With the National Enquirer taking a victory lap for correctly reporting that John Edwards had an affair with campaign contractor Rielle Hunter, it's worth noting that the Democratic politician is still disputing the Enquirer's claims that he fathered a love child with Hunter. Also worth recalling, then, how the supermarket tabloid face-planted with a 2006 story claiming Sen. Ted Kennedy fathered a love child with Carolina Bilodeau-Allen while separated from his first wife. DNA tests conducted two decades prior had already established that Kennedy was not the father, contradicting the Enquirer's paid sources. Earlier this month, the tabloid was made to pay for its front-page mistake, the Smoking Gun reports:

While the document does not detail terms of the confidential settlement, TSG has learned that the deal—struck just eight months after the complaint was filed—included a significant payment to Bilodeau-Allen, who charged that the Enquirer defamed her and [son] Christopher in a pair of stories published in early-2006 (the first piece about Bilodeau-Allen was written by Alan Butterfield, an Enquirer veteran who last month confronted Edwards at a Los Angeles hotel after he met privately with former mistress Rielle Hunter).

So while the Enquirer may be much improved from several decades ago, it is far from infallible. As always, editors and producers are free to use this as an excuse to ignore the tabloid's stories, but the Edwards affair at least showed the more attentive among them how unwise this can be.

[The Smoking Gun]



(Image via the Smoking Gun)