Edwardses Candid in Oprah Interview

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.”

Concerned ex-lover will go public, Edwards cops to love child first

(NEWSER) - John Edwards has come clean to his wife about the baby he fathered with ex-mistress Rielle Hunter, reports the National Enquirer (the publication that broke the news of the affair). Hunter has been “edgy” over cancer-stricken Elizabeth Edwards’ upcoming book, and the tabloid says John’s confession is an attempt to stop Hunter from breaking the news herself. More»

He shouldn't have lied to Bob Woodruff, she tells Oprah

(NEWSER) - Rielle Hunter’s highly anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey airs tomorrow, and ABC News has a preview. Hunter says she—and “everyone who knew all the facts and knew the truth”—begged John Edwards not to do the interview with ABC’s Bob Woodruff in which he admitted having an affair but denied fathering Hunter’s child. Elizabeth, she claims, was the one who insisted on the interview. More»

John and Elizabeth plan a formal divorce by year's end

(NEWSER) - John Edwards has asked Rielle Hunter to marry him, and he plans to formally divorce estranged wife Elizabeth to do so, the National Enquirer reports. Edwards allegedly proposed to Hunter, the mother of his daughter Frances Quinn, the same day he told her he would publicly admit paternity after years of denial. Sources tell the Enquirer that the Edwards' divorce will be finalized within the year, and that John is buying a $3.5 million beachfront home to live in with Hunter and Frances Quinn. More»

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»