Why the roll eyes? You disagree that she has a right to privacy? Do you believe that the public is somehow entitled to know who fathered this woman’s baby?
I don’t see how any of this story is any different from Brangelina gossip. It seems like the whole country has turned into a hair salon.
Yeah, I’m not getting that either. It’s not like its that difficult for the average woman to identify the father of her baby. If, as Edwards said, the timing was wrong (i.e., he wasn’t sleeping with her at the time of conception), and he knows it and she knows it, then there’s no reason for DNA testing at all. Might as well test Obama and McCain while you’re at it; they weren’t sleeping with her then, either.
Are you sure?
Well, he may be rolling his eyes as if to say “What privacy?” but I don’t know.
That said, I think it’s fair to wonder what the deal is with the test. He says it’s not his, but her family says they think he’s the father; she won’t take a test, and didn’t list the guy who has claimed to be the father on the birth certificate. Is it anyone’s business? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean everybody has to accept the explanations they are being given.
Come to think of it . . . where were you on the night(s) in question, Maeglin??? Somewhere else? That’s what they all say. 
Nobody ever has to accept the explanations they’re being given; just ask the 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theorists. The point is, people are rejecting the explanation given for one they prefer, despite the fact that no data supports their preference. She’s under no obligation to reveal who the father of the child is; he says it’s not his child and she does not dispute that. Case closed, AFAIAC.
Well, that’s the thing - no data supports the official explanation either. There are just different stories by different parties with different motivations, and a few of them contradict each other.
Correct. But rightly or wrongly, that’s not going to settle it for everyone.
She could have 50 paternity tests, and it still wouldn’t settle it for everyone. People will believe what they want to despite all evidence to the contrary.
Amen!
Maybe so. At the moment, the truth is that there isn’t any evidence.
So, no appearance on the Maury Povich show?
Assuming that the mistress wasn’t the one who leaked the story (and there’s no evidence to support that she did), then she has every right to tell the world to pound salt. Do we need to know who fathered her baby? Nope. And as long as she’s not asking ME to support the baby, then I have no reason to demand anything from her.
If so, there would be very few lawyers in NC.
Wait, how do you tell them apart, again?
Stranger
I have an alibi, though. With pictures. And a video!
Only 19.95 per month.
If he’s just John Edwards, private citizen, then certainly public interest seems just prurient. However, if he still hopes for high office, such as AG or a judgeship, it seems to me that the political reality is that continuing uncertainty over the baby’s paternity will drag him down. All else being equal, it’s just going to be that much easier for that future President to nominate someone else, rather than a man who is freighted with allegations that he fathered a baby and then abandoned it. He’s denied it, of course, but his denials are going to be largely meaningless to a lot of people, insofar as he’s saying that yes, he lied about the affair all this time, but now he’s not lying about paternity.
For these reasons, it seems to me a reasonable inference that if he genuinely believed he’s not the father, he would be clamoring much more insistently for a paternity test. And her refusal to allow one suggests that either she no longer wishes to support his career, or she recognizes that the result would point to him.
Well, if any of the money that Fred Baron paid her came from campaign funds, then effectively Edwards’ donors were being asked to support the baby. On this point, I’m skeptical of the notion that Baron was acting out of altruism, but of course the money could have come from any source.
This stuff gets prurient regardless, but I agree - and he’s not a private citizen. He was running for President when this happened. We’ve argued about this in this thread and in GD, but for better or worse, he’s a candidate for higher office and this comes with that turf. He was on the VP short list for some time and admitted he was interested at one point, (he’d denied it earlier). His endorsement of Obama was considered a significant news event and many people, including me, concluded that Edwards gave that prominent endorsement in return for a promise of the Attorney General’s post, or at least consideration for it. If the guy is a potential AG or VP, this is news. Even if it is prurient, which it is.
I agree with this, too. It makes no difference in my life, but the fact that she’s refused the test is just a little too convenient for him. I don’t find that very believable.
I don’t think this has been said in any of the threads on this subject: if Edwards is really a private citizen, he doesn’t have to say anything about this at all. It ended quite some time ago and he has not been campaigning for President since early this year. He spoke about it in public because the Democratic party was considering him for a speaking role at the convention later this month (not to mention a possible role in an Obama administration) and said they would not give it to him if he was still under a cloud of suspicion. And he even dealt with it like a politician, releasing the news late on a Friday afternoon, which is what politicians do when they have to come clean about a piece of news but hope people will ignore it because the weekend is about to start.