters? You might admire those people from a distance -- but you don't want them to hang around your house for long.
chuck| 4.2.10 @ 10:28PM
I'll take a house full of ,as you call,"rednecks', before I'd allow the likes of John Edwards to set one foot on my property.
Alan Brooks| 4.10.10 @ 11:57PM
Yeah, right. You'd rather let Hells Angels gangbang your wonenfolk?
Guybee| 4.3.10 @ 11:58PM
I cannot believe you really wrote this. Do you really believe you are so much better? People are people and what they do to survive financially has NOTHING to do with their morality or values. Morality and values have everything to do with character - and based on your comment, I question whether you have any.
ExPat| 4.4.10 @ 6:15AM
Alan,
Your arrogant and condescending comment is typical of the liberal elite. My son is a
long haul truck driver with a wonderful family. Unfortunately he is a liberal like you. So don't paint with such a broad brush, Mr. Brooks.
mike| 4.4.10 @ 8:44AM
Been a truck driver for 33 years. As was my father, as is my son.
Next time you buy food ask yourself, how did it get there?
I hope you choke on it.
FTM| 4.4.10 @ 6:26AM
Edwards and all the other knuckle heads aside, consider for a moment the main stream media and their obvious culpability in this fiasco, "drive by smear hits" and the like. If you have a newspaper or magazine subscription that fits the MSM template, cancel it at your first convenience.
I cancelled my subscriptions to the local trash can liner and to the "big city" paper that we used to read. In both cases the person that answered the phone sounded genuinely upset that the spouse and I had decided to end our relationship.
The traditional "Main Stream" media in the US is a joke. The Main Stream Media relies on your subscriptions to remain solvent. If you are intrested in stopping these people then stop giving them your money.
Without your money there will be one last pitiful, left wing whimper and then, just maybe somebody will publish a newspaper.
Jon B| 4.4.10 @ 1:24PM
Kenny is right. Instead we got a sleazeball who paid for the abortion of his own Baby: George W BU$H. Larry Flynt was 100% right in every case he presented, and one of his investigations forced House impeachment manager Bob Livingstons resignation in a deal with his wife if Larry would keep secret the multiple kinky affairs Livingston had.
Flynt also had 4 affidavits in regards to "W's" paying for the abortion of his own baby with Robin (Lowman) Garner. Thank God we only had an abortionist in the White House instead of someone who enjoys consensual sex instead.
anna | 4.7.10 @ 3:20AM
A good friend is my nearest relation.
anna | 4.7.10 @ 3:21AM
A good maxim is never out of season.
anna | 4.7.10 @ 3:23AM
A good medicine tastes bitter
anna | 4.7.10 @ 3:24AM
A good winter brings a good summer.
Alan Brooks| 4.9.10 @ 9:09PM
"Reading about Obama, the Clintons and the Edwardses during the 08 campaign is sickening "
The Bushes are worse, not as people, but as dynastic power-graspers. The Bushes are (not were-- ARE) as power-hungry as the Kennedys, perhaps even more so: they got not one but two of their clan elected POTUS; plus two as governors.
Cheri| 4.2.10 @ 7:45AM
Mr. Falcoff needs to fact check his posts. Cases in point:
- Young claimed paternity prior to the birth of the child.
- Hunter was receiving money from Fred Baron before her pregnancy, according to her own interview.
- Hunter met Edwards and then was "hired" to film the campaign.
- The sex tape was in Hunter's possession and left in a home in NC. (Hunter and Young dispute if it was abandoned or stored but it was never in Edwards' possession or his trash.)
If you can't get the facts straight, don't bother to write at all!
Alan Brooks| 4.9.10 @ 9:13PM
"The sex tape was in Hunter's possession and left in a home in NC. "
Sex Lies and Videotape (today DVDs).
Sex is turning into something disgusting, like the smell in an "Adult" (Adolescent) bookstore.
JP| 4.2.10 @ 8:05AM
Cheri,
If you hadn't noticed, this is a book review. It's a recount of events as Young saw them.
Cheri| 4.2.10 @ 10:57AM
Hey JP,
But even according to Young's account, the "facts" are not as the author of the post recounts them. So either Falcoff didn't actually read the book or couldn't be bothered to pay attention and double check before he wrote his review! Nice.
Mattled| 4.2.10 @ 8:31AM
My mother-in-law getting over her BDS (not really) has now contracted the other Liberal mental disorder, PDS (Palin Disorder Syndrome).
So a few weeks ago she started heading down the Palin path (again) and I said:
Hell yeah--
Hick
Redneck
State school educated
Out-of-wedlock child
Failed VP candidate
Hair obsessed
Sarah Palin? No ---John Edwards!!!!
She at least laughed.
Mike| 4.2.10 @ 11:21AM
"Sarah Palin? No" - I agree . This couldn't be Palin. Calling her educated - by the state or anyone, is a huge stretch of the imagination.
Bob S| 4.2.10 @ 1:31PM
Mike- please do your wanking somewhere else.
linanna | 4.27.10 @ 3:33AM
Oneis always on a strange road, watching strange scenery and listeningtostrange music. Then one day, you will find that the things you tryhardto forget are already gone
Guybee| 4.4.10 @ 12:04AM
Mike - get your nose out of the air and put into her book and read it. I don't think any effete. intellectual snob could read her book, with an ounce of honesty and call her dumb or uneducated. And if you can, it is only because you are in fact the one who is uneducated. Just because you don't agree with her, does not make her stupid or you brilliant - which IMHO would be a huge stretch of the imagination.
gearjammer| 4.2.10 @ 8:35AM
These kind of lawyers have incredible power now. They damage our country at every turn from national security to the ability of a person to keep simple order in a classroom or even their home. They must be stopped, along with this ludicrous national media and other democrat party political machinery. The good news is that the media forces at least are experiencing more and more audience loss. One good, targeted boycott against the media conglomerates could really inflict some brutal pain on these weakening giants. We need to destroy them all.
elixelx| 4.2.10 @ 10:11AM
"Can there be anyone left on the planet who has not yet heard of the sex-and-money scandal involving the former North Carolina senator and über-ambulance chaser, John Edwards, and his airhead girlfriend, Rielle Hunter?"
Can there BE a more fatuous, puerile, shallow, self-centred being than the one (present reviewer emphatically signalled!) who conceives of "THE PLANET" as beginning and ending with his interests and intellect?
What an utterly ego-centric putz you are, Mark, for writing that utter poop!
Nelson H.| 4.2.10 @ 10:39AM
Edwards? Who is this Edwards? What is this story all about, anyway? So Hunter ran for Vice President and Edwards got pregnant with Obama's baby? I'm very confused.
Oldefarte| 4.2.10 @ 11:27AM
It's almost unbelievable that this hypocritical SOB was just a heartbeat away from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave; but of course we now have a possibly worse scenerio, don't we????????????
BREDNG10| 4.2.10 @ 1:55PM
Oldfarte,Exactly my thoughts.As bad as this piece of crap is,the evil one in charge now is much worse.I think he is doing anything he can as fast as he can to destroy America.IMHO
REV Wright| 4.2.10 @ 1:01PM
John and Liz Edwards: proving that Dems are cunning evil commie lib liars.
stmichrick| 4.2.10 @ 3:21PM
Wouldn't it be amusing to publish comparative timelines charting when each 'major' media outlet reacts to a scandal. Take a Mark Foley, for instance, and chart it against leftist Democrats like Edwards.
Rich Rostrom| 4.2.10 @ 6:10PM
"But by the time of the 2004 presidential campaign Edwards had a far bigger demand to make of Young."
ITYM 2008 campaign. As another posted noted above, you should get your facts straight.
Cris Worth| 4.2.10 @ 9:27PM
Didn't Edwards meet and pickup Rielle in a bar? O'Reilly blew it...he pooh-pooh it out of deference to Mrs. Edwards letting the Enquirer scoop him.
Carl Scott| 4.3.10 @ 1:01PM
The fact that the Edwardses, Ms. Hunter, and Mr. Young came as close as they did in 2007-2008 to presidential power is a great embarrassment for America. And very damning to MSM credibility.
As for the slime at the center of it all, I really think it would be a grave injustice to the character of Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon to even begin to compare them to the apparently void-of-morals wreck that is John Edwards. And the notion that Barack Obama can be compared to him is utterly repellent. And that comes from someone who never voted nor never will vote for Mr. Obama for any public office.
jabberwocky| 4.3.10 @ 9:47PM
Re Alan Brooks' assessment/dismissal of a class of people, rednecks - it is hard to imagine more flawed thinking than "They may be hard-working but their morality is often low."
Where has he come by this thinking? John F. Kennedy was of fairly high social standing and morally so low as to be judged amoral. Newt Gingrich and his third wife or maybe his daughter have written some kind of book or religion - combining hypocrisy with sanctimony and making it pay! - that would be the Newt who served his cancer stricken first wife with divorce paprs as she lay in a hospital bed. And "trifled" (as rednecks say) on Marianne before marrying Calista - who I believe was the staffer who lured the Pillsbury Doughby away from the dour Marianne. Bill Clinton? Well, he was the son of what we might charitably call white trash. Birth records sealed because birth date does not jibe with when alleged father was in close enough proximity to be the daddy. Most rednecks would not want their daughters within a mile of Bill Clinton.
How bout that mid-life crisis loony governor in South Carolina who met his soul-mate south of the border? I guess if your lie is that you were out on a nature walk, you are not a redneck. How moral is it to use government funds to fly to your trysting place?
For Mr. Brooks' enlightenment, the term redneck came into being to describe a farmer who worked in the fields, the back of his neck turned to the sun. It has nothing to do with blue collar working class as a whole and Mr. Brooks has no evidence to prove his theory of morality of a certain socio-economic level of people. The word "redneck" has evolved into a derogatory term by just such intellectual snobs as Mr. Brooks and not helped by Jeff Foxworthy, who probably has no real rednecks in his family.
Turn around, Tiger Woods. Let's see if you are a redneck. We are already pretty sure about your morals.
How moral is a Vice President of the United States who makes an obscene remark, whether he is aware of open mike or not. Does he not dishonor his office with his reducing an occasion to a moment to congratulate his president in . . .
no, I had better not go there - as a good number of readers above regularly use that word, so bereft are they of any more descriptive language.
If you can, Mr. Brooks, give us your definition of morals. Redneck morals. Harvard graduate morals.Hollywood morals. Rhodes Scholar morals. Oh, and Alan Brooks morals.
Guybee| 4.4.10 @ 12:12AM
Bravo. What a great reply to the arrogant and thoughtless words of Alan Brooks. His caricature of middle America is so demeaning as to suggest he should be a leader of the democratic party. His brain power and conclusions seem to match them to a tee.
Richard Baker| 4.4.10 @ 12:29PM
Mike:
I'd love to see your curriculum vitae. A short read, yes?
emmarose| 4.4.10 @ 3:12PM
i've tried to believe that any politician these days could possibly be a public servant, but the ones that truly are have no power or are ridiculed. the majority are power hungry jackasses with no moral code whatsoever and their families. we pay all our taxes (1/3 of our income) to sons of bitches who just burn through it anyway. we need to have a french revolution in this country and seriously hang half of them like marie antionette. they're worthless. we can lead ourselves. edwards is just another scumbag with another whore on his belt. what's new? and now he has a bastard child too! at least the skank/rielle isn't on welfare or we'd be paying for that too.
jabberwocky| 4.5.10 @ 2:04PM
Perhaps I was a little hard on Alan Brooks. The air is thin, as he hikes up Mt. Ego to look down on rednecks, the serfs who serve the upper classes. We all know how euphoric one becomes in rarefied atmospheres. . . .No, that is not entirely so. I remember driving up Pike's Peak when I was 13. I threw up. And I get a little queasy just reading Alan Brooks - My sense of practicalit makes me wonder what Alan would do if some redneck had not delivered food to the market where he shops. If another had not built the bighway he drives on or the one who tends the greens at his golf club just quit mowing because he didn't want his neck to get any redder, thus marking him as working class.
emmarose - was Marie Antoinette hanged? I thought she had to step down from the guillotine with her head tucked underneath her arm.
jabberwocky| 4.5.10 @ 7:30PM
stmichrcih :(know I spelled that wroog)
Here is a time line for you out of the past. What was Bill Clinton busy doing when our servicemen were being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu?
He was trying to put out a fire in Arkansas. Burning up the phone to a trooper trying to get him to get an affidavit signed by someone that he was never in the Excelsior Hotel with Paula Jones.
You could keep a similar time line on Obama - when he is in Iowa giving a barn-burner speech about asteroids not fallin' and the birds are still chirpin', and the flires are still bloomin' - - what important things are going on in the world? - well, if we are only talking a little more important, I made a souffle that didn't fall before I got it out of the oven. God God, Barry, would you like to buy some g's?
For inconsequential presidents, addicted to running their mouths, Obama and Clinton should be carved into Mt. Gushmore. Oh, you say there is no Mr. Gushmore? Well, let's build one with some stimulus $$$.
jabberwocky| 4.5.10 @ 7:32PM
Well, Good God, looks like I need to buy an "o" - that is not meant to be God God up there!!!
Answers1| 4.6.10 @ 8:56PM
Reality trumps fantasy yet again.
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