Andrew Young and Wife on 20/20: Sorry About Covering Up John Edwards Affair or About Not Getting Promised Reward?

After betraying the American public and a cancer-stricken Elizabeth Edwards with an elaborate cover up of John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter and paternity of her baby, Andrew Young and his wife now claim they were betrayed by the man they sought to protect.

On ABC's 20/20 last night, Andrew Young and his wife Cheri posed as a repentant couple who were ashamed of their complicity in creating a tangled web of lies to conceal John Edwards' affair from Edwards' wife Elizabeth and the American public. The Young's surreal performance wavered from sanctimonious (Andrew Young criticized Edwards for lying, perhaps forgetting he told a few fibs himself) to incredible (Cheri young calmly explained how she and Andrew dumped their three children with her mother so they could live in a fancy California mansion and pretend Andrew Young was the biological father of Rielle Hunter's baby).

It is difficult to fathom how Andrew Young, the son of a Protestant minister, could be so easily manipulated by the charismatic John Edwards and convince his wife Cheri to go along with John Edwards' arrogant request that Young fall on the sword for him. The comical concept of Cheri Young agreeing to share a home with her husband's supposed affair partner, Rielle Hunter, makes the old ABC TV sit-com Three's Company seem like a stodgy PBS drama in comparison. What married woman in her right mind would willingly agree to such an arrangement?

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction

Amidst all the absurdities, perhaps the hardest thing to believe in the whole John Edwards-Elizabeth Edwards-Rielle Hunter-Andrew Young-Cheri Young love pentagon is that Andrew and Cheri Young are truly sorry about anything other than falling into financial ruin (Andrew Young claims to be unemployable). On 20/20, Andrw Young told reporter Bob Woodruff that Edwards promised to reward him by anointing him as head of an anti-poverty charity foundation funded partly by elderly heiress "Bunny" Mellon but that John Edwards reneged on his offer and agreed only to write Andrew Young a letter of recommendation to prospective employers. (One can only imagine how little weight a letter of recommendation written by serial liar John Edwards would carry.)

After being ferried around on corporate jets and staying at luxurious penthouse suites and mansions with private masseuses and chefs, the metaphorical clock struck midnight. Like Cinderella's coaches, Andrew and Cheri Young turned back into pumpkins; John Edwards wouldn't even return Andrew Young's telephone calls, treating his former sycophant like a bad haircut. The jobless Youngs were forced to fly back to their paltry 5,000 square foot North Carolina shack on a commercial airplane filled with commoners, and they now had to figure out how they were going to pay the mortgage and finish construction on their home, not to mention shop at Whole Foods.

It turned out the enterprising Andrew and Cheri Young still had one trick up their sleeve, a last-ditch-get-rich-quick scheme--writing a tell-all book. With the release of Andrew Young's The Politician on Jan. 30, Andrew and Cheri Young stand to make millions of dollars and will be able to fund their McMansion version of the American Dream on their own dime.

As a political strategist, however, Andrew Young knew he had to resuscitate his and wife Cheri's reputations, so the couple is now parading from one ABC TV "news" show to another, from 20/20 to Nightline to Good Morning America (GMA), hanging their heads in mock shame and feigning deep sorrow for their role in the sufuric affair. Ironically, ABC is now playing the Andrew Young role in the John Edwards affair, profiting from Young's deceptive behavior by hawking Andrew Young's book on just about every faux news show it has and publishing an excerpt from Andrew Young's tell-all book The Politician on its website.

An even bigger irony, conjuring up images of sooty pots and kettles, is John Edwards' predictable high-horse response to the new revelations by his former aide (more like accomplice) Andrew Young, delivered in a statement by his flacktourneys Wade M. Smith and James P. Cooney III: "While we have not had an opportunity to view the interview or read the book, we urge extreme caution by everyone involved. From media reports, it is obvious that there are many allegations which are simply false. It appears that Andrew Young is primarily motivated by financial gain and media attention."

More articles on John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, Rielle Hunter affair:
Is John Edwards Father of Rielle Hunter's Baby?
What Do John Edwards and Oprah Have in Common? the Link Between Affairs and Overeating
Elizabeth Edwards on Oprah
Will Edwards Affair Be Rielle Hunter's "Sex Video?" (written more than a year prior to revelations about a Rielle Hunter / John Edwards sex tape)
John Edwards Affair with Rielle Hunter

Source:
ABC TV Show 20/20
http://thepage.time.com/edwards-statement-on-andrew-young/