Keeping it “Rielle” With “Love Lips”

August 12, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Democratic Party, Election 2008 

Developments continue apace in the saga of former Sen. John Edwards and Rielle Hunter, nee Lisa Druck. The first question is just how the erstwhile videographer’s first name is pronounced. Frank Gannon below refers to reports that it’s said to be like “Riley.” But at Deceiver.com, which has been running posts and comments about the scandal nonstop since the National Enquirer caught Edwards visiting Hunter in a hotel room in Beverly Hills two weeks ago, readers are directed to a blog written by a woman who was a friend of Hunter’s when she was deciding to change her first name. The former friend says that at the time, Hunter thought she needed a name that was all about “keeping it real.” (Indeeed, as the late, great Jonathan Harris might say in his portrayal of Dr. Zachary Smith.) After experimenting with several variants she decided on “Rielle,” pronounced real.

It may be that before long Hunter’s Wikipedia entry may help settle the question of how Rielle is pronounced – and perhaps from an authoritative source. One blogger has recently noted the entry at the online encyclopedia concerning Hunter has been altered and amended by someone who seems to be either Rielle Hunter or one of her sisters.

(In this respect a discussion at the website of the showhorse magazine The Chronicle Of The Horse is worth mentioning. Several people have posted with reminiscences of Rielle Hunter when she was riding on the show circuit, and mention her two sisters Roxanne and Jennifer. But none of these people recall a sister named Melissa Druck, though a person by that name who identifies herself as Hunter’s younger sibling has frequently been quoted in news stories about the scandal.)

In an earlier version, the Wikipedia entry about Hunter had several sentences concerning allegations that Hunter’s late father James Druck had taught Tommy “The Sandman” Burns how to electrocute horses to obtain insurance money. (The horse on whom Burns learned the craft, “Henry the Hawk,” turns out to be one Lisa/Rielle herself rode on the circuit.) But these sentences were removed by one “ALJDJDD,” who explains that “I deleted information about my father that was false,” and states that he was not charged with criminal activity in connection to the insurance scam.

Hopefully ALJDJDD, besides clearing things up about how to pronounce Rielle, can also answer, before long, what is shaping up to be the overwhelming question in the Edwards case: Just how much money was paid out to Rielle Hunter, and any person who might have been associated with her in this affair, and from where were the funds derived?

Last night some panelists on CNN’s Larry King Live, among them the editor of the National Enquirer, noted that this is a question now being examined by several newsgathering organizations. (Earlier in the broadcast, veteran politico Joe Trippi, who managed Edwards’ 2008 campaign from the day it was announced to its end, stated that not only did he have no inkling of the Hunter affair when he joined the campaign, but that after the Enquirer broke the Hunter story last fall Edwards repeatedly assured him the allegations were false – and that he believed the candidate’s denials.) Several recent articles have also pointed out a curious coincidence: on July 30, just after Edwards’ visit to Hunter in Beverly Hills, the Center For Promise And Opportunity, the nonprofit foundation he set up in 2005 ostensibly to fund college scholarships for poor high-schoolers, was shut down, as was the single scholarship program it is known to have funded in a North Carolina high school. During its three years of existence, it was occasionally noted among journalists that Edwards’ travels, ostensibly to promote the Center, seemed to have most of the earmarks of the warmup to another presidential campaign.

One has the feeling Edwards would welcome more speculation about whether a publicist friend of Hunter’s really has the first name Pidgeon (or is it Pigeon?) and less probing into where the money went or from whence it came. But there do seem to be a lot of leads out there. Can reporters follow them?

Update: After writing the above I came across a curious instance of what seems to have been an attempt to censor discussion of the Edwards/Hunter relationship early this year. In the last months of 2007, three separate bloggers posted regarding the initial Enquirer report (and Sam Stein’s related articles in The Huffington Post at the time).

Just after 1 am EST on the morning of January 6, 2008 – the Sunday before the New Hampshire primary – someone identifying himself as “Mark” in one blog, “Jared” in another, and “Anonymous” in a third, posted the same message in these blogs:

Please remove this story. I was hired by the Edward’s [sic] campaign to assist in cleansing the internet of Negative John Edwards stories. DO NOT PUT IN COMMENTS SECTION. Thank you for your kind assistance.

What to make of this request? Was someone in the Edwards camp really trying to hide online references to Rielle Hunter? Was this an effort by someone in a competing campaign to embarrass Edwards in some fashion? (If so, it was a very low-key attempt indeed.) Or was Hunter herself, just before bedtime out on the West Coast, trying to “cleanse” the web? Presumably the bloggers involved could check the inadvertent “comments” to see from what computers or terminals they came from.

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