Jackson Baker is having a difficult time with the latest revelations about John Edwards. Let’s help him out.

So maybe he needs to deny the baby is his, if somebody has seriously maintained that it is. (But HAS anybody?).

The National Enquirer has alleged that Rielle Hunter’s bastard child was sired by John Edwards, but it’s unclear if Jackson Baker considers that publication an “anybody” or if he’s willing to characterize their reporting as a “seriously maintained” claim. Whether or not there are other anybodies seriously maintaining as much, Baker is getting ahead of himself and is asking the wrong question. Without some solid reporting and further evidence, such as the paternity test Edwards says he welcomes, it’s unlikely that any anybodies could seriously maintain anything. But what we have already established and verified is the end (a baby) and the means (an affair). The parties have offered an alternative explanation — that the baby was fathered by an Edwards staffer, rather than Edwards — but we know the child’s birth certificate doesn’t corroborate that story, and we also have reason to doubt the involved parties, as they have already admitted to being lying whores.

He doesn’t owe anybody (other than, arguably, his wife) any “confession” about an affair that belongs to his private life.

John Edwards apparently did feel the need for such a “confession,” both to his wife and to the general public. Given his status as an arguably important public figure, Edwards’ extramarital sexual escapades are obviously less private affairs than they would be if he were, just for the sake of argument, a lowly mill worker. Additionally, Edwards had already made public statements — lies — about the affair, which further eroded his claim to privacy on the matter, from the standpoint of news media.

As Howard Kurtz writes, “The argument that Edwards is merely a private person who should be left alone doesn’t carry much water. He’s a two-time presidential candidate, was the party’s nominee for vice president four years ago, and was carrying on with the smitten Hunter — a fledgling filmmaker paid with campaign funds during his White House run.”

He was also the second runner-up in this year’s primary, the owner of one faithless electoral delegate in 2004, a probable headliner at the upcoming Democratic Convention, and a potential nominee for Attorney General. It’s also possible that his cover-up and failed candidacy cost Hillary Clinton the nomination.

This is pure Comstockery, writ large.

I had to look that one up:

Comstockery. n. Censorship of literature and other forms of expression and communication because of perceived immorality or obscenity.

Hmm, I suppose that since big media was attempting to censor itself and banned the publication and broadcasting of Edwards’ immorality, this may qualify as a form Comstockery, writ large. Big media essentially succeeded in this censorship until Edwards admitted to the affair, thereby personally validating the tabloid allegations, at least in part. But I have a feeling Jackson Baker meant to use this term in some other way that isn’t readily apparent.

What the hell is the National Enquirer doing, snooping around a hotel room where two consenting adults are doing whatever they’re doing? What business is it of anybody else’s? Why is the MSM admiringly preparing to creep into the same set of nocturnal shadows? This ain’t good, people.

The National Enquirer is a sleazy tabloid newspaper that stalks public figures and famous rich people and packages half-true stories about these folks under sensational headlines, in order to push their product to low-brow supermarket readers who are temporarily stalled near the point of purchase; is this news to Jackson Baker?

This particular story has leaked out into the larger news media because it concerns an equally-sleazy, prominent politician who now has admitted to sleeping around on his seriously-ill wife and lying to the American public, and because this story has the added advantage of being true. This has nothing to do with the otherwise private nature of consenting, adult behavior, nor does it signal the genesis of some shadowy news bureau teaming with voyeur-reporters holding binoculars, a tube of KY and Washington Post press passes.

And how can we use that offensive and judgmental word “cheating” about a domestic situation we literally know nothing about?

John Edwards was running for President on a supposed righteously-indignant anti-poverty platform while living in the largest and most valuable home in Orange County, North Carolina, getting $400 haircuts, not letting even his wife’s incurable cancer get in the way of his political ambition, and in fact using her condition to elicit sympathy from the voting public, while simultaneously paying his mistress for campaign work she was apparently unqualified to perform. But it is we, dear reader, who have been offensive, simply by pointing out — or by merely observing via news reports — that the Edwards has no clothes, or to be more exact, that he’s been sneaking away from his ill wife, sleeping around with campaign staff and lying to both her and us about it. Fool me once, shame on me.

But then John Edwards was probably being offensive and judgmental himself when he said this about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky: “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.”

And when he said this, “Of course. I mean, for a lot of Americans — including the family that I grew up with, I mean, it’s fundamental to how you judge people and human character — whether you keep your word, whether you keep what is your ultimate word, which is that you love your spouse, and you’ll stay with them. … I think the most important qualities in a president in today’s world are trustworthiness — sincerity, honesty, strength of leadership. And — and certainly that goes to a part of that.”

We don’t know what private agreements may have been reached between the Edwardses — up to and including the possibility that she may have been physically delbilitated [sic] to the point of accommodating, or even suggesting, alternate forms of companionship for her husband. I think we all know of relationships involving physically impaired partners — of either gender — in which there is a tacit understanding of that sort.

We certainly can’t know what transpired between John and Elizabeth Edwards, so it’s probably best to assume that she invited him to sleep with random whores on the campaign payroll. Who among us isn’t intimately familiar with these situations? Well, ok, maybe you don’t personally know any such couple, but you probably live in that other America, the really offensive and judgmental one that wakes up in the morning concerned primarily with the exact location of John Edwards’ penis.

Of course, that’s not the type of situation he says, or she says, existed. But we can’t know for sure, since they’re both liars.

And this possibility won’t be invalidated even if Edwards should be coerced into going on national TV wearing sackcloth and making an abject formal apology to his wife.

If you see John Edwards on TV apologizing to his wife, Baker argues, know that he’s probably just doing this for show — not because he’s sorry, but because an offensive, judgmental public demands a pound of flesh. We should assume, therefore, that John Edwards is lying. Whether by coercion or election, John Edwards is a liar.

Even as I speak, Wolf Blitzer is promo-ing a bit on “the report that finally forced John Edwards to confess.”

Confess? What crime has he committed that requires a confession?

Must all confessions concern a crime? Can they not also concern a sin? A betrayal? An impropriety? A lie?

He could confess to lying when he said, for instance, “The story is false… It’s completely untrue, ridiculous… I’ve been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years and as anybody who’s been around us knows, she’s an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story’s just false,” or when he dismissed it as “tabloid trash.”

Baker’s Memphis Liar colleague Chris Davis is having similar trouble identifying the bad actor in this story:

Bottom line: John may have f*cked up but he isn’t the real bad guy in this piece, the National Enquirer is. Now any personal strife the family may have been dealing with is a public shame. And every stone your nearly sinless arm throws at John bounces off and hits Elizabeth too.

For what it’s worth, Baker and Davis seem to think I’m contractually obligated to tell you that both were writing under aliases on a blog unaffiliated with the Memphis Liar, though it consistently acts as a sandbox for future Liar articles, promotes already-published ones and features the same authors and readers.

But I have to say it’s depressing how poor a grasp our local information gatekeepers seem to have on what makes a story newsworthy. The Edwards saga essentially meets all of the various criteria for news: timeliness, proximity, prominence, controversy, impact, human interest, novelty… and the list goes on.

They’re doing their level best to make it appear otherwise, right along with Edwards, who hopes to deflate the timeliness factor by repeating the year 2006, as if his meeting last month didn’t happen or was of no import. Edwards also chose a Friday afternoon, as follow-up reports were about to hit news stands, as the opening day of the Olympics arrived, at the start of a war in Eastern Europe, to go public, with an emphasis on his going public with the story.

And yet Baker and Davis can’t seem to figure out why this story is public, or even why it’s newsworthy, despite the 37 comments their own post generated, a level of dialogue that blog hasn’t reached for several months at least. But don’t blame them, because they’re just trying to explain why this isn’t news, and why we’re the offensive, judgmental Puritans. When all else fails, blame your readership.