We have just one chance to keep Edwards’ cancer from being the moment that defines the end of any pretense to dignity in American politics
Published by Kyso Kisaen March 26th, 2007 in PoliticsKatie Couric, of all people, has called open season on questioning how Elizabeth’s cancer will affect Edwards’ campaign. Now that the topic has been broached, it will soon be time for the right wing noise machine too see which one of their top shit-stirrers can display the least possible amount of human decency on the subject. If the puppeteers are at all wise, the talking points memos that these people get their cues from should be screaming, ‘leave the topic alone!’ After all, there probably isn’t a person in the country whose life hasn’t been affected by cancer in some way and couldn’t sympathise with Elizabeth and John.
But in case they are not wise and Ann and Rush and friends are permitted to spew out some bile, I’d like to point out as a nice counterpoint Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Catty About Cancer”
Strangely, it’s not Coulter, but girl-next-door Katie Couric who’s hinted, in a 60 Minutes interview with Elizabeth Edwards, that the couple might be “capitalizing” on the disease. Can’t you just see them cackling over the bone scans, eagerly calculating what the results would do for them in the polls? Convening their children for the good news that, although Daddy’s been almost eclipsed by Obama, Mommy has a potentially fatal disease?
Couric also told John Edwards that some people might judge him “callous” for campaigning through what might be his wife’s last months. Is Couric forgetting that she was working as a $7 million a year NBC anchor while her own husband was dying of colon cancer? And just in case we do get a Gingrich candidacy: Recall that he had his first wife served with divorce papers while she was in the hospital with cancer. In contrast, campaigning with your spouse, for as much time as she will be able to spend on the trail, seems downright romantic.
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As for Elizabeth Edwards, all I know is this: When I was being subjected to chemotherapy six years ago, the one thing that kept me going was work…So I say to Elizabeth, if I may call her that: Get out there, girl, and campaign like hell!
Read the whole thing.
And for anyone who harbors cynical thoughts about the Edwards’ decision to continue campaigning throughout her illness, could you please, please, please for the love of all that is good think really hard before opening your mouth? I’m not saying that we can’t ask the hard questions, it’s just John’s response to Couric has really presented us all, as a nation, with the opportunity to finally handle a sensitive issue with some class. Let’s all rise to that.
I never really knew how to react to Couric. She seemed okay the few times I saw her in action on the Today show (I won’t watch any of the evening news shows anymore), but I wasn’t sure how genuine any of it was.
This would be bad enough under other circumstances, but as a career person who’s lost a spouse to cancer Couric should be more understanding. The Edwards certainly didn’t ask for what they got. If they tried to keep it secret, the press backlash would have been worse once the truth eventually came out (which it always does).
I’ve had cancer twice, and experienced chemo once. I avoid sharing those facts with most people I know because there’s always some jerk that judges you in some weird way based on their twisted ideas of God, judgement, punishment, trolling for sympathy, etc. I find it easier to keep it on the DL and “pass” as “normal”. Now I know better why I feel that way…