Tabloid update: Cover-ups!

The best tabloid scoops lately have been on the Internet, not in the supermarket check-out line, so even if you don't do your own grocery shopping you may already know that the National Enquirer caught John Edwards visiting his mistress and love child at a Beverly Hills hotel, and that a former NASA astronaut accused the U.S. government of covering up visits from alien spacecraft.

But in case you missed it....

The National Enquirer got its revenge against former U.S. Senator, former vice-presidential candidate and former presidential candidate John Edwards last month. Apparently the tabloid's editors were piqued at the way Senator Edwards impugned their journalistic integrity last December after they reported this:

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Rielle Hunter, a woman linked to Edwards in a cheating scandal earlier this year, is more than six months pregnant — and she's told a close confidante that Edwards is the father of her baby!

The ENQUIRER's political bombshell comes just weeks after Edwards emphatically denied having an affair with Rielle, who formerly worked on his campaign and told another close pal that she was romantically involved with the married ex-senator.

The Enquirer said in December that Rielle Hunter was in hiding, having relocated from New York City to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she was living in the same gated community as a close political associate of Senator Edwards, 41-year-old Andrew Young. Ms. Hunter told the tabloid that Mr. Young was the father of her child.

That prompted the Enquirer's reporters to knock on Mr. Young's door, whereupon "he became furious — and denied he was Andrew Young." The Enquirer said "he also denied knowing 'any Rielle Hunter,' yelling at the top of his voice: 'You don't even know who I am!' But when his wife called him 'Andrew,' he shot her a dirty look."

Yes, Mr. Young is married. With three children.

Eventually everyone got their story straight and Mr. Young told the Enquirer he was in fact the father of Rielle Hunter's child, but nobody would take a polygraph test and the Enquirer may be trashy but it isn't stupid.

The tabloid reporters stayed on the trail, assisted by people who called in tips after reading the Enquirer's December story.

And on the evening of July 21, a small army of Enquirer reporters caught Senator Edwards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel "visiting his mistress and secret love child."

"Rielle had driven to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara with a male friend for the rendezvous with Edwards," the tabloid reported, in order for "the ex-senator to spend some time with both his mistress and the love child who he refuses to publicly acknowledge as his own."

The Enquirer's editors didn't rely on the usual "close sources" for the story. They sent their own reporters:

Rielle had reserved rooms 246 and 252 under the name of the friend who had accompanied her from Santa Barbara, Bob McGovern. Rielle was in one room and McGovern was in another with her baby. This allowed her and Edwards to spend time alone, a source revealed.

Edwards went out of the hotel briefly with Rielle, they were observed by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER and then went back to her room, where he stayed until attempting to sneak out of the hotel unseen at 2:40 a.m. (PST). But when he emerged alone from an elevator into the hotel basement he was greeted by several reporters from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

Senior NATIONAL ENQUIRER Reporter Alexander Hitchen asked Edwards why he was visiting Rielle and whether he was ready to confirm that he was the father of her baby.

Shocked to see a reporter, and without saying anything, Edwards ran up the stairs leading from the hotel basement to the lobby. But, spotting a photographer, he doubled back into the basement. As he emerged from the stairwell, reporter Butterfield questioned him about his hookup with Rielle.

Edwards did not answer and then ran into a nearby restroom. He stayed inside for about 15 minutes, refusing to answer questions from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER about what he was doing in the hotel. A group of hotel security men eventually escorted him from the men's room, while preventing the NATIONAL ENQUIRER reporters from following him out of the hotel.

And yet, Senator Edwards continued to impugn the journalistic integrity of the Enquirer, and no other publication reported the story.

So the Enquirer filed a criminal complaint with the Beverly Hills police, charging the hotel security guards with violating the law by restraining the reporters, who were registered guests at the hotel, in order to keep them away from Senator Edwards, who was not.

That prompted Fox News to report the story, in a marginal and distanced kind of way. It was on their website, and it made it into The Grapevine segment of Brit Hume's show.

Last week the Enquirer took another shot at Senator Edwards, accusing him of arranging a massive cover-up and funneling $15,000 a month in hush money to Rielle Hunter, who continues to insist that Andrew Young is the father of her child.

Then on Thursday, the Charlotte Observer obtained the California birth certificate for Rielle Hunter's child and discovered that the space for "Name of Father" had been left blank.




Cover-ups are just not as easy as they used to be.

Senator Edwards' expensive cover-up effort failed because the Drudge Report posted links to the National Enquirer story online and helped the story rocket around the globe in a fraction of the time it takes to tell you about it.

The Drudge Report, if you've just landed on the planet Earth, is a web site run by Matt Drudge, a man who tells you what's going on instead of spending two weeks in editorial meetings anguishing over whether to tell you what's going on.

We mention this because if you've just landed on the planet Earth, it would really save a lot of time and trouble if you'd just e-mail Matt Drudge some home video of your spaceship instead of landing on a restricted military base and pretending to be dead.

If you missed it, former NASA astronaut and one-time moon-walker Ed Mitchell told the British media recently that we have been visited by space aliens and our governments have been covering it up for sixty years (click the picture to see the video):



Ed Mitchell is 77 years old, but he's sharp enough to have a web site, and if you're interested he'll sell you an autographed photo of himself for $55.00; or if you're a space alien frustrated with the U.S. government's persistent cover-up of your existence, you can contact Ed Mitchell and tell him you're ready to go public. Of course, if you really want to break through the cover-up, you should get in touch with Matt Drudge. He's the one everybody reads.

There remains just one mystery left to solve.

If John Edwards was cheating on his wife at the very same time she was battling cancer and the effects of chemotherapy to travel the country campaigning for him for president, how could the Westminster Kennel Club give its blue ribbon for prize dog to a beagle?



Maybe it just wasn't the year for blow-dried dogs.


Copyright 2008

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