Democrats to Obama: Run Fast From John Edwards

The Silky Pony hasn't officially been thrown under the bus yet, but that day shall soon arrive.

Barack Obama is being ordered to distance himself from John Edwards amid allegations his one-time rival has fathered a love child.

Mr Edwards had been touted as a possible vice president, but yesterday leading Democrats told the former North Carolina senator to come clean about the rumours of his affair with a campaign aide or stay away from the party convention.

Party organisers are furious that Mr Edwards has refused to deny that he’s the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby daughter Frances and fear he is taking attention away from Mr Obama.

Mr Edwards, 55, dropped his own bid for the presidency in January after coming a distant third behind Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton, but he had been expected to make a rousing speech at the Denver convention later this month.

Rumours that Mr Edwards, whose wife Elizabeth is battling breast cancer, fathered the child were ignored by the mainstream media until yesterday when the National Enquirer printed a grainy photograph allegedly showing Mr Edwards cradling the baby in a Los Angeles hotel room last month.

Mr Edwards dismissed earlier Enquirer stories about his affair with Miss Hunter, a 44-year-old campaign videographer, as “tabloid trash.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are Edwards to come clean.

Good luck with that.

Some Democrats are saying John Edwards needs to publicly address stories in the National Enquirer that he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her child. The Charlotte Observer reports that if the former Democratic presidential candidate fails to provide a sufficient response, party officials may not ask him to speak at the Democratic convention in Denver later this month.

Former North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Don Fowler says, "If there is not an explanation that's satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards, the answer is 'no,' he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention."

And Gary Pearce, who ran Edwards' 1998 Senate campaign says, "It's clearly getting ready to bust out. If it's not true, he's got to stand up and say, 'This is not true.'"

Sounds like the Enquirer has some more dirt forthcoming.

Just imagine the nuclear bomb that would have hit had Edwards somehow won the Democrat nomination.