folo

Wouldn’t you know, about the time NMC must admit some interest in the Edwards-Hunter story, I must admit growing boredom with it. So barring some politically-important development, I expect this to be my last post on the subject, and that just to tie up a few loose ends.

I caught plenny grief for it at the time, but what convinced me that the July 22 Enquirer story called for a folo post was its level of detail. Seeing all that, I knew it had to be going bigger before long, and as the hours, then days passed with no Edwards lawsuit, I (ruefully) knew in which direction.

Now NYT has deployed Serge Kovaleski to fetch up a chap who I’ll-bet-you-anything recently received a nice check from the Enquirer, one “Robert McGovern, a California resident described as a spiritual healer of 20 years and a friend and former associate of the woman with whom Mr. Edwards has admitted having the affair, Rielle Hunter.”

In an interview on Friday night on "Nightline" on ABC, during which Mr. Edwards acknowledged that he once had a relationship with Ms. Hunter, he said that Mr. McGovern was the one who reached out to him to arrange the July 21 meeting and that Mr. McGovern was in the hotel room that night.

But little is known about Mr. McGovern, who is 64, according to records, and lives with his wife in a modest ranch-style home a few miles from downtown Santa Barbara. The Web site Margaretsweet.com, which promotes spirituality and New Age practices, recently carried a brief biography of Mr. McGovern, describing him as "an intuitive" and "a healer since 1988" who had worked "with energy in the area of the emotional fields." The biography is no longer on the site.

"He uses philosophy, psychology and the intuitive to find resolutions that move people back into alignment with the universe and into a place of peace, harmony and joy," the site said. "Bob uses the intuitive to help people with a variety of life issues, including relationships, career and health."

The description of Mr. McGovern, posted in a section called "Helpful Dudes," also said he tried to empower people so they could deal with the challenges of everyday life with greater understanding.

"His knowledge of the past and the future helps people find balance in the present," it said. "He is able to separate out surrounding negative energy, which allows people to have a clearer perception of their own options and choices."

Yeh-shuah. But nice to see the Times finally doing some reporting here. The big papers’ humma-humma fest since July 22 and again since Friday night has tickled me. NYT’s “public editor” (ombudsman) Clark Hoyt has to admit Sometimes, There’s News in the Gutter in a folo to his colleagues Richard Pérez-Peña and Bill Carter’s sheepishly-defensive Reticence of Mainstream Media Becomes a Story Itself. At WaPo, Howie Kurtz’ Affair Put Press in A Touchy Situation intones (emphasis mine):

The fact that big newspapers, magazines and networks have standards — that is, they refuse to print every stray rumor just because it’s “out there” — is one of their strengths. But in the latter stages of this case, it made them look clueless. Perhaps there is a middle ground where media outlets can report on a burgeoning controversy without vouching for the underlying allegations, being candid with readers and viewers about what they know and don’t know.

In the end, the much-derided MSM were superfluous, their monopoly a faded memory. People have hundreds of ways to obtain information in today’s instantaneous media culture, and are capable of reaching their own conclusions about what is reliable and what is not.

Exactly.

I wrote “… either way, I hate to see this,” visualizing the faces of Elizabeth Edwards and her children and thinking, “My God, have they not been through enough, with enough more to go, without this?”  But now that it turns out Elizabeth signed onto this year’s campaign in full knowledge of the affair, my admiration for her has plummeted with my regard for John (as always, her quotient remains somewhat higher than his, but it’s fallen apace).

So this is to Elizabeth Edwards:

I’m sorry you married a tomcat, but that’s your problem, baby. You can’t front for him, trying to make him a whole party’s and a whole country’s problem, and expect to retain my good will. You make me tired too.