From ABC News:
John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.
From CNN:
Edwards, 55, of North Carolina, told ABC that his wife, Elizabeth, and other family members have known about the affair since 2006.
From the NYT blog:
The network [ABC] said that Mr. Edwards “made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter.”
This is just so sad, on so many levels.
UPDATE: Here is the statement John Edwards released today
In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough.
I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then. I am and have been willing to take any test necessary to establish the fact that I am not the father of any baby, and I am truly hopeful that a test will be done so this fact can be definitively established. I only know that the apparent father has said publicly that he is the father of the baby. I also have not been engaged in any activity of any description that requested, agreed to or supported payments of any kind to the woman or to the apparent father of the baby.
It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up — feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.
I have given a complete interview on this matter and having done so, will have nothing more to say.
UPDATE 2: Elizabeth Edwards’ statement posted on Daily Kos:
Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some – most recently – caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.
John made a terrible mistake in 2006. The fact that it is a mistake that many others have made before him did not make it any easier for me to hear when he told me what he had done. But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007. This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well. Because of a recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private.
The pain of the long journey since 2006 was about to be renewed.
John has spoken in a long on-camera interview I hope you watch. Admitting one’s mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do, and I am proud of the courage John showed by his honesty in the face of shame. The toll on our family of news helicopters over our house and reporters in our driveway is yet unknown. But now the truth is out, and the repair work that began in 2006 will continue. I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.
Technorati Tags: John Edwards
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Some useful perspective, from my view.
Except for his relationship with his wife, I thought that Edwards was a phony. Now I realize that he’s just a phony. At least this story has a silver lining – we don’t have to worry about him becoming the AG. Whew.
Would someone please explain to me why their is so much emphasis put on John Edwards and his affair. He is not a candidate for president although he was and how come john McCain isn’t being beat up in the press for his past affairs while still married. He actually is a candidate for president. Personally I don’t care to hear about any of the irrelevant personal items. Give me the issues any day over tabloid junk whether true or false.
Hopefully this will die down in the next couple days and we can get on to more important things like our middle class being destroyed.
Gene, to me, the story is is not about the affair but about how a candidate had the incredible brazenness and arrogance to hide an affair from those folks who supported him (with their money and their work). This country is, unfortunately, obsessed with knowing every detail about our candidates’ lives, and knowing that, Edwards should have spoken up and been fair to the public.
What would have been the harm in mentioning it before he took people’s time and money? If he had spoken up, I would have trusted him; but issues aren’t important if you can’t trust someone.
Truth be told the truly sad part is we continue to hold others more accountable than we hold ourselves. We somehow think that because people run for office or 51% any given electorate on the local, State, or Federal level vote in someone that they are somehow transformed into something better than ourselves. Wrong. Our leaders are merely mirror images of ourselves. The very fact that Edwards felt he could get away with it and seek higher office illustrates as much. I had great respect for Edwards and still do frankly on a political note with his focus on issues like poverty—fact is could care less what the personal imperfection are or whether he was sincere or not if it brings attention by the masses regarding significant problems that are being ignored. His campaign drew attention to areas that niether Obama nor Clinton appeared prepared to address or speak to. Fact is regardless of MSM media attention; adultery and divorce are at unacceptable levels by anyones calculations and while all the mud is slung at Edwards maybe we ought to take the time to take a look at ourselves and the greater problem before our society today instead of just this current news cycle. Its all about politics to be sure and for no other reason the convention will be without one of its major voices. Sad indeed.
“Our leaders are merely mirror images of ourselves.”
That is a follower, not a leader. Being a leader is not sticking one’s finger in the air and going with the wind. Leaders are supposed to be better than the hoi polloi.
“The convention will be without one of its major voices.”
A one-term senator who did not even bother to run for re-election because he was so disliked? A losing VP candidate who could not even carry his own state? Please.
Alter: “Truth be told the truly sad part is we continue to hold others more accountable than we hold ourselves. We somehow think that because people run for office or 51% any given electorate on the local, State, or Federal level vote in someone that they are somehow transformed into something better than ourselves. Wrong.”
I differ with you. Senator Edwards was running to be the most powerful man in the world. Senator Edwards was well aware that he was lying to his supporters, the American public, and the world when he denied the relationship with Ms. Hunter. His affair is not the issue that bothers me. The issue that has brought him down is that he lied to the very people were working to elect him President and who put their faith, trust and money into his campaign.
How can you trust someone to be President who shows so little respect for others, who would betray others for his own betterment? He needs to go away and accept the consequences of his choice to lie to those who trusted him.
It is not the affair for me … that’s between him, his wife, his children and his Maker. Had he truly shown character, he would have 1) not run for office, knowing that it would be used against him or 2) told the truth immediately and see who would support him for his Presidential run. That would have shown character.
To correct my words: The issue that has brought him down is that he lied to the very people WHO were working to elect him President and who put their faith, trust and money into his campaign.
My point was not concerning political ideology, character debate that folks always turn it into nor the inside knowledge or lack there of by his staff or how he treated his staff. I never implied the guy had integrity. I merely pointed out that just because someone, and in this case the DNC, promotes you as a front runner, okay top three, potential nominee or a nominee chooses you as a VP running mate does not mean you are somehow elevated to some mystical palace of rightouesness. These leaders come from the crop that is all of us and though we all may wish that they were somehow better than ourselves or should be held to higher expectations than we hold ourselves and people in our communities I think is symantics.Its like saying its not okay for his affair but its okay for your buddy to have one simply cuz he does not hold office and has an ordinary job. Does your buddy’s affiar impact his job, his performance, or merely the perception of such once you learn about it in the workplace. I wonder. I am not an apologist for Edwards by any means but merely pointed out he raised issues that we all should need to face and in the end his affair illustrates yet another hypocrisy we all have about how different it is when these things happen to other people than those we know. I love how the big complaint is how these folks go to Washington become elitist; I guess thats what happens when we see these people as supposed to being better tha ourselves filled with lofty expectation of representation. Anon your view that a Democrat who is a former VP candidate and ran third in the Primary process this time around behind such brands Obama and Clinton “not” being a major voice to speak at the Party convention speaks volumes about the Party I think. Volumes. BTW Anon did not Gore lose in 2000 and also did not carry his own state in his own election…by your standard Gore is not a major voice either anymore!!!!Please.
“I am not an apologist for Edwards by any means but merely pointed out he raised issues that we all should need to face and in the end his affair illustrates yet another hypocrisy we all have about how different it is when these things happen to other people than those we know.”
Now really, Alter, Edwards had every right to have the affair and yes it’s none of my business….that is, until he decides to take people’s time and money time, with the knowlegde that when the affair becomes known (and it always will), he will surely spin down to nothing and leave those supporters holding the bag.
That he continually lied is the ethical issue. Here in the 1st District, the Democratic Party got “stung” with a candidate that they said was untruthful with them about his finances….Keith Hummel….it wasn’t an affair….but they said he lied to them.
And of course you are right the povery discourse must go on. And I hope that Edwards continues his work in this area.
Alter,
“These leaders come from the crop that is all of us…”
Of course — but it is supposed the be the cream that rises to the top, not the scum. We are not choosing people randomly to be President, we are trying to pick the best.
“[Did] not Gore lose in 2000 and also did not carry his own state in his own election…by your standard Gore is not a major voice either anymore!!!!”
Al Gore was also in the House of Representatives for four terms, and in the Senate for two — a total of 16 years in Congress. Then he had another eight years as VP. Twenty-four years and eight elections won before losing to Bush. And you can throw in a Nobel Peace Prize, too. Sen. Edwards is a nobody in comparison. (Of course, so are Sens. Clinton and Obama.)
And a new twist on this: Wolfson believes the Edwards’ coverup cost Clinton the nomination
All of these men make me sick. Why can’t they just admit that there marriage sucks and that they looked elsewhere for what was missing in their marriage. I guess none of them have the balls to do that. When my husband cheated on me I would have been happier if he would have just told me he thought that he was in love. I could have understood that alot easier than to think he was just out on the prowl for something different. To me it was more of an insult to cheat when it meant nothing than to say he thought he was in love and to tell me later it was a mistake is just showing even more lack of a backbone.
Fair enough Anon. Maybe we all should wake up that all a “career” politician may really care about is afterall, their career. That can be the only explanation as to why Nicole these men mever seem to want to come clean. Its all about perception and perception either sells or it loses elections. Lets face it, none of us really know these people afterall and at times it gets to feel like the laundry scenario; you know he/she is a Demcrat so they are this or he/she is a Rep. so they are that. Its crazy. Its like when a star player of a team you hate gets traded to your team; suddenly you run right out and buy his jersey and he is suddenly your favorite guy…what changed other than the laundry. Is the player a better guy now that he is on your team than he was before?or was it all just merely the perception of reality of the guy. Trust me on this…the perception of Edwards has changed forever.
Not mine — he has always been a sleeze-ball in my eye.