[Aug 8] John Edwards Admits to Cheating on Wife, Who is Dying of Cancer

At first he pulled the "Billie Jean" defense, now he says that he did cheat on his wife but the kid is not his. He hasn't taken a DNA test yet.

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John Edwards, the Democrats' 2004 vice-presidential candidate and a potential Cabinet member for Barack Obama, tonight admitted that he had consistently lied about having an affair.

Mr Edwards had been dogged by internet gossip, fuelled by anonymously sourced stories in the supermarket tabloid The National Enquirer, that he had an affair last year with Rielle Hunter, a film-maker, while running for president.

It was also rumoured that he had fathered an illegitimate child in the relationship, an allegation he continued to deny in an interview with ABC News.

In the interview Edwards confesses that he did have an affair with 44-year old Ms Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father of Ms Hunter's child based on timing of the baby's birth but had not taken a parternity test.

A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.

Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and others in his family became aware of the affair in 2006.

When the allegations surfaced seven months ago he described them as completely untrue and ridiculous.

Mr Edwards had been a serious contender for the post of Attorney-General had Mr Obama become president and has been tipped as a potentiasl running mate.

The rumours have been seized on by internet bloggers for months, and have become the fodder of late-night comics. Yet up until now the mainstream US media have avoided the story, not least because of suspicions that it is false and that his wife Elizabeth has cancer. The editor of the Los Angeles Times ordered the paper's bloggers to stay clear of the story because it involved “rumours and salacious speculation”.

Ms Hunter was hired in the summer of 2006 to travel with Mr Edwards to make a series of “webisodes” - short, daily video diaries of the soon-to-be declared presidential candidate. She left the campaign in December that year, shortly after his candidacy was announced.

In October 2007 the Enquirer, which has broken the stories of some sex scandals but in other cases has lost libel actions brought by public figures, published a story claiming that Mr Edwards was the father of Ms Hunter's unborn child. In December it said that a Ms Hunter was living in a gated community near Mr Young, the former Edwards aide. It quoted Ms Hunter as saying: “This has no relationship to, nor does it involve, John Edwards in any way. Andrew Young is the father of my child.”

Ms Hunter gave birth to a daughter on February 27, two months after Mr Young claimed paternity. No father was listed on the birth certificate.

Speculation was reignited last month by another Enquirer story, which claimed that an undercover reporting team confronted Mr Edwards at 2.40am on July 20 in a Los Angeles hotel. It alleged that he had been visiting Ms Hunter and her child and that she was staying at the hotel under an assumed name. Mr Edwards had run down a corridor and barricaded himself in a men's lavatory, it said.

Sadly he isn't the Democratic candidate for President. If he was, this would be the factor that would give McCain the victory that America needs. :)