Edwards' Second Edifice of Lies Collapses: Just when you are no longer all that interested in the John Edwards love child story--because the truth is kind of obvious --he goes and reportedly decides to admit paternity , allegedly after a  DNA assesment . The grim dynamics of the Web now require some sort of  hit-catching gloatfest. OK. Here goes.  

1) Historic Gallery of Kossack Krap: Here's Jerome Armstrong proclaiming the original accusation "just a total bullshit story" in 2007--love the tags!--and Markos Moulitsas months later still sneering  

... I can't believe this is even subject to debate, but for the crazies, no source is too disreputable if it validates their warped world view. Although in a perverse sense, the more energy they spend on b.s. like this (and Obama's supposedly forged birth certificate), the less energy they're spending on smearing Obama.  

Is Moulitsas so dumb he didn't know the truth in July of 2008? I don't think Moulitsas is dumb, as a general proposition.  

2)   The National Enquirer has been vindicated (though I think they are still congenitally soft on Saint Elizabeth).  HuffPo 's Sam Stein kicked the story off . And always trust content from kausfiles. ...  But this latest development vindicates no more than half of Monday's kf  rumor item . I also speculated that the paternity admission would be part of a PR strategy designed to roll out after the grand jury failed to charge Edwards. I still expect that to happen --certainly you wouldn't think that Rielle Hunter went out of her way to damage him before the grand jury if he was going to admit paternity, do you? But to the extent Edwards simply had to talk to prosecutors-Fifth Amendment notwithstanding--then it might not have been so much a PR strategy as making the best of a bad situation;  

3) Please do not forget that in his August, 2008  Nightline ' confession,'--" I take full responsibility" --Edwards didn't just deny paternity but said paternity was "not possible" because the affair with Hunter was over when the baby must have been conceived. To do otherwise would have interfered with his carefully crafted modified limited story about the affair--that it involved "a short period in 2006" and ended before Elizabeth's cancer recurred and before he went galavanting around the country advertising his fidelity and good character. If Edwards is in fact the father this entire fallback edifice of BS crumbles . ... It's worth reading the transcript of the ABC interview -- practically every sentence out of Edwards' mouth is a lie . He doesn't know who the baby was in the Enquirer 's photos, suggests the photos were doctored, doesn't know whether Andrew Young, the aide who took the fall, is the father, says Rielle Hunter's hiring as a videographer had nothing to do with the affair, etc.. And he does it all sanctimoniously.  

4) Why construct this fallback line of lies? There are several possibilities, discussed here . My guess: The idea was not to fool his wife but to preserve his political viability as much as possible. Just a short mistaken affair! He slipped! Happens all the time! I also suspect St. Elizabeth was in on this second set of lies just as she went out and helped him try to preserve the first set of lies (i.e., that there was no affair at all and it was all just tabloid trash).   

5) Why admit paternity now? Possible (speculative, not-proven) theories: a) He needed Hunter's testimony to be as friendly as possible; b) Disaffected Fall Guy Andrew Young's tell all book forced the issue; c) Edwards was going to be asked by the prosecutors; d) Somehow this helps keep the sex tape bottled up; e) It had to happen at some point. Rielle wants to be Mrs. Edwards, or at least to have the paternity of her child acknowledged. He couldn't keep her happy forever. f) He wants the story to get buried in all the excitement about Netroots Nation ! ...  

6) Remaining questions: Who was Enquirer 's big source? Can it not have been Hunter? Why wouldn't Edwards agree to pay child support but negotiate a clause requiring everyone to keep it secret? Why her ?  What if he'd been elected? What about the enablers? Mudcat? Prince? Palmieri? Which ones were willing to put the party at risk? ...  12:06 A.M.

___________________________