A few weeks ago I was one of the handful reckless enough to write about John Edwards, his mistress, and apparent out of wedlock offspring. I would use the nice old English word but I think I’ll run afoul of our bad word detector.

Now the story has made its way into Edwards’s hometown newspaper, but in the context of what this scandal that everyone is studiously ignoring is doing to his chances of snagging a prime speaking opportunity at the Democrat convention.

Presidential candidates who lose in the primaries traditionally are invited to address their party’s convention, and Politico reported last month that Edwards told others he was promised a prime time speaking slot when he endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. If Edwards fails to clear up the story in short order, he risks party officials deciding not to have him speak or, if they do, creating a distraction from a week focused on Obama accepting the nomination.

“If there is not an explanation that’s satisfactory, acceptable and meets high moral standards (bwahahahaha, gasp, stop it, bwahahahah), the answer is ‘no,’ he would not be a prime candidate to make a major address to the convention,” said Columbia’s Don Fowler, a former Democratic National Committee chair.

See you at 2am Sunday, John.