I'll leave chastising John Edwards for having an adulterous affair with Rielle Hunter to others. Personally, I don't care that much. I think he did a very dumb thing while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination and am disappointed for that reason. For everything else, it's none of my business.
But I do want to draw attention to the role of the National Enquirer in this, ahem, affair.
During the 1996 campaign, the National Enquirer broke the story that presidential candidate Bob Dole had a long-ago affair that began in 1968.
In 1999, Steve Coz, the National Enquirer's editor, said
any future extramarital exposé "depends a lot on the stance of that politician. If that politician is backed by Jerry Falwell and takes the family-values route, that gets pretty legitimate. But I don't see us pot-shotting extramarital affairs just because it's juicy copy."
Guess that policy must have died when Falwell did.
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