Elizabeth Edwards is, obviously, more or less the most sympathetic woman in the world, as a cancer survivor married to an asshole who cheated on her with some hippie freak. But no one likes her.

Serious shit: apparently, Sen. John Edwards' presidential campaign intended to bring the entire thing down onto itself.

When John Edwards finally admitted his affair with Rielle Hunter, he denied fathering her child and offered to take a DNA test to prove it. Hunter—conveniently!—turned him down. Now she's changed her mind.

In trying to keep his extramarital problems private, John Edwards only exposed them to a wider public. His latest shameful moment: His wife Elizabeth can't say she loves him or believes his love-child denial.

John Edwards' philandering has gone federal. It might soon hit the courts. And to think just last summer the scandal was penny ante: stuck in the tabloid swamps, save for a disappointing ABC finale.

The callous infidelity of formerly relevant politician John Edwards lingers: cheating on his wife, a cancer survivor, and then lying about it. Now she's having her say. Could she make her husband look any worse?

Remember John Edwards, the Southern Gentleman whose lifelong dream of being President Hillary Clinton's veep was ruined when he admitted a marital affair? The National Enquirer continues to torment the has-been politician.

Amid 2008's many sex scandals, it was a miracle there was any time left to monitor an epochal presidential election. There were many genuine, dirty affairs — and some duds inevitably got overhyped.

When Democratic party uber-lawyer Fred Baron died this year, he left poor Rielle Hunter with nothing. So she's back on the East Coast and ready to party!

A feisty young blogger named Matt points out that John Edwards has not yet been given a job in the Obama administration. Shocking! As Matt points out, in his link, Edwards totally endorsed Obama last May, four months after he dropped out of the race and a mere week after Tim Russert famously declared the Democratic primary race "over" for Hillary Clinton. Despite the lateness of the endorsement it was universally acknowledged that Edwards wanted a job—then he had a sex scandal and now he will be lucky to get a job blogging about the law for Slate.

The election is over, so bring on last season's political liabilities! Remember Mark Foley? He was the Republican Congressman from Florida who liked steamroom, and also young male congressional pages. Some, uh, inappropriate instant messenger exchanges with one of those young men came to light, and then the Republicans lost the 2006 mid-term elections. Foley said he was an alcoholic who'd been turned gay by a molesting priest as a child, resigned, and checked into rehab, never to be heard from again, until after the 2008 elections were safely over. Now he's opening up to the Associated Press, because he needs to tell his side of the story. His side of the story is sad and creepy.

John Edwards could have settled the question of whether or not he fathered the child of campaign "filmmaker" Rielle Hunter during his affair with her last year, but instead he left it up to the discretion of the National Enquirer. Edwards' payoffs through recently deceased trial lawyer Fred Baron had previously convinced Hunter to refuse a paternity test, but her rumored new tell-all book and an end to getting paid may change that reticence. Racing her to press is the Enquirer, who are apparently keen on settling the matter in the most disgusting way possible: DNA siphoned from a months-old dirty diaper.In the wake of the Edwards' potential separation and Hunter's pending tell-all, the tabloid says it collected a dirty diaper during its original stake-out of Edwards' visit to Hunter at the Beverly Hilton. The Daily News is reporting that the Enquirer has been holding onto the baby's stinky diaper hoping to get some of Edwards' DNA for a match. To compare the sample they have "all they need is a cup he drank from," says the News source. Of course, they'll need to get that cup before Rielle Hunter scoops the paper herself. If you really want the goods, why not match poop with poop? If Edwards is staying in a hotel, sabotage the hotel's sewage system and work from there. If you're in the shit, might as well go as deep as you can.

Fred Baron, a Texas trial lawyer, died last Thursday of cancer. Fellow litigators remember him for the "toxic tort" lawsuits he filed; politicos know him as the man who relocated former presidential candidate John Edwards's mistress, Rielle Hunter, to Santa Barbara, in the hopes of keeping her away from the public eye. But the Internet-obsessed crowd will inevitably think of him as the man who inflicted chesty-news videoblog Rocketboom on them; first, by fathering videoblogger Andrew Baron, then giving his son the funding for his project. Oh, and then suing him over it. Despite that, Andrew sought to have his father given an experimental cancer treatment. Blood is thicker than blogs.

Fred Baron, the attorney who rebuilt the Texas Democratic party and became famous, late in life, for his unfortunate help in covering up the extramarital affair of former Senator John Edwards, died Thursday of cancer. He was 61. Baron made a fortune in asbestos litigation, and used the funds to found the Texas Democratic Trust in 2005, among countless other philanthropic causes. In the Edwards affair, Baron was revealed as the source of the supposed "hush money" keeping mistress Rielle Hunter living in relative luxury. Baron fought corporations to the end, demanding that a pharmaceutical company allow him to use an experimental drug in his treatment. He won, but it didn't work. He won, but it didn't work. He is survived by his son Andrew, founder of the dumb internet video program Rocketboom. Andrew organized a movement to get his father the drug, enlisting Bill Clinton, Lance Armstrong, and John Kerry to help. [DallasNews]

As we noted Thursday morning, the Washington Post this week prominentaly mentioned that the wife of Democratic politician John Edwards, Elizabeth, was missing her wedding band when she recently stepped back into public view. Perhaps, we thought, this was a sign the marriage was over. But as commenter La Cieca first noticed, Edwards also went ringless in 2007; we dug through photo archives and found she's been slipping her ring on and off for years now, seemingly without regard for the ups and downs of her marriages. The band would appear meaningless as to the state of her marriage. And yet:

♦ Don't get your hopes up, but supposedly Madonna and Guy Ritchie are hoping to settle their divorce by early next week. Until then, though, we'll be treated to lots more gossip about their wacky marriage, including the set of rules Madonna posted on the wall of their Central Park West apartment and how she wanted to fill up their Olympic-size swimming pool with Kabbalah water. [NYP, Daily Mail]
♦ You think your house is complete chaos? For their stay in Berlin, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have six full-time nannies and a fleet of 20 Volkswagens (provided to them by the car company gratis, of course). [NYDN]
♦ Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former presidential contender John Edwards, was spotted without her wedding ring at an event Monday night. Now the talk is that the couple isn't living together anymore either. [P6]
♦ Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are supposedly feuding because Ashley wants a boob job, but doesn't want to get one unless Mary-Kate goes under the knife at the same time. [Star]

John Edwards knows how to drag out a scandal. After falsely denying an Oct. 2007 report he was cheating on cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, a more credible investigation was published in July, and Edwards spent several weeks dodging questions. He eventually confessed to ABC News, but insisted he hadn't fooled around with his mistress since 2006. Everyone thought that was bullshit, and now it looks like they were correct: The Washington Post this week noticed Elizabeth Edwards was missing her wedding band at a recent George Washington University appearance, with her husband absent. And Page Six heard further whispers:

Remember the Edwards scandal? It seems like it was so many crises ago. To remind you: attorney Fred Baron is the former Edwards campaign financer who saved the failed Presidential candidate by not being able to remember anything about paying for Edwards mistress Rielle Hunter's rent and legal needs. Baron's son—Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron—jumped into the fray with some unadvisable blogging in defense of his dad. The story began as a farce, but now it's veering towards tragedy: last week the elder Baron was diagnosed with multiple myeoma. He could die within the week unless he gets access to a certain miracle drug.Its manufacturer won't let it be used for that specific purpose, so his son is is appealing is appealing to the company to get its use approved. He's somehow gotten Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Lance Armstong and others involved:

The National Enquirer's John Edwards love child scoop turned out to have actually sold some extra issues! Funny how that works. The scandalous rag's August 11 issue claiming Edwards was paying $15k per month in hush money sold 738,000 issues—about 10% better than average. Unfortunately, the "tenfold increase in usual monthly traffic" to the Enquirer's website probably means that all their extra cash is going towards bandwidth payments—web advertising is pre-sold, and traffic spikes don't translate to immediate money. UNFORTUNATELY. [WWD]

Click to viewJohn Edwards has admitted to his affair with "filmmaker" Rielle Hunter, even if he hasn't come totally clean about the shenanigans he and his inner circle of advisors went through to keep it a secret. Elizabeth Edwards has also admitted that she knew about the affair before her husband formally announced his candidacy. But the Baron family — deep-pocketed trial lawyer Fred Baron and son Andrew Baron, who funded his startup Rocketboom from the family coffers — continue to hand-wave about what, exactly, they knew.Andrew Baron has denied he knew anything. But troublingly, he also says his dad didn't know about the affair, which strains belief — considering that it was Fred Baron's ongoing financial assistance to Hunter which blew Edwards's cover. I'm inclined to believe that the younger Baron was not, in fact, wise to the arrangement, and it's only natural to stick up for family. Unless you purport to be a news organization, in which case recusal is your best bet. Because it all makes Rocketboom's original coverage of the Edwards campaign look all the more fawning and uninformed in retrospect. By continuing to toe the family line in public adds fuel to a story that, like Edwards's political career, no longer really matters. While one might be willing to forgive the original faux pas of letting the campaign lead you around by the news nose, it doesn't help perceptions of questionable "new media" journalist ethics to continue to deny, deny, deny. As long as the younger Baron continues to trumpet his father's innocence in public, the more Rocketboom looks like it traded access for complicity, even if unintentionally. Andrew should probably take his own advice and "take a few days off."