Young gives up tape; court too late on escort

Andrew Young has turned over to authorities the tape that is the purported sex video featuring John Edwards and Rielle Hunter.

Young, accompanied by a security officer, retrieved the tape from an Atlanta safe-deposit box, according to Wade Barber, an attorney for Hunter. The officer's presence was ordered by Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones.

After Young got the tape, the N.C. Court of Appeals suspended Jones' order requiring the officer to be present and collect the contents of the box.

Hunter filed court documents to get the tape and other documents from Young, and the appeals court order is unclear as to whether Jones can continue to moderate the case at a hearing scheduled for today.

Jones had given Young and his wife until today to turn over the documents or face a trip to jail.

Barber said he believes the appeals court order only applied to Jones' order dealing with the extra security. Young's legal team disagrees.

"In my interpretation of the order, the Court of Appeals has stayed all the proceedings," said M. Gordon Widenhouse Jr., a lawyer for the Youngs.

On Sunday night, Jones ordered that the Youngs pay for a security officer to witness the opening of the safe-deposit box and collect the contents as if they were evidence. Jones' order further demanded that the Youngs submit to a search of their home. The order also required the Youngs to allow a computer expert to remove and delete family photographs of Hunter from a computer.

An attorney for the Youngs argued that Jones' order went too far and essentially required the couple to submit to an unconstitutional search of their home.

Rat-a-tat fundraiser

Republican Tim D'Annunzio knows how to get more bang for the buck - use guns.

D'Annunzio, running for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell, is having a"Machine Gun Social" Thursday night. The fundraiser at Jim's Guns in Fayetteville runs from 6:30p.m. "until the ammo runs out!" For a $25 donation, participants can shoot submachine guns. Additional magazines of ammunition are $25 each.

"It shows Tim's commitment to Second Amendment rights," spokeswoman Lauren Slepian said. "It shows he's one of the most, if not the most, conservative candidates in the race."

News of D'Annunzio's fundraiser prompted an online discussion about his campaign with many commenters, posting to The Charlotte Observer as "anonymous," taking a shot at the candidate. D'Annunzio fired back in a post calling his critics "racist" and "rednecks."

"Hiding behind these web sites as 'anonymous' is the same as hiding under a ... white hood, COWARDS. You wouldn't dare say these things to my face, but I wouldn't have any trouble telling you this same thing to yours, if you dared," he wrote.

Funny, you betcha

Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt did his best Garrison Keillor imitation this week in introducing Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Hunt paraphrased Keillor's line about the fictional town of Lake Wobegon when he introduced Pawlenty, a Republican, at the Emerging Issues Forum.

"He is one of the big reasons why in the state of Minnesota all the men are strong, all the wives are good-looking and all the children are above-average," Hunt said in Raleigh, "and if he becomes president, he can do it for all of America."

Keillor describes Lake Wobegon as a town "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above-average."

By staff writers Benjamin Niolet, Rob Christensen and Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer