Scrubbed: Edwards Filmmaker's Deleted Website Raises Questions

UPDATE 8/8/08: John Edwards Admits Affair With Rielle Hunter

PREVIOUSLY 9/26/07: Edwards Mystery: Innocuous Videos Suddenly Shrouded In Secrecy

A set of short documentary film "webisodes" made for former Sen. John Edwards prior to his presidential candidacy continues to weave a curious web, this time involving the filmmaker.

The videos, which cost Edwards' One America Committee $114,461, were produced in 2006 by an aspiring actress/producer named Rielle Hunter, who proposed the idea to the senator in a bar in New York City. The objective was to give viewers - and presumably voters - an authentic look at the North Carolinian. But shortly after Edwards declared his White House aspirations, the footage all but disappeared from public view. After the Huffington Post wrote about the webisodes, the videos resurfaced, both on YouTube and Webcastr.com, although the anonymous individual who reposted them (user name: "MissingVideos") has not responded to emails.

Little was known about Hunter as well. Despite working in the movie business, she had virtually no Internet presence save for an article in Newsweek about her filming of Edwards and an uninformative IMDB entry for her work on the short film Billy Bob and Them (2000).

This anonymity, it turns out, wasn't always the case. The Huffington Post has uncovered a deleted website that formerly belonged to Hunter. Titled "Being Is Free," the site was last updated on April 22, 2007, roughly twenty days after Edwards' One America Committee made its final payment to Hunter's company, Midline Groove Productions.

There is virtually no mention of filmmaking or politics on the site. And there is little indication as to what Hunter did professionally - beyond an involvement in various spiritual quests - before she and her partner, Mimi Hockman, started Midline Groove Production in the spring of 2006. As Colin Weil, a consultant to the Edwards webisodes told the Huffington Post: "Neither of them had done tons and tons of stuff before hand... The whole [Edwards' taping] was pretty organic."

On the deleted pages, the 44-year-old Hunter (formerly known as Lisa Druck) discusses her former hard partying days, her search for enlightenment, and her issues with drugs and debt. There is a 2005 interview she did with one-time boyfriend Jay McInerney, in which the celebrated novelist reveals that Hunter was the basis for Alison Poole, the main character of his book, Story of My Life.

"It was narrated in the first person," McInerney writes in the intro to the interview, "from the point of view of an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year old who was, shall we say, inspired by Lisa [aka Rielle]."

The two go on to discuss Hunter's life after the book's publication. Here's an excerpt (the full interview is available here):

Hunter: I thought I was going to LA to be an actress and to get away from New York because I was doing so many drugs. We always think we're going somewhere for some particular reason, and it turns out that that isn't the reason at all

McInerney: Is LA less druggy than New York?

Hunter: Oh yeah. Actually the reason it was less druggy was because someone referred me to a healer who did a clearing on my energy field. I was in a state of ecstasy for about a week and realized what I was looking for, in terms of medication, was inside of me; it was a higher bliss. With that clearing, all desire for drugs or alcohol vanished. I became sober overnight. And then I became a spiritual seeker, addicted to a higher consciousness, addicted to enlightenment.

So why was Hunter's website - which had no material related to her work with Edwards or the Edwards' campaign - taken down? Emails and calls to Midline Groove Productions went unanswered.

Moreover, why did Edwards choose someone with limited film experience to document his behind-the-scenes campaign presence - "the real John Edwards"? The Senator's campaign, likewise, did not return calls requesting comment.

And was the more than $100,000 spent by Edwards' One American Committee - itself dedicated to fighting poverty and lifting Americans into the middle class - worth it?

According to several experts on the topic, the project was unique, portraying the senator in a positive informal light that could potentially benefit his presidential campaign. But the cost of the films, they say, was higher than that of traditional political video.

"In terms of politics it's a lot. In terms of non-political production it is chump change," said Jeremy Thompson, a Democratic media consultant, who works for the organization Reelpolitik. "The combination of how much was paid, the experience factor and how many pieces [Midline] made, made the whole thing a bit surprising."

Comments

[shelbinator]

I thought I'd just chime in amongst the psychotic Stein-bashing Edwards-worshipping raving commenters and say, nice work, Sam. Keep an eye on it. If anything, this is surely a telling story about how inept the campaign is at handling non-issues, if it is one (as these Kool-Aid drinkers sure can't even remotely concede). And $114K for those few basic web videos? Give me a break! That's the same kind of spending cluelessness that leads to $400 haircuts; why do I want to put that operation in charge of our national budget? If I had wanted a fee for the similar 13 minute YouTube video I made *for free* for the Biden campaign, I could've done it for well under a grand. And just look at the amazing shorts YouTube user fentonstrauss has done for free. Instead, JRE drops $114K on a total space cadet with a worn-out septum that he met in a bar?

That's enough of a story for me.

[fishbrake]

Hey, this article is now linked from The Corner as evidence of an "affair" between this woman and Edwards. Nice job, idiot.

[califlefty]

If you think Sam Stein did the world a disservice by spread these rumors then someone needs to rip Ed Schultz "progressive talker" on Jones Radio a new one. He spend 2 Hours on the air ruminating whether this was a real story. Seriously, how well served is the progressive movement by vain self-serving publicity hounds?

[Jakie7]

All pretty toxic. My guess is Sam Stein is just a kid trying to make a name for himself. What's interesting is the trolls. They're trying to light a fire here, no question. But the double whammy is they are GOP smear artists. They try to insinuate this is all coming from Clinton or Obama and they score a double hit.

This is the nature of this scum.

[Ratt]

Ok, gona have to get out more. I was under the impression from the MSM that the Majority of Democrats stood behind Hillary. It's what all the polls say.

[VictoriaMarsh]

John Edwards and a never-was actress coke whore? Give us a break. Laughable.

[WigWamWag]

Sam Stein must have been hired as a Get Edwards hack. Who could have hired the worthless fool? Could it be Billery, O-Bomb-a or Huff&Puff. Planted, slanted, bias stories such as those by Sam Stein lack any credability.

In Fox type Sam Stein speak: Concerns are raised by some sources that Edwards is a practicing homo-sapien.

[slow2]

DRAG OUT any scrap of history, slap together some kind of coincidental connection, and POW! you got...facts? To make an idiotic "record" that infers...what?
WigWamWag observes correctly that this is a blatant Get Edwards attempt. Sickening.

[california111]

It's funny.

The Edwards Campaign must have blasted out an email with this link to tell people to comment.

Gotta protect the boss who's cheating on his cancer-stricken wife.

[slow2]

Let's not giggle at this; funny it's not, california 111. The last pol we heard about who cheated on a cancer-stricken wife was Newt, who was said to visit her in hospital to ask for his divorce; forget if it was the first or second...

[JuniorBug]

Let me see if I can summarize the objective of this investigation: "What did this website -- that had nothing to do with Edwards -- have to do with Edwards?"

Brilliant, Holmes. A crackerjack case you've got there.

[citizen53]

SensibleAmerican and California111 are claiming below that Edwards has sent his operatives here to defend him. All the while, they piggyback on Stein and spread poison. Drudge, Limbaugh and Hannity would be proud, among others.

Reading their comments and the links they gleefully provide, how can anyone be sure they are not operatives for Clinton or another campaign? I mean, what better way to deflect attention away from themselves.

In any event, this is about the lowest this site could go to show its bias and irrelevancy.

[VictoriaMarsh]

I'm an Obama supporter, for what it's worth, but for the love of Mike, this Edwards story is ludicrous and laughable. I mean, LOOK AT THIS STRUNG-OUT WOMAN! And...helloooo! National Inquirer? Come on, people.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Sam,

Did your DAD get you this job or something? Cause you're writing a lot of bull... and we really have enough of that from the MSM.

[OhPlease2007]

Sam, just to be sure, you don't really expect us to believe that this is some kind of hard-hitting journalism, do you? You knew you had no story the LAST time you tried to pawn off this lame stuff; do you really think that readers are that dumb? Let me spell it out for you, once again; there is no real story here. Please, with all due respect, get a clue.

[LibsRHilarious]

An affair with a woman? Who are they trying to kid? Silky has only one true love- his own reflection.

[redding888]

There weren't articles this ridiculous about even Bill Clinton! Even in the National Enquirer.

[NABNYC]

How much money is this guy getting from Hillary? And how on earth does he keep posting these ridiculous attacks on Edwards? I just don't get it.

Edwards had a video produced for the anti-poverty project? So what? Now this guy, under the guise of "reporting," is snooping around some woman's private life, -- not a public person, by the way, for purposes of a slander lawsuit, but a private person -- and he's making allegations that she's a coke head and god knows what else?

She has not thrust herself into the public limelight. She is not a public figure - not a politician, not the spouse of a politician. Therefore, she is entitled to privacy in her life. This article, primarily aimed O'Reilly and Drudge style at raising innuendo where there is nothing, may be aimed at Edwards, but this lady video maker is in the direct line of fire. And if she wants legal representation to go after this guy, I hope she calls me. I smell punitive damages.

Not a public person. Entitled to privacy. None of your business. You cannot publicly attack, humiliate, expose, dig up garbage from the past from third-person accounts and re-publish it. No no. Libel. Slander. Lawsuit.

[C*B]

Wow -- there are more Edwards campaign workers blogging here than at the Edwards site.

There's a better script, though. Drop the sarcasm ("is he raping babies? I'm still unclear???") -- it isn't funny and it sounds desperate if not debased ("call us when he starts raping babies" is what non-Edwards employees hear).

Here's the elevator statement points: in a long campaign for the top position in the world, a lot of accusations are going to be made. Let's wait to see if this has legs before we waste energy on it; if it turns out to be true, it's one of the terrible consequences of being human in the crucible of life: campaign pressure, pain at home, pressure from opponents. He is more than human -- he isn't like others, he's an alpha male (tell me if you've heard this one), he has a viral energy that flows on its own. AND, his personal life isn't what we're electing, it is his public commitment and competence.

This stuff gets trotted out every campaign. It is one more evidence of the lack of professionalism at Edwards Inc that they can't get the web yet: if you can't run with the humans, how are you going to run against the horses after November?

[billbird]

zzzzzzzzzzz