Yesterday I pondered the lack of a mole on John Edwards’ top lip in his latest campaign photo. It certain was there in all its glory in his official Senate photo and during the 2004 campaign. I wondered out loud whether the mole had been eliminated by creative studio lighting, PhotoShop digital manipulation or cosmetic surgery. Well, turns out it was surgery, though Edwards said at the time that it wasn’t cosmetic:

RALEIGH, N.C. As his wife undergoes breast cancer treatment, John Edwards has had his own cancer scare.
The former Democratic vice presidential candidate says a mole on his lip has been removed — after doctors said it had grown larger and could be cancerous.

Edwards says the mole was found to be benign.

He says he had a physical before joining John Kerry on the campaign trail, but that he didn’t want to have the procedure done until the campaign was over.

Thanks to reader Mike Woodard for sending that link in a comment on yesterday’s post. It’s a 2005 AP story on the Web site of KVOA-TV in Tuscon, Ariz. Interestingly, that seems to be the only place that story survives, if Google is any measure. I can’t find it in The News & Observer‘s archives. The only mole-related John Edwards story that shows up there is one in which he is ridiculed by former shock jock Don Imus about “that thing on his face.” This story indicates that the issue of the mole had come up in the family in a non-cancer related context:

Sen. John Edwards picked up a vice-presidential endorsement of sorts Wednesday morning from radio personality Don Imus.

During an interview with Sen. John Kerry, Imus asked the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee whom he might pick as a running mate.

Kerry first joked that he was considering Imus.

“I like Edwards,” Imus said later. “You probably don’t like him, but I like him.”

“I like him very much,” Kerry responded.

He then started praising Edwards as “very, very capable,” but was cut off.

“Even with that thing on his lip?” Imus asked.

“Jesus, you do get personal,” Kerry said. He added nothing else that might tip his hand on his V.P. pick.

The “thing” on Edwards’ lip, by the way, is a mole with which Imus seems obsessed. He also quizzed Edwards about it during a February appearance he made on Imus’ radio show, which is also broadcast live on MSNBC.

“I get asked that question a lot, actually,” Edwards replied then, laughing. “My daughter wants to know why don’t I get that thing taken off. It’s been there a long time.”

In an admittedly unscientific poll today I could find not one person who knew Edwards had had the mole removed, and my target poll audience was a very politically attuned group. This must be the most under-the-radar story in the history of John Edwards, but at least I know I wasn’t imagining things.