Edwards to Quit '08 Race

She's been given just weeks to live

(NEWSER) - As Elizabeth Edwards' friends and family gather at her side as her cancer spreads, a little clarification on who that group includes: The News & Observer reports that John Edwards has moved home to care for his estranged wife and their two young children during her final days. She has been given weeks, or perhaps just days, to live, after learning the cancer had reached her liver and further treatment would be "unproductive." Click to read Edwards' goodbye message . More»

Atlantic polls image-makers on how to repair the damage

(NEWSER) - John Edwards’ public image hit new lows the past week, but the likes Richard Nixon, Eliot Spitzer, and Michael Milken have made successful comebacks, the Atlantic notes, in polling political spin doctors about Edwards’ comeback chances:

• Bob Shrum: "The reality is so contrary to the image that he projected,” says the veteran of Edwards’ 1998 Senate and 2004 vice-presidential campaigns. “I regret that I was complicit in picking him.”

Who could believe he was actually that big a scumbag?

(NEWSER) - Andrew Sullivan is really, really sorry for not doggedly pursuing the John Edwards scandal in the same way he went after, say, Sarah Palin. But he has a good reason: “It seemed too awful for me to believe.” Who would imagine that “a husband could do that to his wife then,” when she had terminal cancer? All of us, Sullivan says, obviously excluding the National Enquirer, just “assumed that he wasn't one of the biggest assholes on the planet.” More»

Candidate allegedly demanded 'crazy slut' Hunter abort child

(NEWSER) - Andrew Young's new tell-all book about his ex-boss John Edwards piles on the creepy details of the disgraced former candidate's dalliance with Rielle Hunter. Some highlights from the New York Daily News 's peek inside Young's The Politician:

• While terminally ill Elizabeth was away, Edwards had sex with Hunter in his wife's bed, then promised to someday marry her on a Manhattan rooftop.

Heilemann and Halperin drop plenty of 'spicy' bombshells

(NEWSER) - From Bill Clinton’s rumored affair to Harry Reid’s “negro voice” quote, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s Game Change is already making headlines. The book delivers a “spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations, and allegations,” writes Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times . Some parts of it reveal “impressive legwork and access,” while others are essentially gossip or spin from particularly cooperative sources, many of whom are unnamed. More»