The Edwards/Hunter Chronology II

Perhaps the least impressive of all four was the third, entitled "Plight of Uganda." During the last part of Sept. 2006 Edwards travelled at the behest of the International Rescue Committee to view the parlous situation in Northern Uganda, which had not gotten much press at that time, but which Edwards described later as "dire." What the film showed was a visibly unmoved Edwards trying to establish a "connection" with Ugandan people in Kitgum, people who are looking quizzically at him throughout the video. It shows him addressing a roomful of them--"The whole world should know about your struggles," and "we want to help you...." Sounds of a Ugandan choir singing in English and the native tongue, followed by "a briefing" from an American working with some of the million or so Ugandan refugees, filled the remaining minutes of the video. If Hunter's statement can be credited--that it was on this Africa trip that Edwards said he loved her--we have one the real reason for the trip. Edwards is now able seemingly fully to "escape" the grind back at home by the dreamy presence of a woman who just wants to do nothing other than take pictures of him all day (take that back; maybe there are other things she wants to do...).

Between the third and fourth videos Elizabeth Edwards' book Saving Graces came out. John accompanied her for a book promotional tour in New York during Oct 2006. I know she was in NY on Oct. 3 and in Washington DC on Oct. 5, but I don't have the rest of her itinerary nor when John accompanied her.

The fourth video, titled "The Plug," is just a short clip showing Edwards preparing for an appearance on Comedy Central on November 14, 2006, purportedly to pump his new book: Home, the Blueprints of our Lives. In that book about 50 people contributed nice stories of how their home lives as children had shaped them and made them who they are. Here, and in the Aug. 2008 interview, we can see John Edwards' wish-fulfillment and narcissism at its most extreme. He was a moral little boy, growing up in simple and humble circumstances in SC and then in NC. Something about the image of himself that he has created from that time, a simpler time economically and ethically, cannot leave his mind. It is as if he is longing for something that he knows he can't return to. For if he faced himself in the Fall of 2006, he would see that he not only wasn't the boy he told himself he was, but he that he was being false to himself (for example, that he wanted people to see him as he "really was"). Here is a man burdened with confusion, probably because he is caught between the vision of his own ambition and the rather ugly realities of dull and difficult human living. He wanted so badly to continue as the moral little boy, and see a "straight shot" from that little boy to the White House. But what he didn't see is that the road to the Heavenly City, to use an image from Pilgrim's Progress, is one fraught with fearful obstacles, and that most may never make it to that desired City.

What the videos show us is that even before he announced his candidacy for President in 2006, John Edwards had already collapsed internally. He had no fiber, no clear sense of what he was about, no moral moorings, no way to deal with the issue of a steady stream of losses that had hit him and Elizabeth (the death of their son, his loss in the 2004 election, Elizabeth's cancer). Life was turning out to be much more complex than he had bargained for, and he simply didn't know how to deal with the rushing emotions that resulted.

On to 2007

His Dec. 28, 2006 announcement that he was running for teh Democratic nomination for President was, curiously, made alone. Yould would have thought that Elizabeth would be right there at this side. Rielle was present and snapping pictures of this event, which took place on the lawn of a New Orleans home that had been devastated in hurricane Katrina. Those with the Edwards campaign talked about the good spirits of the occasion. But someone must have wondered--if Elizabeth was the love of his life, why wouldn't she have been present during this second announcement? Had she been informed of his infidelity by this time? Had they had some kind of conversation to the effect that, "Ok, you can run for President, but you have to cut off the relationship with that woman?"

In any case, early in 2007 Rielle seems to have disappeared from the picture. Her production company was no longer employed by the campaign after Dec. 31, 2006. Early in 2007 the four videos were removed from Edward's web site. Had they been taken down because of their poor quality, or had Elizabeth demanded they be removed as a way of trying to remove traces of Rielle from her husband's life?

In any case, as we are in the first few months of 2007, it seems like there is probably an effort for John and Elizabeth to deal with the fling of 2006. It isn't unusual when there has been an infidelity, that the couple tries to put behind them, that serious effort is devoted by both sides to try to put things back together. In addition, on March 22, 2007 Elizabeth announced, with John at her side (different from the Presidential announcement late in Dec. 2006) that her breast cancer had recurred, and that it was "treatable" but not "curable."

Here is where the details become fuzzy and where someone who actually keeps his calendar (or Rielle's future book, when she runs out of money and if Edwards can't continue to buy her silence) has to clarify. We know that Rielle Hunter became pregnant late in May 2007; we just don't know at this point, and I am sure the investigators are out there beating every bush on the issue, whether John and Rielle had any contact in 2007. Were they within a stone's throw of each other between May 20 and June 20, 2007? He denied that they saw each other.... We know that John and Elizabeth celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary by a dinner at Wendy's on July 31, 2007.

We know also that the National Inquirer's story, which broke on October 10, 2007 (with a follow-up on December 19), first said that someone in the Edwards campaign had an affair with him, but then, in December, said that Rielle Hunter (prenant in a picture) was carrying his "love child." The mainstream media didn't pick up on the story, perhaps out of deference to Elizabeth Edwards, who herself had come out with a book in 2007 and was now considered one of the more popular and admired women in America.

Things Come Crashing Down

Even though there are scattered Internet reports saying that people had sightings of Edwards in the same hotel where Rielle was staying in March and June of 2008, the issue came to a head on the evening of July 21 and early morning of July 22, 2008 at the Beverly Hilton. Hunter, who had moved to NC in the wake of the December National Enquirer story (probably to be close to those who could "control" the message that came from her lips), had now been set up in a nice home in Santa Barbara. She bore her daughter on February 27 at the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, but gave her name in a cryptic fashion (she didn't mention her last name was Hunter) and didn't list the father of the child. John Edwards was in Los Angeles on July 21 to appear at a press on homelessness put on by Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Rielle and a male companion arrived at checked into Rooms 246 and 252 at the Beverly Hilton on July 21.

The National Inquirer had received a tip that he would be meeting her that night at the Hilton, and so they had people in the hotel who saw Edwards arrive at about 9:30 (dropped off by the male companion) and hustle in through a side door. He descended a level and then took the elevator up to the floor where Hunter was. The couple was seen leaving the building but then returning shortly thereafter. Edwards remained upstairs with her (and the male companion?... probably not) until a little after 2:00 a.m. Then, as the Inquirer reported, he took the elevator down to the basement (how was he going to get back to where he had been picked up? Was the male companion going to drive him?), but was confronted by a few Inquirer writers as he exited the elevator. Panicking, he began to climb the stairs to the main floor, met more reporters and then retreated to the rest room which, apparently, is between the basement/garage and the main floor. What is unclear at this point is whether Edwards actually went in stall and hid (a sort of Larry Craig trick, though Craig was using his "stall tactics" for another reason), or whether he actually put his body against the door to prevent others from coming in the bathroom. He probably then called security from his cell phone, and eventually security came and ushered him away.

But the damage had been done by 2:30 a.m. on July 22, and he knew that the "game was up." He had to come clean (or at least partially clean) with the story, since the connection to Rielle would just be too clear to any who wanted to take a look at what happened. So, two weeks later, he appeared to take full responsibility for a terrible, narcissistic, act of poor judgment. He said that it had ended, and that the reason for seeing Hunter on the 21st-22nd was to keep the matter quiet a little longer. It appears, however, that things are a bit more complex than he confessed on August 8. More complexity as in the relationship that really lasted much longer in 2006 than people thought, that did probably have a hiatus through some of 2007, but that "heated up" in 2008. I think that the focus of all the interest now must be on studying the Edwards "calendar" from about May 20-June 20, 2007, and then trying to figure out where Hunter was at the time. If a credible case can be made that they were within a few miles of each other, this story is far from over.

Conclusion

John Edwards' life illustrates the truism that your greatest strength is also your greatest vulnerability. His gifts are legion but these gifts ended up being the instrument for him to construct a narrative of himself that simply wasn't true. He was subject to all the forces that hit us guys in our mid-50s; he just didn't have the wisdom to recognize that. Nor did he realize that his greatest frailty came through his apparent strength--his good looks, his charm, his fluentness of speech. I really don't know if it is possible for him to "rebuild" his life at this juncture; I think the odds are against it. But, one can be sure that we haven't yet heard the last word on this matter..

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