Edwards Love Child, Yawn

John McQuaid, HuffPost

 
Will the mainstream media cover the John Edwards love child scandal put out there by the National Enquirer?
Is it exhibiting a double standard by giving blanket coverage to Larry Craig's bathroom antics, and ignoring Edwards's
bathroom
bunkering?
Oh, please. Edwards is a politician, which automatically puts him in the
public eye. But, frankly, this is a tenuous pretext at best for covering his
personal foibles right now. He is a private citizen. He is not running for
president. He doesn't hold office, as Craig did -- still does! He didn't cop to
committing a crime, then absurdly try to weasel out of it as Craig did.
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. It's not
clear, though, that this would have made a difference: with everybody denying
it, and no eyewitness evidence a la Gary Hart, or physical evidence a la Bill
Clinton, it's very hard to sift the credible story from the hearsay in a
situation like this.
An even better question: hasn't the National Enquirer heard of video cameras?
This is the era of TMZ, man.