The John Edwards love-baby story: What took so long?

Who knew that the biggest story to break at the television critics' tour would happen while we were all in our rooms getting some shut-eye?

In the wee hours of Tuesday, July 22, John Edwards — the former senator from North Carolina, former presidential candidate and running mate in 2004 — was confronted by reporters for the National Enquirer at a men's room of the Beverly Hilton, the very hotel where TCA summer press tour had concluded a few hours earlier. They believed he was there to pay a visit to the child he had fathered out of wedlock and the baby's mother, an ex-campaign staffer named Rielle Hunter.

On Wednesday, the story finally started to trickle out into the mainstream, beginning with Wikipedia and followed today by a news story in our sister paper, the News & Observer. Given the Enquirer's stellar track record in reporting such things, why was the media so slow?

If I were you, I'd dispense with the idea that a liberal conspiracy of silence kept this story under wraps. It wasn't under wraps. In December 2007, Drudge Report passed along this National Enquirer story confirming that Hunter was, indeed, pregnant and living in a gated community near a close Edwards confidant (who had argued, in a lovely parallel to the Anna Nicole story, that the baby was actually his).

Edwards was still running for president last December. Why didn't his opponents jump on this? Why didn't the story get any traction? One likely reality is that vigorous denials from campaign staffers, veiled threats to put reporters off the bus if they persisted, and the absence of any follow-up reporting from the Enquirer or any other source combined to take the air out of the story.

That doesn't explain why it took 10 days for the Enquirer ambush — which was almost immediately confirmed by a security guard — to make it out of the tabloidosphere. Paul Harris and listeners were talking it up on WLS Radio in Chicago last week. Yet the story just sat there. And even though bloggers love to talk about the MSM's irrelevance, smart ones like Mickey Kaus recognized that mainstream coverage was indispensable to getting Edwards, and the Democratic left, to finally treat his open wound.

Parked in front of the Beverly Hilton, 7/19/2008. That was "Stylista" and "90210" day at TV critics' tour. (Photo by me)

You can argue that Edwards is a private citizen, and that merited extra caution. I don't buy it. Even if Howard Fineman is right and Edwards isn't on Obama's short list for vice president, until the running mate is actually named, it's ridiculous to treat him as though he's returned to Mount Vernon like Cincinnatus.

So that leaves the Elizabeth factor. Regardless of what one thinks of John Edwards or his politics, the popularity of and public affection for Elizabeth Edwards is undeniably high. She was an effective campaigner because she was seen as the honest broker her husband, the candidate, couldn't always be.

Elizabeth Edwards is the real reason this story hasn't gained traction until now. I think that out of respect for EE, and a desire not to compound her grim cancer scenario with further emotional pain probably caused editors to hold back reporting the story until something else came along.

Two things happened Wednesday that seem to have pushed this over the edge. First, after more than a week of acrimonious debate, Wikipedia editors gave in and began including references to the alleged affair in its John Edwards entry. As Wired's reporter aptly put it: "Some users wondered why ... The New York Times' John McCain lobbyist affair (story) could be relied upon, but not a tabloid like The National Enquirer."

Then on Wednesday, John Edwards bolted from reporters after a public appearance. In a weird parallel to his Beverly Hilton encounter, he ducked out of a hotel kitchen area on Wednesday in the hopes of avoiding the press. Not a good way to erase suspicion.

Perhaps that's why our McClatchy Washington bureau has put the Edwards story on the wire.

I doubt that anything was lost in the 10 days since the late-night encounter at the hotel — other than a chance for me to score an exclusive camera-phone shot of the room where the senator allegedly visited his love baby — but I am not sold at all on the idea that liberal squeamishness was the reason the press held back on this story. (If anything, the ineptitude with which the Times fast-tracked its allegations against McCain should be a cautious lesson about rushing a story to press.)

And let me say this as someone married to a breast cancer survivor. If I were in John Edwards' position, and I could pull myself away from the nearest mirror (that hair is to die for), I would play the Elizabeth card as aggressively as I could. I would have my advisers tell the press, on the QT, to keep quiet about the story because it's a painful time for the family as it is. That's an unpleasant truth (not that I'd ever cheat on my wife), but as long as it kept alive the possibility that this story might go away again, I'd do it. I wouldn't be proud to do it, but I'd do it.

Then again, it sounds like John Edwards doesn't have much to be proud of lately.