The condition known as “scaredaprisonitis” is very common in situations like this, or we could chalk it up to something as simple as a “bad hair day” — only John Edwards, his lawyers and Bain de Soleil valet know for sure:

Former presidential candidate John Edwards says he has been diagnosed with a medical condition that would make it difficult for him to attend his approaching criminal trial over campaign finances and is asking for it to be delayed.

In a motion filed Thursday, Edwards’ lawyers asked a federal judge to delay the start of the Jan. 30 trial for at least two months. They did not disclose his illness and filed sealed records with the court.

“The Defendant has a medical issue … that will prevent a trial of this matter during the January 2012 Criminal Term,” the motion says. “The failure to grant a continuance would be likely to result in a miscarriage of justice.”
[...]
The start date of the trial has already been put back once after Edwards said he needed more time to prepare his defense and attend his daughter’s wedding.

Edwards appeared healthy last week at a pretrial hearing in the case.

So what’s the medical condition? I’m guessing it might be… oh, let’s just say the result of extended periods of nervousness caused by the possibility of being transferred from the first America to the second America.

The undisclosed illness means Edwards is now facing the ultimate dilemma for a man with his legal resume: Trying to figure out how to chase his own ambulance.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

At the moment, the Washington Post’s story is only one sentence long:

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal grand jury has indicted two-time presidential candidate John Edwards

I would not want to go to prison with a nickname like Silky Pony.

If Edwards does in fact end up doing time, will he be put up in a minimum security country club facility where “Pink Sapphire” is a salon and not the name of his cellmate? We’ll see how it plays out.

This Star News editorial, written before the indictment, is a reminder that the victims in the John Edwards saga are Edwards’ children:

Regardless of whether this case makes its way to court or fizzles with nary a charge, one has to feel for Edwards’ children – both those he raised with his wife and his daughter with Hunter. They are certainly not at fault for their father’s behavior, but unfortunately they will be saddled with his baggage.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has an analysis of the charges.

Update: Edwards’ attorney said he’ll plead not guilty to all charges — except the count that accuses him of being exquisitely exfoliated.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The comeuppance of one of Capitol Hill’s crappiest crapweasels is here.

John Edwards — a.k.a. Silky Pony, Breck Boy, Seabiscuit — will now face formal prosecution for alleged violations of campaign laws while he tried to cover up his extra-marital fling with flaky Rielle Hunter.

ABC News has the story:

A source close to the case said Edwards is aware that the government intends to seek an indictment and that the former senator from North Carolina is now considering his limited options. He could accept a plea bargain with prosecutors or face a potentially costly trial.

Edwards has been the focus of a lengthy federal investigation focusing on hundreds of thousands of dollars allegedly provided by two wealthy supporters. The government will contend those were illegal donations that ultimately went to support and seclude his mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Hunter was a campaign videographer with whom Edwards had a lengthy affair that resulted in a daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter, now three years old.

Aaron Worthing at Patterico offers some free advice and a video reminder: “If they offer a plea that allows you to avoid actual prison time, take it. Seriously you don’t want to risk going to prison. You won’t do well in prison.”

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air predicts: “I’m guessing Edwards cuts a deal for a minimum-security federal facility for no more than two years, and gets out in 18 months with at least some of his fortune intact.”

If not his precious mane…

She leaves behind three children who deserve all the prayers that you can muster to lift them up, no matter what your politics are.

More:

Elizabeth Edwards, the political wife whose public battle with breast cancer, coping with marital infidelity and continued advocacy for the downtrodden raised her profile above that of her husband, died Tuesday, WRAL News has learned. She was 61.

Edwards died at her Chapel Hill home, where family and friends had gathered in recent days after doctors informed her that her cancer had spread and recommended that she not undergo further treatment.

As I noted in 2005, Mrs. Edwards was able to set aside partisanship when it came to the ravages of cancer. As should we all.

R.I.P.

He already admitted he had lied repeatedly about his affair with Rielle Hunter. Then in August 2008, after admitting he had become “increasingly egocentric and narcissistic,” he told the press he “will have nothing more to say.”

Then came “Game Change” revelations published in the New York this month by journalists who belong to the MSM clique that scoffed at the tabloid story for so long:

“As for Elizabeth Edwards, she is reportedly now urging John to accede to Hunter’s demands and take responsibility for his paternity of Frances Quinn—a dramatic and no doubt painful turnabout from her position eighteen months ago. Confronted then with the Enquirer photo of her husband cuddling Hunter’s baby, she insisted to Palmieri that she still believed he was not the father. ‘I have to believe it,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Because if I don’t, it means I’m married to a monster.’”

The “monster’s” admission comes this morning to NBC News:

“I am Quinn’s father. I will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves. I have been able to spend time with her during the past year and trust that future efforts to show her the love and affection she deserves can be done privately and in peace.

It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me. I have been providing financial support for Quinn and have reached an agreement with her mother to continue providing support in the future.

To all those I have disappointed and hurt these words will never be enough, but I am truly sorry.”

As usual, the confession is as calculated as an algebra exam. Edwards is preempting the publicity wave that will hit next month when a tell-all book by Andrew Young, a longtime aide to Mr. Edwards, is released. Young participated in a distraction ruse claiming he was the father of Hunter’s baby.

Like sands in the hourglass, these are the prolonged days of Edwards’ lies.

Yawn.

***

Flashback: A photoshop reminder of the double-standards between the Palin-bashing gossip mags last fall and the AWOL coverage of Edwards. The US Weekly cover you didn’t see:

Credit: Reader Dave L.

***

Update:

Oh, crikey. Ambulance chaser/skirt chaser Edwards flew to Haiti and is there to rehabilitate his image by exploiting the humanitarian crisis.

So. Typical. Once a crapweasel, always a crapweasel.

Of course, Edwards isn’t the only cretinous political opportunist with a love child now gallivanting around in Haiti. Jesse Jackson’s there, too.

People magazine puts Elizabeth Edwards on the cover this week to spotlight her anguish over Silky’s adultery. We learn that there was much “tension” behind the scenes.

I remember that tension breaking through in public. And it’s interesting to go back and watch it now that everyone knows what John Edwards didn’t want his wife to know and apparently only told her in several, Chinese water torture-like installments.

The odd, uncomfortable interview was aired in December 2006 on Hardball. It caught my eye and ear when Elizabeth joked to Chris Matthews that John Edwards couldn’t tell a joke. Matthews razzed Edwards for letting his wife “bust her balls” and cackled: “Behind every great man, there‘s a woman trying to kill him.” Edwards looked p.o.’ed. The chemistry of the supposedly tight and loving couple was off.

More telling, though, was an exchange that occurred a few minutes later when Matthews raised Elizabeth’s criticism of Hillary. Elizabeth had told Ladies’ Home Journal that she had a “more joyful” life than Hillary because of the choices she had made.

Matthews asked if this was meant as a criticism of Hillary sticking with her cheating husband. The characteristically unflustered Elizabeth Edwards…well, I’ll let you watch the rest. The body language experts should have a field day:

Transcript

1:19 MATTHEWS: Were you well used by John Kerry?

J. EDWARDS: I‘ll ask—I‘m not—I‘ll let you guys talk about that.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I want to fight here.

What did you think of hi joke about—if you flunk out of school, you don‘t do too well, you‘re not too smart, you get us stuck in Iraq. And it got turned around.

What did you make of that?

J. EDWARDS: I think he just made a mistake.

MATTHEWS: What was he saying?

J. EDWARDS: I think he was trying to say, you better stay…

E. EDWARDS: Don‘t go there.

CROWD: (APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: No, no. Come on.

J. EDWARDS: … not the first time.

MATTHEWS: I‘ll tell you one thing. I could tell there was a fight coming because Hillary dumped on him, McCain dumped on him, nobody cut him an inch. He just screwed up a joke. He‘s not a comedian, OK?

J. EDWARDS: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: He‘s just not a comedian.

J. EDWARDS: Too big a deal was made of it.

E. EDWARDS: There are not that many politicians who are actually very good at jokes. John spoke one time and I said I wouldn‘t even go because it was—he was supposed to be funny and I didn‘t think he could carry it off.

CROWD: (LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: I love it. You‘re great. Behind every great man, there‘s a woman trying to kill him.

CROWD: (LAUGHTER)

E. EDWARDS: He has great characteristics.

MATTHEWS: What is it? Does she do this? Does she bust your balls like this when you come home? When you get (INAUDIBLE), does she do that?

CROWD: (APPLAUSE)

E. EDWARDS: My children are watching this.

CROWD: (LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: What‘s this with the equal marriages? Why do people marry their equals? It used to be different? What happened to the Stepford wives, the good old days? What happened?

CROWD: (BOOING)

MATTHEWS: Oh, how P.C. How—why don‘t you hiss?

Oh, thank you. Finally, the freaking hiss. I needed it. It was the hiss. I needed that.

E. EDWARDS: You know have to know how smart his wife is in order to…

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this. This is…

J. EDWARDS: He immediately got…

MATTHEWS: … because you know—because Senator—Senator—

Senator Edwards was really—I thought I‘d try to get him at an angle here. He said that, having ran, it‘s like the Super Bowl, they usually win, the team that‘s been there before, or the Final Four, in the case of the UNC, which is always in the Final Four.

CROWD: (APPLAUSE)

MATTHEWS: You‘ve been there before. You have an edge over Mrs.

Obama. Do you have an edge, Mr. Clinton, the first spouse? Do you have an edge over these guys? I‘m mean, you‘ve been there as a candidate‘s wife, you‘ve been there as a candidate.

Can you roll into New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Iowa with some edge?

E. EDWARDS: What I have in those places is not an edge. I think that there are, among the potential spouses this time, I mean, these are fabulous people with enormous skills. I have a lot of friends. I mean, I don‘t go in and…

MATTHEWS: Well, they won‘t be friends.

E. EDWARDS: I beg your pardon?

MATTHEWS: Once the campaign gets going.

E. EDWARDS: No. No, I mean—actually, I had a good relationship, I think, through most of the campaign with the other spouses. But no, I mean, in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, in Nevada, in those—

I have a lot of friends in those. If John decides to do this, I‘m going—

I won‘t be walking into a room full of strangers.

MATTHEWS: Has Hillary ever called you back after you said you had made happier choices than she has and you have a more joyous life than she does because of the choices she made? Meaning, she let Bill mess around?

E. EDWARDS: Is that what I meant?

No…

MATTHEWS: Isn‘t that what you meant?

E. EDWARDS: That was completely taken out of context.

MATTHEWS: What was the context?

E. EDWARDS: I had said that the choices I had made—I worked as a lawyer for 17 years, and now I get a lot of intellectual simulation from the conversations about policy that I got from work before, I know get from conversations….

MATTHEWS: But he has not caused any trouble.

E. EDWARDS: No, he hasn‘t.

MATTHEWS: So what did you mean when you said—what did you mean by Hillary having made bad choices?

E. EDWARDS: I wasn‘t. I was talking about my choices making me happier.

MATTHEWS: So I‘m been unfair?

E. EDWARDS: Well, and unfair to both of us, honestly.

***

Mickey Kaus asks: How big a victim is Elizabeth Edwards?

Smells fishy to me, too.

See here, here, and here.

This has already been thrown back in Silky’s face:

“…I think every single candidate for president, Republican and Democratic have lives, personal lives, that indicate something about what kind of human being they are. And I think it is a fair evaluation for America to engage in to look at what kind of human beings each of us are, and what kind of president we’d make.”

And bloggers are taking a second look at Edwards’ very splashy People magazine photos spotlighting the renewal of his wedding vows with Elizabeth in June 2007–a stunt that scored major gushing from the lib media.

Was this staged to throw off questions about his fidelity? Did the family actually go along with such a ploy? Ugh.

Another one:

I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen.

Breathtaking. Yeah.

***

Update: Via Allah, here’s the Edwards mea culpa. A little late for humility, isn’t it?

It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up — feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.

I have given a complete interview on this matter and having done so, will have nothing more to say.

ABC News has the scoop:

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extra-marital affair with a novice film-maker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 42-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter’s baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby’s birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.

According to friends of Hunter, Edwards met her at a New York city bar in 2006. His political action committee later paid her $114,000 to produce campaign website documentaries despite her lack of experience.

Edwards said the affair began during the campaign after she was hired. Hunter traveled with Edwards around the country and to Africa.

Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and others in his family became aware of the affair in 2006.

Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife’s cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter. Elizabeth Edwards has since been diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease.

When the National Enquirer first reported the alleged Edwards-Hunter affair last October 11, Edwards, his campaign staff and Hunter vociferously denounced the report.

“The story is false, it’s completely untrue, it’s ridiculous,” Edwards told reporters then.

What a crapweasel.

Allah notes the detail about Edwards’ wife and family becoming aware of the affair in 2006 and writes:

If the affair ended so long ago that he couldn’t be the father of a child born in February of this year, what’s he doing sneaking out to a hotel late at night to visit his old girlfriend?

Also: When exactly did they become aware, I wonder, as Edwards paraded the family on the campaign trail? Agh.

***

Flashback: Edwards exploits wife’s cancer to raise campaign funds.

The Congressional Black Caucus forwarded two names to Barack Obama’s veep team: Sam Nunn and John Edwards. (Story at Townhall.) The Nunn pick is in line with what I wrote about the veepstakes in February:

Obama’s pick is a bit more difficult to game out. I think he’d also go for an older “statesman” type to bolster his weak foreign policy/national security credentials. I’m thinking Lee Hamilton. Moderate Democrat. Long resume with experience on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Iraq Study group, Hart-Rudman Commission, the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, and, of course, the 9/11 Commission circus.

Nunn would bring weight and gravitas to the ticket.

John Edwards would bring what? Hairspray?

Seriously?

What’s the Congressional Black Caucus thinking? Beats the hell out of me. We won’t look a gift pony in the mouth, though. Pooh-Silky ’08 is great fodder for the army of Photoshoppers!

Speaking of which, I have to get in another Pooh photoshop. This one’s from reader Erin. Instant classic:

Reminds me of Allahpundit’s 2004 classic:

The more things change…

He won’t be missed. Not the cloying, braying sanctimony. Not the hypocritical Fox-bashing. Not the oleaginous class warfare. Not the odious politicization of Memorial Day.

And not the hair.

All together now: DLTDHYOTWO.

So long, Silky:

Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies but never diverted his campaign, The Associated Press has learned.

The two-time White House candidate notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. EST event in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two of his advisers. The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

The former North Carolina senator will not immediately endorse either candidate in what is now a two-person race for the Democratic nomination, said one adviser, who spoke on a condition of anonymity in advance of the announcement.

**

Allah wonders: Deal with Obama?

Look back at these South Carolina primary exit poll results.

Will more of those votes go to Hillary or Obama? “Where do male white Democrat voters go?”

One analyst is telling Fox that they’ll go to Hillary. I say Obama.

We’ll see.

Update 7:11pm Eastern. Obama is the runaway winner. Hillary has left SC for Nashville…

Barack Obama routed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially-charged South Carolina primary Saturday night, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was running third, a sharp setback in the state where he was born and scored a primary victory in his first presidential campaign four years ago.

The Associated Press made its call based on surveys of voters as they left the polls.

About half the voters were black, according to polling place interviews, and four out of five of them supported Obama. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers. Clinton and Edwards each won roughly 40 percent of the white vote, with about 25 percent going to Obama, the first-term Illinois senator.

***
Polls close at 7pm Eastern. South Carolina media outlets are reporting record turnout. The State:

Good weather and an attractive slate of candidates have South Carolina Democrats expecting record turnout for today’s presidential primary, continuing a trend seen in other early-voting states.

A big turnout likely will propel the winning candidate into so-called “Tsunami Tuesday,” when more than 20 states vote Feb. 5. But state party leaders said it also will make Democrats more competitive in South Carolina.

Despite the surge in voters, though, few believe a Democratic candidate has a shot to win South Carolina in November’s general election. The numbers aren’t there yet.

Adam at Palmetto Scoop blogs on the “corridor of shame” and “the lack of any real change that will come from all the Democrats’ empty rhetoric.”

Meanwhile, back in the Clinton camp: Robocalls.

And via Yahoo News, baby-hurling!