John Edwards has finally stopped running.

In an interview to be aired tonight on ABC, Edwards admits that the National Enquirer was right—he did have an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter.

But Edwards insists he is not the father of Hunter’s infant daughter, Frances Quinn Hunter.

Read the story about this admission here.

So much for “tabloid trash.”

I was initially going to begin this post with, “At the risk of having to rename this blog something with John Edwards in the title, check out this article from Bill Wyman.”

But you should still check out Wyman’s article. It’s somewhat moot now, with Edwards’ admission opening the floodgates for traditional media to cover the story, but it’s still interesting: Wyman explores five angles the mainstream media could have taken to explore the Edwards story without throwing the National Enquirer any bones.

They are:

It looks like the organizers of the Democratic National Convention aren’t holding their breath for John Edwards to address those pesky National Enquirer rumors: Former president Bill Clinton will speak at the convention on Wednesday, Aug. 27, ahead of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech the next night.

As for the other Clinton, Hillary will reportedly speak on Tuesday night.

(For what it’s worth, the vice presidential nominee—whoever it is—usually speaks on Wednedsay night. I’m just saying: Tuesday isn’t Wednesday.)

Between the less-than-rousing endorsement Bill Clinton gave Barack Obama on his preparedness to be president (see the convention story above) and the possibility that Hillary Clinton may seek a roll call vote for the nomination, you couldn’t blame the Obama campaign if they were secretly hoping that the Clintons’ plane was delayed for three days by bad weather ...

... Or karma.

Among the new ads out in the presidential race is “Praising McCain,” which features many prominent Democratic politicians heaping compliments on the Arizona senator.

As Barack Obama’s ad showing McCain espousing his voting record (crowing in 2003 that he “voted with the president 90 percent of the time"), these clips are not exactly what you would call current.

Take a look:

I don’t think this is among McCain’s best strategies. I know he’s fishing for those independent votes, and with this ad, he’s trying to protect himself from attacks from Democratic politicians who are supporting Obama.

But this strategy could backfire.

The conservatives within McCain’s party—the ones who still aren’t that he’s the nominee, the same ones he’s trying to mobilize to do the volunteer work that will make the difference in swing states—don’t exactly consider a compliment from John Kerry or Joe Biden or, especially, Hillary Clinton to be a good thing. Among his party’s faithful, who embrace their ideological battles with liberals, an ad featuring Democrats praising McCain may be just another reason that conservatives may choose to vote for him but decide not to go out and work for him.

And in that way, this ad may end up functioning in Barack Obama’s favor.