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Is John Edwards cheating on his wife?

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According to the National Enquirer  . . .

“Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign.”

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/john_edwards_cheating_scandal/celebrity/64271

The shocking allegation — if proven true — could devastate the Democratic hopeful's campaign, especially because John's devoted wife Elizabeth is locked in a desperate battle with breast cancer.

 

 

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  2. The BIG question is:

    Are Sasquatch lobsters threatening to take over North Amerikca?

     While stories of giant, wooly lobsters have been bandied about northern docks for centuries, Smedley produced the first proof that the creatures are real. The wizened lobsterman roped and towed his prize to shore after an hour-long battle. “Lucky I had my 30-30 Winchester with me in case of polar bears,” said a still-excited Smedley. “It took seventeen shots to finally put him down.”

     http://www.weeklywor…

    • I like that’s it at the top to set the mood in the thread.

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      here’s what I posted yesterday on kos:

      You’re missing the whole point of this attack.

      It’s straight out of Karl Rove’s play book. They’re attacking him this way because Edwards doesn’t fuck around and he never did. Attack a candidate on their strength with lies and smears, then use the echo chamber on the net to reprint those lies until we all just accept it at face value. 

      Gore considered him for the VP slot in 2000. Why? Because Clinton screwed anything remotely resembling a primate without a Y-Chromosone. Edwards is the exact opposite and Gore wanted a competent fresh face on the ticket without these problems. 

      HuffPo is not a serious blog and it never has been. It’s a cocktail party populated with DC-Hollywood insiders that can’t raise millions of dollars fast enough to enrich the Obama and Clinton war chests.

      Arianna has BO, both kinds. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Start reprinting that until that bitch doesn’t come out of this seriously egregious lack of judgement smelling like a rose.

      I support Edwards for the nomination, but this is the same crap as that chicken fried madrassa smear they pulled on Obama last spring. Only last time it was from FOX and then CBS. This time it’s from our side. This sucks. 

      • story was spawned from some original reporting on the HuffPo a blog that has been seriously slanted towards Obama since very early on last spring. That’s why I referenced Arianna and Obama, nothing against Obama.

  4. …but nothing firm.  Zombie cannot be deemed a troll if this is true, and I would submit that the ‘wrong’ sort of people are drawn and quartered with this sort of unsubstantiated rumor, instead of getting a MSM media blackout.  It makes me think of Matt Drudge, and how he became rich and famous by posting the Lewinsky story when ‘respectable’ media wouldn’t do so.

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    Jury is WAAAAYYY out on this – but it IS still out…

    • Edwards with Giuliani…and Gingrich…and Thompson…and McCain.

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      It’s the oldest trick in the book to send anonymous emails to an entertainment publication like Enquirer.  Actually, if you remember back a few years, the Bush administration fed Dan Rather false info which he reported, then the administration busted the guy for reporting unsubstantiated (and false) information, thus killing the career of one of their major critics.  No doubt Mitt is having a little fling with the phone and keyboard in an effort to see who will fall for the same tripe twice.  I guess you did.

    • Are you really going to stand up for the journalistic integrity of the Inquirer on an article based based on a single indirect source?

    • Hey, if the jury is still out on Edwards, then the jury is still out on Mitt Romney’s kiddie porn addiction (I read about it on craigslist). And Zombie’s troll status was established well before this post.

  5. According to the Weekly World News I know the space alien endorsed Bill Clinton when he first ran. Does anyone know if the alien has endorsed Hillary? (I let my subscription lapse.)

  6. While Zombie has done many troll things, reporting on this story is not one of them.

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    And attacking the Enquirer as not being a legitimate media outlet shows how little any you know about the media and recent history.  Let me remind you that the Inquire was the first to break the Bill Clinton Sex Scandal and that Jesse Jackson had a love child.

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    But of course, just like a story from the Enquirer, a post from a troll can never have any truth.

    • the little troll cried wold one too many times.  now if the beast is nipping at his heels, no one will listen.  pity, isn’t it?

    • You would vouch for the journalistic integrity of the Enquirer?

      Seriously?

      Controversy over false content arose again for the Enquirer when a 2002 article alleged that male members of the family of kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart were involved in a gay sex ring. Subsequently, two reporters from the Salt Lake Tribune were fired after it was learned that they had been paid $20,000 for the story, which they had fabricated.[2] The Enquirer threatened to sue the Salt Lake Tribune for making false and defamatory statements about the publication after an editorial had disclaimed the Tribune's involvement. The salacious details of the Smart story were retracted by the Enquirer, and a rare apology was issued to the Smart family. One of the fired reporters acknowledged that his behavior was unethical, but expressed surprise that the story had been taken seriously, stating, “When I dealt with the Enquirer, I never dreamed that I was accepting money for 'information.'”[3]

      The Enquirer settled a libel lawsuit with the wife of Gary Condit out of court in 2003,[4] lost a suit brought by Kate Hudson in 2006,[5] and has been or is currently being sued by a number of other public figures.

      In early March 2007 the paper blocked access to its website for British and Irish readers because a story about Cameron Diaz that they had published in 2005 and for which she received an apology had appeared on the site. The apology concerned a story it had run in 2005 entitled “Cameron Caught Cheating” which turned out to be false – an accompanying picture was just an innocent goodbye hug to a friend, not evidence of an affair. Although only 279 UK web addresses had looked at the story, it was deemed to have therefore been published in the UK. UK libel laws are more plaintiff friendly and it is not necessary to prove actual malice for the plaintiff to win.[6]

       

      • First of all, if your going to use the fact that in Enquirer lost libel suits as the standard for saying that the they lack “journalistic integrity”, then what paper doesn’t lack journalistic integrity? 

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        Second, what I said is that the story can’t be simply discounted because it is from the Enquirer because they have a reputation for breaking stories that MSM ignores. 

        • that a publication NOT print stories that are fabricated out of whole choth?

           

          That's a good minimum requirement, hmm?

            • calls for citing a source at the very least?

              I once took part in a debate where I was responsible for arguing, as you are now, that no mainstream media source is any more reliable than the tabloids.  My argument hinged upon the fact that as a “consumer” of news, you don't have the capacity to follow up on the sources in the story or research the reputation of the journalist in question.  Therefore, all news stories must be taken equally on faith.

              Can you spot the fallacy in my argument?

              How do you argue that the NY Times and the Boston Globe are equivilant to the Enquirer?  What is your case?  

                • 1)  Fabrication and plagerism are 2 different things. 

                  2)   Note that at a real news operation, like the NYT, violators of journalistic standards are removed from the institution.

                  3)  The Enquirer pays for fake stories instead of firing writers that provide them.

                • 1) Yes there is a difference between fabrication and plagiarism, but Jayson Blair didn’t just plagiarize; he also fabricated.  And both are serious breaches of journalistic standards.

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                  2) Well no, Barnicle was originally put on suspension and was not fired until he was caught again.  And Blair was actually promoted after being known to be a plagiarist and fabricator.

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                  3) See response to 2.

                • That a real news organization holds accountability for violations of journalistic standards and is reasonable effective at self-regulation in the interest of preserving its reputation.

                  …and that the Enquirer ain't. 

                • you are ignoring the fact that Blair was promoted after it was known that he was fabricating and plagiarizing.

                • Certainly not here: 

                  By 2000, his editors were rebuking Blair for the high error rate in his articles and his sloppy work habits. In January 2001, despite making more mistakes than any other writer in the paper's Metro section, Blair, who also wrote one-third more stories than any reporter in that section, was made a full-time staff reporter.

                  After several more mistakes, poor evaluations and a period of leave during which he was said to be dealing with “personal problems,” Blair's editor Jonathan Landman sent a memo to management, warning them “to stop Jayson from writing for The New York Times. Right now.” Instead, in 2002, Blair was promoted to the national desk.

                  Indeed, even this most damning quote speaks to the efforts of his editor to do the due dilligence and practice the necessary self regulation to uphold the integrity of the Old Grey Lady.  Management may have dropped the ball, but the editors in the trenches held firm.

                  If only the republican led congress from '94-'06 had practiced such discipline we may not have ended up in such a mess.

                • By no means was Blair given a pass to continue his sloppy work. 

                  Landman agreed yesterday that his memo “did not mean to say, 'Fire Jayson now.' It meant take care of his problems. They were taken care of.” 

                  But Landman said Blair is “exaggerating” what happened next. While Blair improved after being kept on a “short leash” and limited to brief stories, even after he left the metro staff, Landman said, “I told him repeatedly he was by no means out of the woods, he was acting erratically and had to get his act together.”

                   

                • JK tried to say that Blair fabricated a story and was subsequently promoted despite knowledge of his fabrication.  As if the words “error rate” mean “fabricating a story out of whole cloth”, as is what happened at the Enquirer.

                   

                  If you can prove that is true I'll concede your point. 

                   

                   

                • …the web for that very point (whether Landman’s memo indicate fabrication/plagiarism or did error rate mean something else) and couldn’t find anything.  I wonder if anyone has published the whole memo text anywhere.

                • Ya know the NYT reporter who

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                  “misled readers and Times colleagues with dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was far away, in New York.”

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                  I think I remember the NY Times wrote an article about how they had to spot check his work and found . . . .

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                  “600 articles he wrote before October have found other apparent fabrications”

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                  http://query.nytimes…

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                  HMMMMMM

                • This is not about Blair.  This is about the Times and whether they were tolerant or complicit in Blair's shenanigans. 

                  Evidence suggests that they tried to correct his sloppy work and would not have tolerated the fabrication that he resigned over.  I think that's why he resigned as he would have otherwise been fired.

                • January/March 2002
                  “His error rate continued to prove worrisome, even after a January 2002 stint in a rehabilitation clinic. Three months later, he was the subject of an e-mail that his Metro desk editor, Jonathan Landman, sent to the Times’s managing editor, Gerald Boyd. Landman voiced concerns about Blair’s professional integrity and state that “we have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times”

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                  Let me repeat Landmans words again . . . “we have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times” – unfortunately he was just downgraded to the sports desk.

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                  “Blair was moved to the sports desk, a less risky area for a reporter who seemed to need some managerial supervision.”

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                  FALL 2002
                  “but then the Washington, D.C.-area sniper story broke in the fall of 2002.”  (Jayson Blair went from the Sports Desk back to National news – looks like all was forgiven if you ask me). 

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                  Of course there were problems with his work covering the DC Sniper as well . . .

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                  “But some of his claims earned the ire of local and national law-enforcement authorities, and his veracity was questioned. Blair defended his stories in meetings with his editors, but began to succumb to increasing internal pressure.”

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                  MARCH / 2003
                  “Despite his workplace problems, Blair was allowed to remain on the National desk after the sniper story quieted down, and after March of 2003 began filing stories about the war in Iraq from the perspective of military families awaiting word of missing or injured loved ones”

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                  “In one of his reports he recounted a visit to a military hospital; another appeared to have centered around a visit to the home of 18-year-old Private Jessica Lynch, who had been captured by Iraqi forces and then dramatically rescued. However, he had been in neither place.”

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                  Let me say that again “However, he had been in neither place”

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                  Looks like a pattern to me.

                • And the Times is a responsible newspaper.

                  Now that we've confirmed that again, what is your point?

              • where things like Mike Barnacle and Jayson Blair.

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                And my argument wasn’t that the Times and Globe were equivalent to the Enquirer.  Your argument was that “a standard for journalistic integrity that a publication NOT print stories that are fabricated out of whole choth?” 

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                I simple said that is fine but that other papers, such as the Times and Globe would be thrown out by that same standard.

                • … adheres to the standards it purports to uphold.  In the above cases they made full disclosure followed by corrective action.  This demonstrates that they do indeed hold themselves to the purported standard.

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                  If anything, this is proof of sloppy management, not lack of integrity on the part of the institution. 

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                  I’d have been more impressed if you had cited Peggy Noonan or Judith Miller.

                • If they would be held as equally vulnerable to be “thrown out” under the same standard, they would be equivilant in the aspect of journalistic integrity, would they not? 

                   However, as I have already montioned in the comment upthread, fabrication and plagerism are not the same thing, and a real news organization holds violators of journalistic integrity accountable.

                  This is why when people want news they pick up the Globe and when they wand fan-fiction about Brittany's baby-daddy they pick up the Enquirer. 

                   

                • We can argue weather or not the Enquirer should be ignored or listened to on this type of story all day.

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                  Based on their history of breaking big sex scandal related stories (i.e. Bill Clinton Sex Scandal and Jesse Jackson love child) the attack on Zombie over this post is unwarranted.  Granted he has done many things that are deserving of attack. 

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                  I also think the argument between plagiarism and fabrication is unneededly splitting hairs. 

                • The Enquiror's record warrants that its columns cannot be taken seriously unless the same story is vetted and published by a real news organisation.

                  In the same manner, Zombie's record warrants that his posts cannot be taken seriously unless vetted by a real human organism.   🙂

                • I relent.  Could we please move on to something more productive.  Shit, this is like the 66th post for a subject that probably didn’t deserve more then 10.

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                  My only points were that on matters of sex scandals the Enquirer has a good record and that if the standard is that other papers fabricate stories as well.  We should be leary of stories in all newspapers and on all blogs unless we can check a couple of sources.  The one source thing is correct, but hey deep throat was only one source.

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                  I never intended into getting to a spot were I was defending the integrity of the Enquirer, because they have none.

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                  But I am done. UNCLE. I am surrendering like I was French.

        • I can’t believe you’re sacraficing your own credibility on the alter of the National Enquirer.  Are you a subscriber or something?

        • I am not aware that they have fired anyone due to any of those suits. I really cannot believe you are standing up for the journalistic integrity of an article that is nothing more than an indirect unsourced rumor with absolutely no corroboration. It really destroys your credibility.

    • … do have some real scoops occasionally.  Unfortunately, on balance, these scoops pale in comparison with the regular drivel.  So the overall situation is this:  could they be right?  Sure, but we can’t go around assuming they are because until another news source verifies it, its still from a paper that on balance is drivel.

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      I’ll trust their reporting to the extend that their journalistic reputation earns it.

      • I would have deleted this point as scurrilous rubbish had it not been for the link to the Enquirer.  But since they do occasionally print actual news, up it stays.  Zombie, I don’t know what more you can ask for!

        • … while the jury, is out on an article in the Enquirer, it doesn’t really merit a post or even consideration until other news sources chime in.

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          Until then, posting this could be considered mere mudslinging and as such should be discouraged.

          • ..on the radio, not from a paper.  I agree – I chose not to post on it until/if it proved to be true.  But I had read it on several web news sites, it was on the radio, etc.  So I did respond when a post was made to say that Zombie shouldn’t be called Troll for repeating what is AT LEAST a widely spread rumor.

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            His PICTURE was reprehensible.

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            I’m not sure why Kevin decided he needed to downrate my comment because I agreed with you, but he’s been a little quick on the trigger for a few weeks.

            • but not by any reputable news source.  It was from the WingNut screamers on talk radio.  I fail to see how posting the unsubstantiated rumors presented from a publication that is questionable (to be kind) and promoted by the wingnuttiness of talk radio lifts Zombie out of his status of Troll.

               

    • It is not substantiated in any way. That is shoddy journalism, plain and simple.

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      The Enquirer also has quite a track record for losing libel suits.

  8. Sources* tell me that the Ogonowski-Romney campaign has finally achieved the coveted endorsement it has been waiting for – The National Enquirer.

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    *An email describing a phone call from a source close to and considered reputable by me (me!).

    • In what is an unexpected shock to campaign supporters and Enquirer readers everywhere, campaign manager Barbara Stone (who took the news of the endorsement rather personally) had this to say.

  9. This was your most successful troll post to date. You actually got people to waste time debating whether the NY Times has more journalistic integrity than the Enquirer. Good job.

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    Tell your zombie troll master to give you a raise.

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