“The story is false, it’s completely untrue, it’s ridiculous.”

The words John Edwards uttered last fall to deny an affair with Rielle Hunter are coming back to haunt him — and grammarians.

If a story is false, that means it’s untrue. Completely. Looking back, Edwards’ redundancy hints at his guilt.

In the spirit of politicians’ sex scandals, let’s review the difference between deny, refute and rebut. There are many ways to weasel your way out of wrongdoing.

To rebut a National Enquirer story is to provide clear evidence or a reasoned argument against it. It marks a concerted effort to disprove, whether or not you successfully refute the story, which is to prove it wrong.

Neither rebut nor refute means deny, to simply disagree without trying to prove your veracity or succeeding at that effort. John Edwards denied a sexual affair with his overpaid filmmaker. He did not rebut it and he clearly did not refute it.

In a best-case sequence of events, a politician denies a charge, then he rebuts it and then he refutes it. John Edwards didn’t make it to second base; he was too busy rounding third with Rielle.