We’ve been getting information from Andrew Young’s book proposal in drips and drabs for the past few months. Young is the former John Edwards campaign staffer who fell on his sword for Edwards, and claimed paternity of Rielle Hunter’s daughter – when everyone pretty much assumed John Edwards is the father. Young also got paid off in a big way – but now he’s trying to sell his story about what really happened between John, Elizabeth and Rielle. Previously, we’ve heard about John’s desire to move Rielle and her daughter closer to him, to his North Carolina neighborhood. We’ve also heard that John proposed to Rielle, and promised her a wedding in New York.

The new scandal (still part of Andrew Young’s continuing revelations) is that Rielle Hunter wasn’t the only woman John had an affair with. Shocking! Not really. That man seems as sleazy as they come. According to the National Enquirer, Young told the grand jury investigating Edwards that “Edwards had affairs with several other women along the campaign trail besides better known mistress Hunter.” Oh, but that’s not even the end of this week’s revelations. NYDN’s Rush & Malloy also have some additional scoops on Elizabeth Edwards, and how (allegedly) crazy she is with the scope of the scandal:

Former presidential candidate John Edwards is said to be ready to admit that he fathered a love child. But Hades may have a skating rink before his wife, Elizabeth, signs off on such a confession.

As a grand jury in North Carolina considers whether Edwards misused campaign funds to cover up the scandal, Elizabeth still can’t abide his former mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Word is Elizabeth vehemently opposed the plan, now in place, for Hunter and daughter Quinn to move from New Jersey to Wilmington, N.C., where the Edwardses have a beach house.

For months now, Elizabeth, who is said to be talking to a divorce lawyer, also has been sniping at Hunter – painting her as a blackmailing gold digger – in blog comments where she uses the pseudonym “Cherubim,” according to a source who knows Elizabeth.

Though “Cherubim” has recently described herself as an African-American woman, the source insists, “It’s Elizabeth. She’s used ‘cherubim’ as a password. Look at the gravestone of their son Wade: It’s an angel holding a boy.”

“Cherubim” has also heaped scorn on estranged Edwards aide Andrew Young, who is working on a book in which he’s due to reveal that Edwards and wealthy supporters paid him to claim that he fathered Quinn.

In a proposal for the book, Young contends that Elizabeth blamed him for helping her husband carry on the affair and forced Young to quit the campaign. He also alleges that Elizabeth left taunting messages on his family’s answering machine – telling his wife, Cheri, that Rielle supposedly had slept with Young and that she was likely to again.

Along with claiming that Edwards and Hunter made a sex tape, the proposal alleges:
* Edwards had had affairs with other women on the campaign trail.
* When Edwards was forced to call off a birthday date with Hunter because he found out that Elizabeth’s cancer had returned, an unsympathetic Hunter screamed at him.
* After learning of the affair, Elizabeth made John sleep in their barn though she would wake him up with accusatory rants.
* Hunter relied on a California psychic named Bob to tell her where to live and what to do.
* Edwards had little affection for John Kerry – once comparing him to Richie Rich – but changed his tune when the Democratic presidential nominee tapped him as his running mate.
* Ted Kennedy once told Young about a would-be assassin who managed to get into his Senate office because one of his bodyguards was having a gay liaison with one of his top aides.

Elizabeth’s publicist and lawyers for John Edwards and Hunter declined comment.

[From Rush & Malloy]

I honestly don’t know about all of the other stuff – yes, I’ll buy that John cheated on Elizabeth multiple times, with multiple women. I doubt the campaign trail was even the first time he strayed. But I find the whole “Cherubim” story sketchy as all hell. I want to believe that Elizabeth is a lot classier than that. But I’ve been disappointed before. Elizabeth seemed to lay the overwhelming bulk of the blame for the affair on Rielle’s shoulders, describing Rielle as “pathetic” while giving John a pass for the most part in her last book. I also feel pretty strongly that Elizabeth has been lying about the paternity test in several of her latest interviews. Who knows?