rigorousintuition.ca

"Also, the whole tape business is a little fishy. No faces, but the jewelry is hers? And exactly where and when was it discovered? In a box of trash marked "special"? Or cut up into pieces and taped back together by the former Edwards employees? The plot thickens quickly in the familiar way."

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... nk=rssfeed
Bid To Quash John Edwards Sex Tape

JANUARY 29--John Edwards's ex-mistress is seeking to suppress what appears to be a sex tape featuring her and the disgraced politician, according to court records. Rielle Hunter yesterday secured a restraining order against a former Edwards aide in connection with "a personal video recording that depicted matters of a very private and personal nature." Andrew Young, the ex-Edwards assistant, has said he is in possession of a tape showing Edwards having sex with a woman he believes to be Hunter, who gave birth to Edwards's daughter Frances Quinn in February 2008. According to an affidavit filed yesterday in North Carolina Superior Court, Hunter reported that she was having an "intimate relationship" with Edwards in 2006, and that the video was made around September of that year (a copy of Hunter's affidavit can be found below). In December 2006, Hunter recalled, she decided to destroy the video. "Therefore I opened up the plastic casing of the miniDV cassette and pulled out the tape contained therein. However, because I was concerned that persons seeking information about my activities were or could be searching my trash, I decided to instead store the remains of the miniDV tape in a hatbox in which I stored other important personal items in order to maintain possession and control over the Video." The video, which Hunter hid in a hatbox at her North Carolina residence, apparently came into Young's possession in mid-2008 after Hunter asked him to retrieve her passport, which was stored in the hatbox. When the National Enquirer disclosed Hunter's relationship with Edwards, Young came forward and falsely claimed to have carried on an affair with Hunter and fathered her child. After repeatedly lying about his involvement with Hunter, Edwards recently admitted he was Frances Quinn's father. (7 pages)

The video, which Hunter hid in a hatbox at her North Carolina residence, apparently came into Young's possession in mid-2008 after Hunter asked him to retrieve her passport, which was stored in the hatbox.

That's a whopper worthy of Tennessee Williams. Sounds like they're both on the take, and if Edwards hasn't figured out that he's been scammed, he really IS that stupid.

Upon a little more thought. . .

A friend of mine alerted me to Ted Haggard and his wife on the Oprah Winfrey show the other night. I just had to tune in.

And I did.

And overall, who the fuck cares? But first it featured Charlie Sheen's ex and then the Haggard main event after.

But here is what I gleaned out of it, along with a little synthesis with this whole John Edwards affair. . .

Haggard and his wife are essentially conjoined by a business relationship.

The 900lb gorilla was never brought up. Namely, He talked to Bush once a week. He had gay prostitute sex, as in penises and butts, did meth and also ran a megachurch, whilst maintaining a dutiful marriage and also preaching endlessly on the evils of homosexuality and the glory of a war torn God and Savior who has to this day, destroyed millions upon millions of lives. The gorilla? HYPOCRISY!!!!

Not once was hypocrisy ever brought up. Just, questions about how in the fuck did you find it within yourself to forgive him type shit. After Oprah had gotten done buttering up Haggard's wife's book sales, they brought old Haggard himself out. What an ugly, repulsive, lunatic this guy is. What a beaten man. What a waste. What a sad, sad, sad, idiot who has no idea about what it is to be authentic. Duck lips, teeth and all. The guy is a miserable waste of infinity. He keeps in touch now with facebook and twitter -- nobody ever doesn't know where he is at all times. He's honest, via facebook and such. He tweets where he is at all times and his schedule is always available on facebook. OOOOMMMMMFFFFGGGGG!!!!

Are you joking me??!?!?!

Yes. This is what is keeping that sad fraud honest. Facebook and Twitter. Hoo-ah!

So, let's flash to the next day, all abouts the time of the old SOTU showdown and angry right wing idiots and an entire left side of the aisle that looks more like a rainbowbrite Muppet convention. Yay Democrats in red, blue and purple cloaks and mumus!

Bring in your old Bilderberger John Edwards and we gotz ourselves a game, no? Push button issues, no context, no nothing. Just stupidity. As Haggard falls, so must Edwards. "Partisan" meat while the prez says "no partisanship".

And safely ensconced within the theme is one Glenn Beck. Most popular dood behind Oprah herself. And a Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to make us feel safe within our laughter.

It's gonna be a shit show.

Well ... apparently he WAS that stupid.

Why is that so surprising?

Clinton had an affair in the oval office and shot his wad all over the girl's dress. He wasn't stupid either, right?

Politicians are very much like preachers. Same personality type, exactly. They're narcissistic to the point of being stupid, even if they're "smart".

Why did Edwards trust Young and Hunter? Why did Clinton trust Monica Lewinsky?

Because they're both the same kind of stupid.

Nordic wrote:Well ... apparently he WAS that stupid.

Why is that so surprising?

Clinton had an affair in the oval office and shot his wad all over the girl's dress. He wasn't stupid either, right?

Yeah they're stupid, and it isn't surprising that they got their rocks off when the opportunity presented itself. What I'm getting at is that they were set up. Clinton was clearly set up by his friends in the State Dept who maneuvered Monica into his pants and then recorded her confession afterward, remember?

Nordic wrote:Well ... apparently he WAS that stupid.

Why is that so surprising?

Clinton had an affair in the oval office and shot his wad all over the girl's dress. He wasn't stupid either, right?

Politicians are very much like preachers. Same personality type, exactly. They're narcissistic to the point of being stupid, even if they're "smart".

Why did Edwards trust Young and Hunter? Why did Clinton trust Monica Lewinsky?

Because they're both the same kind of stupid.

Yeah, but. FILM IT?

C'mon, these dudes have to be more dusted up on what the "PTB" can do to you than anybody around/

lupercal wrote:

Nordic wrote:Well ... apparently he WAS that stupid.

Why is that so surprising?

Clinton had an affair in the oval office and shot his wad all over the girl's dress. He wasn't stupid either, right?

Yeah they're stupid, and it isn't surprising that they got their rocks off when the opportunity presented itself. What I'm getting at is that they were set up. Clinton was clearly set up by his friends in the State Dept who maneuvered Monica into his pants and then recorded her confession afterward, remember?

Yeah, but that's almost irrelevant. Somebody is always going to be trying to set up anyone in a position of power, in that world. Hell, even professional athletes and rock stars get "set up" by gold-diggers or lawsuit-seekers, or whatever. It just comes with the territory. It seems a little silly to even complain about it. The fact is, these guys fell for it, and they should have known better. It's their own damn fault. Why did they think they could get away with it? Why did they trust the people involved? Because they think everybody LOVES THEM SO MUCH. And, let's be honest, they've done it before and gotten away with it. It's pathological.

And now there is the revelation of John Edwards as a "suspect" in the theft of his wife's wallet.

I kid you not.

John Edwards: 'Suspect'

Submitted by bniolet on 2010-01-29 14:54

The Orange County sheriff's office released today a copy of a report alleging a "domestic between spouses and larceny of wallet" on Oct. 10, 2008, at the home of John and Elizabeth Edwards.

In the report, Elizabeth Edwards describes how John Edwards came to the home to eat dinner with his children after a sports event, Mark Johnson reports. She told him they were dining with the babysitter, and he had no business being there, according to the report.

Moments later, John Edwards challenged his wife’s comment and said the house was his, as well. Then Elizabeth Edwards said she saw her husband take her lime green wallet, which contained $320, credit cards and a Motorola Razr phone. John Edwards went down to "the barn," an adjoining structure that includes a full-size basketball court, for several minutes before beginning to leave, according to the report.

"As Mr. Edwards was leaving, he was asked to give the wallet back,” the report said, “and he advised that he did not have it."

The report ends by giving Edwards – a former U.S. Senator, former presidential candidate and former Democratic vice presidential nominee – a new title: "suspect."

UPDATE FOR THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS: The report had been kept secret since it was filed more than a year ago at the request of Elizabeth Edwards, the sheriff said. He cited a state statute that allows incident reports to be kept confidential temporarily in cases where the documents’ release could endanger the victims physical or mental well-being.

http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_ ... _suspect_0

What a nice touch.

A few days before Edwards admitted that Rielle's baby was his, the NY Times put out this hit piece on Elizabeth Edwards.

This is what they call Cultural Studies.

--------

Elizabeth Edwards Teeters on Her Pedestal
By JUDITH WARNER
Published: January 15, 2010

YET another illusion has been shattered.

In a new book about the 2008 presidential campaign, “Game Change,” Elizabeth Edwards is portrayed as “an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazywoman,” and nothing like her image as “St. Elizabeth.”

According to the book’s authors, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, well before John Edwards’s affair with the New Age videographer Rielle Hunter, Mrs. Edwards was known to demean her husband (“She called her spouse a ‘hick’ in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks”) and to bully his staff. “The nearly universal assessment among them,” the authors write of the long-suffering Edwards aides, “was that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing.”

The revelations are sometimes unsourced and often omniscient. The authors’ suggestions that Mrs. Edwards’s sharp tongue drove her husband out on the road, and in “steering clear of his wife,” he ended up in the arms of Ms. Hunter, have been denounced as sexist and insensitive to Mrs. Edwards’s real suffering.

And so the Edwards saga continues, a private story turned very public preoccupation. Clearly, there is much more at stake in preserving or attacking her image than establishing who-said-what-to-whom-and-when in the Edwards entourage.

Mrs. Edwards’s story has long been appropriated by many women as a symbol, a stand-in on a much larger scale for their own suffering and stoicism.

Before the news of the Rielle Hunter affair, the Edwards story made many women happy.

It wasn’t just that Elizabeth Edwards — who looked considerably older than her eternally baby-faced husband — was a woman they admired and believed in.

Her story made them believe something good about themselves. It was a kind of Everywoman’s fable: behind the imperfect physical shell, a gem of inner beauty resides. And is loved and recognized.

This story was a dream come true for many women. “I like that he’s got a fat wife,” a woman in a focus group told an Edwards pollster in his 1998 Senate race, as recounted in “Game Change.” “I thought he’d be married to a Barbie or a cheerleader.”

If it was thus for Elizabeth Edwards, there was hope for us all.

Of course, now reality has hit, and with it, perhaps, an unwelcome message: in unhappy marriages, there are rarely pure victims — even if one spouse’s behavior is grossly more offensive than the other’s.

In truth, Mrs. Edwards had already begun falling from her pedestal last year, when she published her book, “Resilience,” about facing life’s adversities, and embarked upon a media tour that seemed intended to draw the entire country into her marital woes. She talked of preparing her children for her death, and justified spending so much of her limited time with them out on the road by telling Matt Lauer, “I hope I have important things to say.”

She toured her multimillion-dollar home with Oprah, and in her book dismissed Ms. Hunter as one of those “people” who are attracted to “those with any fame or notoriety or power,” adding, “They look at our lives, which from the outside in particular are pictures of joy and plenty, and they want it for themselves.”

Her tone seemed off, and many critics called her on it.

“Edwards kept painting Hunter as a fame seeker, eager to glom onto her husband’s spotlight,” Tina Brown wrote on her Web site, The Daily Beast. “Whereas it’s Edwards who has written the book and dragged Hunter into the media glare.”

Other women rushed to her defense. Mrs. Edwards had after all been through so much, they said. The death of a child, cancer, her husband’s betrayal. Whose personality wouldn’t fray under such pressure?

As she braces herself against the current media storm (and prepares for another tell-all next month from a former aide), Mrs. Edwards might do well to remember her past. She was perhaps never more admired than in her most notable moment of absence: when she chose not to appear by her husband’s side as he went on “Nightline” in 2008 to make his mea culpas about the Hunter affair to the American public.

She was contrasted favorably then with another wronged wife of that year, Silda Wall Spitzer, who stood quietly and wretchedly at her husband’s side as he admitted to the sexual misdeeds that led him to resign as New York’s governor.

But now the silent, stalwart Mrs. Spitzer — private, dignified, ultimately controlling her story by the very act of not telling it — doesn’t look like such a sap.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/fashi ... abeth.html

DoYouEverWonder wrote: "It [the tape] was cut and pulled ...out," Cheri Young told ABC News, "We... taped it back together and we played it."

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/John_Edwards ... id=9680626

First, this goes to show that you can never, ever, ever get rid of your porn tapes, Dammit, so choose wisely.

Secondly, I think that Young and his wife out themselves as the REAL scumbags of this story.

The New York Times in its hit piece on Elizabeth Edwards wrote:“The nearly universal assessment among them,” the authors write of the long-suffering Edwards aides, “was that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing.”

If these allegedly "long-suffering Edwards aides" had been truly honest people, then why were they working to get elected to the presidency someone "for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing" than anyone else?

crikkett wrote: Secondly, I think that Young and his wife out themselves as the REAL scumbags of this story.

Like attracts like.

Plenty of scum to go around here, gotta cut through it with a chainsaw.

Simulist asked:
"If these allegedly "long-suffering Edwards aides" had been truly honest people, then why were they working to get elected to the presidency someone "for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing" than anyone else?"

I guess they (the aides) were so caught-up in the intricate charade opportunities this provided them re: career-track mealticket to their share of fame, fortune, influence, PR spotlight, enhanced credibility & media 'points' they'd be able to barter for even MORE cush sinecures & livlihood perks. IOW, they themselves were little more than disingenuous dutifully self-serving saps burrowing deeper into the fluff superstructure of American politics with NO sense of propriety, honesty or legitimacy. Undoubtedly at least to some extent recognizing the system is utterly foul and hypocritical but placing themselves in service to it anyway because -- that's how it works. What a schizoid heirarchal scheme the political game has become -- or was it always like that, only less extreme, more hidden or otherwise cleverly, carefully-calculatingly demure & 'reserved'? Now it seems even MORE of a thin veneer, superficial spectacle -- 99% image.

American politics does not engender or encourage or inspire authenticity, does it? It can't since the core premise has now morphed into something so at-odds with its original, and still oft-claimed intentiomns, ie. accurately represent & reflect the interests of an informed and involved electorate-public, 'us'. Its become a high-stakes corporate-driven shell-game, propped-up and legitimized by the Public Relations industry on behalf of its PTB clients.

Sometimes I wonder how people can stand themselves -- then I have to remind myself they're SO deep into the 'game' they BECOME the game. I don't understand it but as a long-time observor of human culture I sorta 'get' it.