Saturday, June 23, 2012

New Interview With John Edwards' Mistress

Last Night, the ABC News program 20/20 aired a new, one hour interview with Rielle Hunter, the mistress of former U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards. It was the elaborate attempts to hide her existence (from both the public and from Edwards' dying wife Elizabeth) that ultimately led to Edwards' recent trail on federal charges of campaign finance violations.  The entire interview has been posted on the ABC News website in 6 segments.  You can watch part 1 HERE.

The program was not so much an extended sit down interview with Hunter as it was an extended chronology of their entire affair (during and after Edwards' presidential campaign), in which short segments from Chris Cuomo's interview with Hunter are juxtaposed with damning clips of Edwards shamelessly promoting his relationship with his wife on  the campaign trail and later flatly denying his relationship with Hunter. Broadly speaking, there was nothing new in any of this.  But what made it compelling viewing were the 'behind the scenes' details that Reille Hunter adds to the story, which details made Edwards' already extraordinary behavior throughout the whole sordid affair all the more amazing.  One of the many details I found memorable was that their infamous 'sex tape' was apparently made during a "poverty trip to Uganda."

Throughout the program, interviewer Chris Cuomo repeatedly stops and asks Hunter incredulous questions like, "Didn't you know this was wrong?" and "Why did you keep going with this crazy scheme that was never going to work?"   And her answer, over and over, is simply, "love."

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