“If you have had a vasectomy, Andrew, this whole cover-up is no good:" Andrew Young Fillets John Edwards

John Edwards' defense, suggested by his lawyer in opening statement, is that Andrew Young was up to all of these shenanigans for himself, not John Edwards.

John Edwards didn't know anything about a cover-up or secret payments or Andrew Young's sham claim of paternity of Edwards' child, you see. Andrew Young was doing all these things at his own initiative, in order to preserve a relationship with the wealthy Edwards.

Okay. Whatevs.

The Daily Beast digests Young's testimony.

The general thrust is that covering up Edwards' affair -- placating Reille Hunter, etc. -- became the sum and entirety of Young's job. Here are few snippets.

Young described how he was ordered to procure a special cellphone so the lovers could secretly communicate. “We called it the Bat Phone,” Young said. “He worried that Mrs. Edwards was checking his cellphone records.”

Because Edwards needed money to keep Reille quiet, get this -- the multimillionaire Edwards asked the salary-man Andrew Young for a loan.

In a stunning revelation, the witness alleged the multimillionaire Edwards first asked him for a loan knowing that the Youngs had recently come into a windfall of some $400,000 on the sale of their home. Asked for his response to Edwards by the prosecutor, Young replied, “I said, ‘No, sir.’ We needed that money to build our new house.” And, Young added, “We always had trouble getting reimbursed from the office. Giving him two or three hundred dollars once in a while was one thing, but …” His voice trailed off and the point was made. (To hear Young tell it, Edwards rarely dipped into his own pocket—not even the day Young drove the lovers to a clinic to get their shots prior to their alleged trip to Africa.)

Weird thing but I hear that happens -- some rich people just get used to people paying for them, oddly enough.

Kind of a con, I guess. I guess people of lesser means will lavish money on people like Edwards with the expectation they'll get a big windfall from their investment some day.

Young says he and Edwards discussed the idea of asking über-wealthy Texas lawyer Fred Baron for financial help since he had been generous in the past. The senator nixed that idea, said Young, saying Baron was too close to his political rivals—Bill and Hillary Clinton—and, besides, Baron was “too much of a gossip.”

Then, serendipitously, a note from one of Edwards' richest donors arrived offering help. Rachel “Bunny” Melon wanted John to be the next president so he could “rescue America.” Young said she sent a handwritten note suggesting she could funnel checks through her trusted interior decorator as a way “to help our friend (Edwards) without government restrictions.” Edwards called Bunny Mellon after receiving the letter and, according to Young, announced, “She was good to go!”

Eventually Edwards convinced Young to claim he was Hunter's babydaddy. But then some story got out that Young had had a vasectomy.

In perhaps the most damning testimony of the day, Young related a panicked phone call from Edwards in which he nervously asked his staffer if he had undergone such surgery. “If you have had a vasectomy, Andrew, this whole cover-up is no good,” Young quoted him as saying. Young said the truth was that he had never had such a procedure.

Here's a typical biased headline from the MSM: John Edwards Makes Rush Limbaugh Look Like A Feminist.

They just can't let the facts speak about a Democrat without dragging a completely-unrelated Republican into it. And they continue to be stone-cold stupid: Politics have very little to do with one's character.

Al Gore became the Crusading Avenger for Campaign Finance Reform when, exactly? Oh yes: Right after he got caught taking hundreds of thousands of illegal overseas campaign donations from Chinese nuns.

Hath no liberal ever read Shakespeare?

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Do they have any idea what that means?

Public pronouncements can cover a whole lot of private squalor, can't they?

posted by Ace at 04:40 PM

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