Politics | 07/24/2008 1:15 pm

Why Is the Mainstream Media Keeping John Edwards's Alleged Love Affair a Secret?

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

Over the past 24 hours, Internet news sites have been reporting on this week’s explosive National Enquirer story exposing a supposed John Edwards tryst in a Hollywood hotel.

However, with the exception of the Los Angeles Times, a blog from The Washington Post online and cable TV’s Headline News’s Glenn Beck, few of the mainstream media outlets are touching this story.

One Internet outlet, Slate Magazine is also asking the question, poking fun at the media for not covering it and making a direct comparison to the mainstream media frenzy around Senator Larry Craig’s bathroom antics of a couple of months ago. Slate writes:

"So why hasn’t the press commented on the story yet? Is it because it broke too late yesterday afternoon, and news organizations want to investigate it for themselves before writing about it? Or are they observing a double standard that says homo-hypocrisy is indefensible but that hetero-hypocrisy deserves an automatic bye?"

The Huffington Post thinks that Edwards just isn’t prominent enough of a figure anymore for the public to care:

"It sure looks like Edwards is a hypocrite who misrepresented himself by showcasing his wife and kids so prominently in the campaign. But his campaign was unsuccessful. Voters didn’t buy his arguments or his life story as reasons to elect him. In short, nobody cares about this now, except as celebrity gossip. And that’s how it’s going to play when the media picks it up, as it probably will.

"The better question is, should the media have gone after this story more aggressively back during the campaign? Sounds like the answer is yes."

Tell us: Do you feel cheated by the mainstream media for keeping the alleged John Edwards affair a secret?

194 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

None of our business?? Surely you jest!! Of course its our business. These men want to be our leaders..When they sign up to be an elected official and represent themselves as being men of family and truthful and full of integrrity..why shouldn’t we know if that turns out to not be the case? If its all a big lie, why trot out the wife and kids all smiles and hail fellow well met when that is NOT what the real deal is. We will see where this all goes and I think its entire appropriate that WoW has brought it to our attention.

By G T on 07/27/2008 5:17 pm

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It is none of our business. Do you know one single solitary issue that Sen. Edwards stands for? You must be dreaming if you believe what you wrote. President Thomas Jefferson had a mixed blood child by a slave he owned. Every single president ever (and some of their wives) had mistresses. Do you remember the names of either Pres. Eisenhower or Pres. Roosevelt’s mistresses? This sort of muddy-headed seventh grade-level “morals” thinking is useless, and just shows a total lack of understand of priorities. The current administration has destroyed our economy, our standing among our allies, our credibility among nations, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who probably didn’t even know where the World Trade Centers were, our …. oh why go on when you would rather play soap opera games about who is sleeping with whom. I have a suggestion as to who you might sleep with, only the Duchess would be upset with me.

By Mugsy Peabody on 07/27/2008 8:55 pm

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I cannot leave your replies to my posts go unanswered. I know what John Edwards says he stands for..Which brings us to my point. In todays world the new requirement for success is not greed but dependable integrity. If there is to be any hope of widespread recovery of millions of people from hopeless conditions, our leaders must be men of integrity and dedicated to Truth..not relative truth, but Truth..like integrity, kindness, reason and such. To me IF the alledged betrayal and lying to his wife and to the public, is true, then he lacks the integrity for the job to be done. He has shown himself to be untrustworthy. His family, to whom he claims to be very devoted, may have been betrayed and lied to. He is accused of leading a double life by some element of the press. He cannot lead anyone to something he does not bellieve in and practice. I do not consider this to be “muddy-headed seventh-grade “moral” thinking which is useless. Im not so concerned about the sex of whatever might be involved as I am about the willingness to betray a trust, lie and misrepresent the true character of who he is, and to hold himself up in public as a man of honor worthy of the trust the public (voters) would place in him. YOU are thinking about the sex in this matter..I am thinking about the level of integrity. Your last suggestion is unworthy of even discussing and is insulting. If we are going to have an intelligent exchange of ideas and discussion we cannot resort to personal insult based on fantasy. WE must also have integrity.

By G T on 07/28/2008 8:08 pm

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I totally disagree. Senator Edwards has tremendous integrity and is being “swift-boated” because he is proposing a profound change to our system, i.e., serving ignorance, arrogance and greed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The fact is, the National Inquirer is not a source of news. Believing that this is true because they say so is absolutely absurd. You are not a friend of the Edwards. You do not know the woman in question. You were not there. You do not personally know anyone who knows them. And yet, off you go.

By Mugsy Peabody on 07/28/2008 8:13 pm

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For anyone actually curious about what John Edwards has been up to lately, he was the whole show on NOW Friday. See http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/429/index.html

By Elizabeth Bennett on 07/27/2008 5:21 pm

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elizabeth, thank you so much for putting the focus on john edwards where it belongs. wowowow, where are you on this? surely you now want to start a thread about the antipoverty measures needed in this country and the whole world.

By mary lou s on 07/28/2008 12:06 pm

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And you can read the 80 page proposal online at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_report.html

By Elizabeth Bennett on 07/28/2008 7:17 pm

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This whole thing makes me mad enough to spit. American citizens are guaranteed the right to a free education, something the entire world yearns for, and what have we done with it? Oh, read the trashiest crap, believe the most transparent of lies, and worry about whose dick is in whose vagina. Of the whole great and noble human experiment, this is what we do with the wonderful opportunity we’ve been given? People the world over are worried about clean water, food for their children, being murdered in the night in tribal warfare, and we, the great and powerful american citizenry, are spending our time worrying about who is sleeping with whom? What a total embarrassment.

By Mugsy Jr. Peabody on 07/27/2008 10:53 pm

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Damn it, Mugsy! Did you leave your laptop where Junior could get at it again! She’s back on wOw!

By Fannie Peabody on 07/27/2008 10:55 pm

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Well, Fanny, what part of what she said do you disagree with?

By Mugsy Peabody on 07/27/2008 10:56 pm

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Where on earth is she getting this vocabulary? Not in THIS house!

By Fannie Peabody on 07/27/2008 10:58 pm

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Well, is it MY fault you have this genius kid????

By Mugsy Peabody on 07/27/2008 10:58 pm

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Hi…. all of you Peabodys…I mostly just read here..and I’ve gotta tell you that this is a little bit tedious……you and the kids….et. al…..thought we only got two personaes…….(persona, personae)…… Ever been to the Cobb Hotel in Paducah? Place o’ yer birth…. Just for the Bibb lettuce salad….or the Cobb House salad? Mr. Bibb “invented” Bibb lettuce…in Kentucky… These are on menus everywhere… Didn’t you hear the part about tired old sin?This is the Edwards thread….TIRED OLD SIN……… Why can’t you put twenty friends in here? Why are there not more contributors? Not money…just talk..? What are you doing to encourage more participation? Forget the buzz-up thing… Is this forever going to be a vanity press? And you’re a big part of it…..and for that we are all grateful…… Ever spent a night in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis? That’s where they do the duck parade into the fountain everyday…..walking them up from the roof to the pool in the lobby….. I really liked the part about your dad and the music….. Just don’t see fit to discuss it, do you? It’s a tossup …..Pandora wins some days………. .

By georgia fatwood on 07/28/2008 12:25 am

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Well, except there are three of us. Which brings me back to my earlier point about facts and jumping to conclusions not warranted by the evidence. Pandora wins many days. Did you ever go to the track at Henderson?

By Mugsy Peabody on 07/28/2008 12:37 am

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I just don’t run or jump much anymore…and jumping to conclusions is my point exactly…and not doing it….better yet…..counting on you for grammar and not punctuation…..I’ve said that you are the grammarian…and some folks quit writing after that…..sorry… No..track in Henderson…. Churchill twice..Keeneland, never…couldn’t come up with the obligatory costume(s) I was devastated by the outcome of this year’s Derby…..as was any thinking person……..heartbreaking and horrible…. We had the Sunday Courier-Journal no matter where we lived…”best proof-read paper in the US” until the Binghams sold it to Gannett…. But anyway, the first Derby winner in my memory was that great GRAY (aren’t we all)….Native Dancer…and I think it was before it got to be anything other than a “gentleman’s business”…gentleman farmers,etc… I have just always loved the descriptive: NATIVE…. in here, inherent, whatever….I JUST LIVE HERE…in a falling down house built when THomas Jefferson was in office…..see maybe where I’m going with some of this? Sorry to have been so dogged about speaking to you…..except that you said Paducah first……Actually, it was Lily Tomlin’s grandmother who was from Paducah, I think…..maybe you could ask her about that….it was brilliant …the stories Lily had to tell about her granny….like “what ladies do”….right up there with always wear clean underwear in case you die in a car wreck, etc…..(“If you get hit by a car in the street and die, don’t come crying to me..”) Thanks, mom….. Is there still a track at Henderson? Thought that was sort of home to some of the best bar-b-q ever….(don’t tell anybody about this)…..sh-hh—hh …shush…… .

By georgia fatwood on 07/28/2008 1:26 am