Well now he is facing criminal charges stemming from his presidential campaign in 2008 where he allegedly used campaign funds to cover up his affair with his girlfriend, mistress or baby mama take your pick. Now I know what your thinking, not this nice southern lawyer who advocated for the poor and had the pretty picture of the American family. Yes, this nice southern lawyer cheated on his strong but ailing wife and fathered a child outside of his marriage. Why is this important at this particular time, because of the cover up. John Edwards knew that he had a time bomb set to go off in 2008 if he had been elected as the Democratic Presidential nominee and this would have been the Republicans October surprise. SURPRISE!. Fortunately he dropped out early in 2008 because of Obama and Clinton, blah, blah, blah he knew he had a bombshell, a devastating secret that would take the Democratic Party down with him.
This is and isn't about his affair. it is because he tried to cover the affair up with campaign funds, it isn't because it is about campaign funds and how the funds were spent, now of course there is no where under the laws governing funds where you can take a few dollars here or there to cover up your adultery(at least I don't think it is)so campaign funds plus cover up equals prison equals square-root of fuzzy campaign math equals Republicans not letting go of this in this election cycle. That is where the story is, if I haven't confused you enough.
Edwards has allegedly taken several million dollars from a small group of donors and some of this money was used to pay for
Andrew Young to claim credit for the affair, baby and for an all expense paid public deception. This is certainly not the first and not the last and maybe not even the stupidest,it is just one of the saddest. This was not a fall from grace, Edwards threw himself off of his pedestal and why because he was well respected but a pedestal is just to high and the weight of his secrets were just too heavy. But, this is really hard to rehash because it hits the Democrats where they live, it happened under their roof, in their house, in the parents bedroom and in the dam bed. Now the Federal Prosecutors are alleging that he used money from his campaign to hide this entire affair so that he definitely without hesitation would have been defeated by John McCain in the 2008 election(even if you throw in Sarah Palin).
Having a mistress and a child outside of your marriage is not illegal, having a buddy cover for you also not illegal, using campaign funds to have your buddy pay for the mistress and baby mama expense illegal(allegedly).
Also posted at The Sheeping of America