Having an affair with a married politician, having a baby with him, accepting money from the politician's supporters—those are just the kind of things that could happen to anybody, really. We all make mistakes. But Rielle Hunter, sexily posed on her toddler's bed, reveals more than just her underwear. It's hard to argue that the photoshoot is anything but poor judgment on every possible level. It's a poor parental call: Your daughter will have to burn those toys and the bedspread, but the memories—not to mention the picture—will digitally stalk her forever. It's a poor PR call: The few die-hard romantics who believed in the "magnetic force field" that Ms. Hunter says drew her to John Edwards may be tempted to reconsider, given this fresh evidence of general foolhardiness. And it's just a poor call overall: Kermit, maybe. Barney—well, it's a huge stretch. But no one will ever make Dora the Explorer sexy.

Tags: John Edwards, Rielle Hunter; elizabeth edwards; marriage and commitment

KJ, I keep trying to connect the bad judgment Rielle Hunter exhibited in this interview with the bad judgment she exhibited in posing, with her child, for a series of photos that look like a creepy, male sex-fantasy from 1984. Pearls? Stuffed animals? Men’s shirt? Belly button? It all sort of puts the “ill” back into MILF doesn’t it?

The interview is almost unbearable in its silliness: “One thing I've learned about relationships and men is that you can never walk across the room for a man.” And: “It's beyond difficult. To allow a man to be a man.” And: “I could have helped save the world, but I had to sleep with him.” Every time Hunter makes a consequential choice—to sleep with Edwards on the day they met,  to become involved with a married man—she blames “the force field” of their love. There’s not a lick of remorse, growth, or responsibility in here. She’s just sort of bobbing along in a New Age current of words from one bad decision to the next. It’s funny that Hunter’s singular obsession with Edwards is that, as she explains, “His public persona just did not match who he is.” She has no such problem. Given 10 pages to finally tell us who she really is, Hunter reveals herself as exactly the same amoral sex-kitten/child captured in these photographs.

Photograph of John Edwards by Michael Williams/Getty Images.

Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, rielle hunter

KJ, Dahlia, I read Rielle’s interview and immediately thought of many yoga teachers I’ve met, the acolytes of Marianne Williamson and other devotees of what they call “Eastern” religion. The blossoming New Age/Buddhism lite that populates yoga classes talks about the toxic nature of the Western “ego” (you know, we work too hard, we value ourselves above others, etc.) But then it replaces this ego with something like a supreme inner deity residing in all of us whose dictates can never be ignored. Dahlia, you call it silly but to Rielle it’s so profound—divine, even.

I had never experienced anything like what was flowing between us. I sat on the other side of the room. I wouldn't go near him. And he kept saying [she mimics his southern drawl], "What are you doin' over there? Come over here. I can't even see you. Come closer. I won't bite you." I was just—there was sooo much attraction and sooo much… I want to say love, but it wasn't love at that point. You know, it was just this, this magnetic force field like I had never experienced. It terrified me. Absolutely terrified me.

A lesser mind might call this lust or even fatal attraction, but to Rielle it’s destiny, ordained by the gods.

Rielle does not really mention his other children or even Elizabeth except as an object of pity or someone going through a “process” of her own, because what are mere mortals in the face of such a supreme force? She will never accept that she did anything wrong—probably she’s never considered it—because she has convinced herself that she and Johnny exist on a higher plane.

Everyone talks about how Johnny has fallen from grace. In reality, he's fallen to grace. He is integrated. He is living a life of truth. He has grown in awareness and humility. He had all these things within him, but they weren't the guiding, leading principles of his life. Now they are.

Even her pregnancy, news of which came as Johnny was renewing his wedding vows with his wife and about to announce his candidacy, she attributes to “divine timing.”

And I just felt like Quinnie needed to come into the world and this wasn't our timing, this was divine timing and he needed to get on board. And figure that one out. And it's interesting, because it's not over yet. That's the other thing. Everyone has such judgments about "He's lost everything." But you know, life isn't over. He's gone through an amazing transformation. And who knows what's gonna happen.

And then there’s the matter of her “business” card. Apparently it did not say "truth -seeker" on it. It said "Rielle Hunter: Being is free." I’m really glad she cleared that up.

Photograph of woman by Photodisc/Getty Images.

Tags: rielle hunter, Rielle Hunter and GQ, Rielle Hunter poses for GQ

I hate to bring this conversation about Rielle thudding back down to earth, Hanna, since surely I should be exalted by her conception of the divine. But Diane Dimond at the Daily Beast says she knows what's in the Rielle-Johnny sex tape:

The Daily Beast can now describe the video in detail, based on accounts from multiple people who have viewed it. One source who has a medical background and has worked with pregnant patients says Hunter appears four or five months pregnant based on the swollen state of her belly and nipples. This would would place the tape's filming somewhere around September or October of 2007, smack in the middle of Edwards campaign for the presidency.

That's right—John Edwards apparently made a porn video with a woman he picked up in a hotel bar in the middle of his bid to become the Democratic presidential nominee. If Rielle is New Age gauzy-crazy, he is stark, raving mad.

Tags: John Edwards, rielle hunter

Apparently Rielle is unhappy with her GQ photo shoot. (I screamed for two hours, she told Barbara Walters. Video below.) I guess it was the wily photographer who got her to take her pants off and strike a come hither pose next to Barney and Kermit. No matter. However it happened, we are now stuck with two frightening images of Rielle on the bed: the Barney image, and this other one from the Daily Beast description of the sex tape: (Emily, you were too classy to include the graphic description, so I will.)

On the video, both participants are naked. Hunter is propped up against the hotel bed headboard, with John Edwards belly-down on the bed between her legs. As Hunter, the campaign's official videographer, holds the camera, a smiling Edwards performs oral sex. Because of the camera angle, Hunter's face is not visible, but her distinctive jewelry is. Not only does candidate Edwards know he's being filmed, one source says, he's also clowning around and graphically performing for the camera.

Barney. Johnny. Pregnant. Dora. Oral sex. “Clowning around.” God, the more I stare at that GQ photo, the more it looks like Barney and Kermit are the ones "graphically performing." Help! It’s all starting to blend together.

Tags: rielle hunter, Rielle Hunter and GQ, sex tape

Rielle Hunter says she trusted the GQ photographer who took the pictures that accompany her artless prattling not to use them (or at least, maybe to use just one sexy one, because that would have been much better). Is there any way to blame Mark Seliger for permanently linking the image of Barney with that of John Edwards performing oral sex in Hanna's mind? Sadly, no.

After condemning Rielle Hunter for her poor judgement in posing, I listened to Barbara Walters describe an interview with Hunter in which Hunter says she "screamed for two hours" when she saw herself sexily arrayed next to her daughter's impressive pack of branded, stuffed creations. I wanted to feel at least a little sympathy—she wouldn't be the first woman to find herself manipulated by a photographer and a glamorous photo shoot. But still, Walters never said so directly, but she certainly implied that she would have been happy to have the first interview with Rielle Hunter. I'd imagine dozens of news programs and publications would have been. But Hunter chose GQ. Why?

My first guess was money, but I was flat-out wrong—Hunter "didn't make a penny for this interview." So the question that I really wanted Walters to have asked (and maybe she did, but didn't get an answer) was, then why GQ? It seems to me that when Hunter agreed to play with GQ, she agreed to play by their rules—and their prime directive when dealing with women subjects is titillate first, ask questions later. That can't be a surprise to anyone who's ever walked by a newstand. It's hard to believe Rielle Hunter could have been naive enough to think she could manipulate GQ into changing their game, but then, it's hard to believe anyone would describe John Edwards as having fallen "to grace" or "living a life of truth."

GQ has had its moments of serious journalism, but if Hunter was really hoping that her interview would be one of them, she shouldn't have taken off her pants. It may be that a woman who puts "being is free" on her business cards just isn't a woman who ought to attempt to play with the big dogs. But that ship has sailed, and now Hanna is stuck with her unfortunate new Kermit the Frog associations. The rest of get a fresh reminder of an important rule that's been true since the days of the daguerrotype: the man with the camera suggesting you undo just one more button almost never has your best interests at heart.

Tags: John Edwards, Rielle Hunter poses for GQ

I find all this Rielle Hunter bashing troubling. Sure, she is trashy. Sure, she is not that sophisticated or wildly intelligent in her analysis of the affair, but lots of celebrities in magazine profiles are equally New Age-y and pose for pictures in equal states of undress. There is something in all of this bashing that to me has a Hawthorne-like quality. Think of Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter. There is a nasty female cattiness to all of this, and a retrograde moral subtext to the school-yard fierceness. Women always blame women in questions of betrayal, and I think this tendency should be examined. Who cares if Rielle Hunter is sort of silly? What does the extremity of our reaction to her say about us?

Tags: rielle hunter