FOR JOHN EDWARDS, THE MAN WHO SCHTUPPED WHILE HIS WIFE STUMPED, THE BABE BE HIS...

John Edwards, the man who could have been president, the man who lied about his affair with his videographer to his supporters while his cancer-stricken wife as well as his staff campaigned to get him elected as President of the United States is indeed the father of his mistress' child, according to the National Enquirer (and believed by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post).

While we blogged on this last year, none of this really matters today since Edwards' failed candidacy drained enough support from Hillary Clinton to make Barack Obama the Democratic nominee and, thus, the President of the United States.

However, WaPo's Howard Kurtz does make a rather interesting point in his piece:

Politicians, like the rest of us, are flawed human beings, but you wonder about the judgment involved in hooking up with staffers, former campaign aides or wives of friends (Ensign, Kilpatrick, Newsom); journalists (Villaraigosa), or call girls (Vitter, Spitzer). Or disappearing to Buenos Aires for several days (Sanford). Or having graphic discussions with House pages (Foley).

The cumulative effect is to chip away at public confidence in elected leaders, especially after the Clinton impeachment trauma.

From yesterday's Enquirer (the tabloid that originally broke the Edwards affair when the rest of the media ignored the story):

John Edwards has secretly undergone a DNA test - and it proves he's the father of his mistress' love child, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

Multiple sources confirm the bombshell development, and reveal lawyers for the disgraced presidential candidate are privately hammering out child support payments with his former lover Rielle Hunter.

Edwards - who hotly denied he was the child's father when he publicly confessed his affair with Rielle on ABC's Nightline a year ago - has broken the news to his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, sources say.

But The ENQUIRER has also learned that Rielle testified against Edwards before a federal grand jury that's probing whether he broke campaign finance laws by secretly funneling money to her - and her testimony could send the former North Carolina senator to jail!

The positive DNA test finally ends the elaborate cover-up that Edwards engineered to hide the fact that he fathered Rielle's 18-month-old daughter Frances.

As The ENQUIRER previously reported in a series of explosive investigative reports, the cover-up involved "hush money" paid to Rielle and Andrew Young, a
once-loyal Edwards aide who claimed he'd fathered her child. The secret payments
were made by the late Fred Baron, who was Edwards' national finance chairman.

Apparently, the man who based his campaign theme on a "two Americas" was really living two lives and may be paying a bigger price for it.