John Edwards finally admits paternity; Mainstream media forced to eat crow in face of National Enquirer's investigative superiority

In news that surprises almost no one, John Edwards has finally admitted he's the father of Frances Quinn Hunter.  Part of Edwards' statement reads: "It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter, and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me."  Good luck with that.

The news has the mainstream media scrambling with how to cope with a story they obviously should have pursued, and broken, while this man was vying to be the President of our country.  The NYTimes doesn't even have the news on their website's frontpage, perhaps trying to downplay a story they fumbled?  The story, the National Enquirer's laudable coverage, and the mainstream media's complete indifference and incompetence have led some to wonder whether the Enquirer deserves a Pulitzer for their work.  Emily Miller has a long and thoughtful discussion here (via Gawker).  Miller offers up an old piece from Slate saying the Enquirer's accuracy is underrated.

For my thoughts, I can't believe the news sources we rely on messed this up so badly.  Look, I'm not saying they need to jump down the throats of every guy who's ever been unfaithful.  But being unfaithful with someone on your staff who you are paying to make totally irrelevant campaign materials with campaign money and who likely only became part of your staff after you started diddling her, then lying about it repeatedly and indignantly, having donors pay her hush money, and making an extremely strange deal with your top aide for him to claim paternity, all while your wife is dying of breast cancer displays some serious flaws in judgment (not to mention violations of election laws) we the American people might want to know about before electing this man to lead our country.  Mmm-kay, media people?

See this piece in New York Mag (excerpted from Game Change) for an unbelievable timeline of what was unfolding during the election.  When you have your own former staffers conspiring to keep you from the nomination and the mainstream media hasn't said a peep, something is wrong.