Yesterday was one of those days straight out of poltergeist for me, everything but the fuzzy t.v. One of the items that contributed to that sense of weirdness, was the blaring headline on drugereport.com about a reported sourced story about John Edwards and a lover who is pregnant. According to the link, the woman claims that Anthony Young is the man's father and that Edwards had nothing to do with it. However, "sources" are reporting that the woman is attempting to cover for Edwards and that Young is taking the fall, as Young and Edwards are supposedly close friends.

Questions for debate:

1.)Is this a legitimate news story, or is this just a scandalous political attack?

2.)What effect, if any, will this have on the Edwards campaign?

3.)Is this relevant at all, as to what kind of president Edwards would be?

I know the National Enquirer has actually scooped the MSM a few times and has sort of "upped" their legitimacy but... um... No. I'm sorry I can't go with a NI sourced story on the off chance they hired someone from The Weekly World News and that someone is the guy who broke the Bat Boy story.
Assuming it actually makes the nightly news - he'll lose hard core Conservative Family Values types... oh wait.
OK, let's run with this being true. He's cheating on his dying wife... now that's pretty scummy I agree but he was already an ambulance chasing lawyer so does that make it any worse? I say no. Oh and No to your question too.

However, if he's who knocked up 16 year old Jamie Lynn Spears... then we have a scandal!

I remember that it was the NI that broke the Gary Hart story. I can remember the cover of that one to this very day. Due to that, the democrats had Michael Dukakis.



Har-har-har, point taken. I don't know, I would be very disappointed in the guy personally. The fact that his wife has cancer and that he talks about relating to average folks would lead me to believe that he wasn't honest. Aren't all politicians honest? Guess I'll have to make honest used car salesmen my role model for now on.




LOL-I don't know, I'm disappointed that Jamie's mom delayed the publication of her christian parenting book. I'm not certain if I can parent without her valuable christian insight as to how to raise, moral, upstanding children.

1.)Is this a legitimate news story, or is this just a scandalous political attack?

2.)What effect, if any, will this have on the Edwards campaign?


Sounds like something that was dreamed up by a bored writer. Everybody knows that the promiscuous Democrats use precautions against pregnancy.

So say this is a true story, then what? Guess we don't have Edwards to kick around any longer. Man gets woman pregnant isn't news. Woman spontaneously gets pregnant, that'd be something to write a book about. Except it's been done.

To me it makes no difference what people do in their bedrooms, motels, backseats, or I suppose on a boat when it comes to politics. That stuff can't affect me. But the country does seem to be in the mood for another Carter, so if the story proves true, that's the end of the Edwards' campaign.

It looks like a scandalous political attack with little to no credibility as everyone has already said. I'm happy to see the MSM ignoring this non-story. There are so many legitimate negative things that one can say about John Edwards, it is completely unnecessary to make one up.


None. His support will still consist almost exclusively of the 'working man' type who believes that he is 'entitled' to everything that he wants. I doubt that this, even if true, would cause that particular demographic's support of Edwards to wane.

If it were true it would make him one of the sleaziest people on the planet. Because it's not, he continues to simply be a sleazy person. He would be a horrible President regardless of the truthiness of this particular story.

Have I mentioned that I really don't like John Edwards?

CP

There are two points I disagree with you on:

People say It doesn't make a difference what people do in their bedrooms but it does! If a person cheats on their spouse it DOES affect their work or their ability to make decisions. It compromises them in various ways. Plus if they cheat on their spouses they'll certainly screw you over.

And the US is not now, nor has it ever been in the mood for Carter. Unequivocally the worst president ever.

I wonder if Matt Drudge will issue an apology or retraction given the facts haven't shaped out to support justifying headlines of Edwards having an affair for an entire day. Of course, when you're wrong, why do retractions? THat's just for the liberal media right?

Well, I was of voting age before Carter got in. Believe me, if it had not been for Nixon, Carter wouldn't have made it. That was the beginning of the born-again thing too. Some pundit made the comment that Huckabee is the GOP Carter. Huckabee has a similar appeal in being perceived as an honest person, and it does seem that the nation is in the mood for a more honest administration than Bush & Co.

Carter got all the blame for a rotten economy, which is completely ignoring the affects of Vietnam and Nixon's wage/price controls. Reagan got credit for turning the economy around, which is completely ignoring the impact of high tech as the rust belt dissolved. Of course Clinton never gets a similar credit for the booming mid-late 1990s, nor does GHWB get the blame for the recession of 1989-90. I guess GWB won't get the blame for the upcoming recession either.

I don't know if Bernie Ebbers was screwing around, but he sure screwed me directly by running MCI/Worldcom into the dirt. Ronald Reagan cost me a job too by lifting the anti-trust cases off of IBM in the early 1980s, which led to big layoffs at StorageTek when IBM did some shady things with credit, or so I strongly suspect. I'm pretty sure Reagan wasn't cheating on Nancy. Seems in my case it's directly opposite of what you're claiming.

So I feel safe in reiterating that I do not care what people do regarding their extramarital affairs. Consider also that between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, the federal budget got balanced. Both guys were screwing around on their wives. Now consider what the Bush administration has accomplished along this line.

Maybe we should insist on extra-marital affairs. Seems that clubbing politicians over this is not working.

Why am I supposed to be mad at the News Aggregator Matt Drudge when this is a National Enquirer story?

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/john_edwar...celebrity/64426

Rush Lamebaugh is one who accuses the liberla media of being the "drive by" media. It is irresponsible of Drudge to have sensational headlines on his website and hten not have a disclaimer headline after it. It would be tantamount to playing up someone being accused of a crime, and then having nothing about the person being acquitted or having the charges dropped. That isn't responsible reporting. Is Drudge a responsible member of the media, or is he a "page six" gossip artist who writes about politics?

Real newspapers print retractions all the time. It's one of the things responsible editors insist on doing. Perhaps the question is whether Matt Drudge is a responsible editor. Apparently not.

So the next question is whether the Drudge thing is an actual news outlet. I think it's just a blog that may or may not be accurate in what it purports to be true. It's on par with letters to the editor and some of the sloppier columnists.

This situation is simply another reason why not to trust things like the Drudge Report. Oftentimes people just like to read opinions that mesh with their's whether factual or not. In this case it's whether Edwards, and by implication Democrats, are as slimy as Gingrich, and by implication Republicans. After nearly seven years of GWB & Co., methinks it's a top need for Republicans to believe that Democrats are as slimy.

This also explains Huckabee's sudden rise in the polls. I frankly don't care who's slimier. I just want my politicians to be competent while on the job. It would also help if they can string coherent sentences together and at least try not to promote ridiculous ideas, such as T-bills and bonds being worthless paper. I want my politicians to think I'm not stupid. Having some fear of me is good too, as in I and my fellow voters can take their sweet deals away from them.

Sidebar: Colorado has cracked down on crooked voting machines. Teller Co., my place, passed muster 100%, only one of two counties that did. The rest of the machines will either be fixed or dumped before the 2008 election. This state is run by Democrats . . . chalk one up for them.

Gang... DrudgeReport.com reports, and editorializes nothing. He simply pulls online news stories onto his page. He occasionally puts something up before anyone else but then has the AP story (or eqiv) to back it. Matt Drudge aggregates news. That's it.

So if you're ticked off that a headline on drudgereport.com is incorrect (and the National Inquirer doesn't seem to be backing off this story) then your umbrage should be with the people who actually wrote the story not Matt Drudge.

So why should Matt Drudge retract a story that hasn't been retracted? Has the story been retracted?

Do we expect the National Enquirer to retract anything? Does Matt Drudge aggregate real stories or fiction? Last I knew the Enquirer was a tabloid. Tabloids publish exaggerated "stories" if not outright lies.

It's Drudge's site. He can publish whatever he wants, but I don't think he can get away with being whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Is he a journalist or a gossip columnist? Does he peddle information or disinformation? Just because he's very familiar with running convenience stores doesn't mean he has to link the Enquirer. His website's format doesn't demarcate from hard and soft news stories that I can tell.

Mr. Drudge, who also has a half-hour Saturday evening television show on the Fox News Channel, said yesterday by telephone from his home in Los Angeles: ''I'm not a journalist. I'm an Internet reporter. Everything I've learned about journalism I learned from the Internet.'' Mr. Drudge has been criticized for tarnishing the reputations of journalists because he describes what he reports as news, yet deflects criticism by saying he is not trained as a journalist and has no editor to supervise his work.

''He says he's not a journalist, but he plays one on the Internet,'' said Deborah Potter, a former CBS News and CNN correspondent who is now executive director of NewsLab, a nonprofit organization in Washington that assists local television stations in improving their news operations.

Ms. Potter maintained that opinionated talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh are heard on radio stations, and listeners apparently do not mistake him for a journalist. If that were the case with Mr. Drudge, she said, there would be no cause for concern. ''But the creeping, fuzzy line can confuse people,'' Ms. Potter added, because ''on his Web site, he purports to break news and he passes himself off as an ersatz journalist.''

Mr. Drudge said he did, in fact, break news, and added, ''My triumphs and successes have overshadowed my mistakes or growing pains.''

"[O]ne guy interested in stories" doesn't "break news". Someone interested in stories just... aggregates. Drudge may say he's not a journalist but he does what he can to cash in like one. His contradictions don't mean anything to news buffs (including journalists) who believe he's also a journalist, albeit a cyber variety. His refutations don't alter the media's perception. It just makes it harder to try him for libel, harder to make him un-link the story, and harder for bloggers and others railing against the "MSM" (for various reasons) to be taken seriously.

Is this a legitimate news story, or is this just a scandalous political attack?
On the Enquirer it's fiction. On Drudge Report it's a subtle attack from the safety of "I'm just a blogger/aggregator".

What effect, if any, will this have on the Edwards campaign?
None. Nobody's buying this, nor do they have reason to believe it.

Is this relevant at all, as to what kind of president Edwards would be?
I don't care if Edwards goes to a consensual orgy every Friday.

Matt Drudge doesn't investigate or write anything. How can he be a journalist? By linking to other site's news stories?

And Lesly, ask Gary Hart if The National Enquirer reports well

Matt Drudge fancies himself as a modern day, Internet version of Walter Winchell. Now whether or not that is a good thing to be is most likely in the eye of the beholder and probably depends on who's ox is being gored at the time. But, I do find some interesting things on his website from time to time.

Aquilla

1.)Is this a legitimate news story, or is this just a scandalous political attack?

Who knows? It is interesting to me that the woman in question denies it.


2.)What effect, if any, will this have on the Edwards campaign?

Virtually no effect. If the alleged affair was a gay one, then there would be more attention generated. See Larry Craig, etc.

3.)Is this relevant at all, as to what kind of president Edwards would be?

I am really tired of the scandal mongering. Can we please focus on the issues? Wouldn't it be nice to have a President who actually followed the Constitution, cared about the folks who aren't making six-figure salaries, and didn't play cowboy around the world?

I think Edwards would make a better President than the one we've got right now.