Posted on 03/22/2007 10:15:46 AM PDT by mngran
CHAPEL HILL, N.C., March 22 _ — John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, said today that his wife’s cancer had returned, but that his bid for the presidency “goes on strongly.”
“The campaign goes on, the campaign goes on strongly,” he said, with his wife, Elizabeth, at his side.
Mr. Edwards said he learned earlier this week that the cancer had reappeared in his wife’s rib cage and that the couple recognized that it was no longer curable, though it could be managed with treatment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My husband tried to reason with her but it didn't help, hence the hissy fit I had in front of the Dr. which mortified her and she was desparate to shut me up. The Dr. had to go by her wishes, I guess, as my FIL was pretty out of it. I had to go behind her back and call my SIL and my FIL's sister and tell them that if they wanted to see him again they better come. I had gotten firm orders not to tell anyone to come home when I mentioned that we should call them. It was like she was ashamed that he had cancer or something. It was a pretty rough time but I found out that when I have to be I can be one strong woman.
On the very wonderful side, we farm and there was a lot that I couldn't do on the farm while my husband was with his father for most of 2 months, one weekend all his farmer friends came with their tractors and did all the spring work that needed to be done before planting.
Rhemo sounds more accurate.
Thank you. It perfectly captures my loathing of Enviro-Wackos and my love of All Things Chocolate. :)
You are being very naive if you think this decision was his alone. I am 100% sure she is encouraging him to run.
To answer your question, I'll refer to a story about Reagan and Eugene McCarthy. When Reagan was running for president in 1980, Eugene McCarthy came out and supported him for president. People we surprised that a Democrat like McCarthy would support Reagan. McCarthy replied that he was supporting Reagan because "he was only candidate who understood the difference between being President and the Presidency."
Presidents need to be grounded in the human condition. One of the reasons that Reagan was a great president was that he never forgot that. I always felt that he was happy to be President, worked hard, did his best, and would be just as happy to leave the job as to keep it.
I distrust a candidate who's be-all and end-all is politics. Politics is a necessity of course, but if that is your focus and the only thing you live for, I don't want you anywhere near the Whitehouse.
Prayers for Mrs. Edwards' health.
read what I wrote
Becoming the Pope is along the same vein - the more the individual craves the position, the less deserving they are of the office. Humility and a desire to serve with integrity have to be the main desire and focus.
My great aunt did a similar thing to my grandfather (brother & sister). Once my mother arrived at her father's deathbed, having traveled from NJ up to Maine, as he lay moaning in excruciating pain, she demanded the doctor give her father pain medication immediately. God knows how long he had suffered with no medication, cancer also. Never heard why the aunt withheld medication from her own dying brother, and she didn't call my mother and grandmother until the very end, barely leaving them time to see him before he died.
as I've read many posts and now yours, I am thinking that perhaps he is staying in 'just for her' and really wanted to step down. She may not want him to quit because of her illness, but I think as she deteriorates he will stop campaigning when they both realize she can not do it anymore. All very sad for her and their family.
The level of venom toward me exhibited by you and that other sanctimonious bag of wind, seanmerc, is truly astonishing. By your "logic" only someone who has had cancer or a relative who has had cancer is entitled to speak on the subject. You're both "Jersey Girls" claiming that your relatives' experiences somehow elevate you to say what you want without contradiction. Just ain't so. If that were the case your relative would be being treated by other cancer patients and their famlies, but I'd be willing to bet that your relative is being treated by an MD (who probably never had cancer)
Oh and BTW I had two close relatives die of cancer or cancer related causes (in one case heart attack during treatment). Does this entitle me to speak on your exhalted level of hypocrital sanctimony? It's TOTALLY irrelevant to any knowledge I have of the probabilities of survival as I said, that came from statistical analysis and background information in a clinical trial analysis job. So yes, I would say I probably know more about life tables with various treatment regimens than you do. So rather than whine at me for speaking the truth about the prognosis for Stage IV cancer of any sort (grim) accept it.
Tell you what--when you're able to make an intelligent argument without resorting to name-calling [I'm not from Jersey, nor am I a girl] and schoolyard insults, we can talk some more. I don't see that happening, though. People generally resort to name-calling, insults and the ever-popular "I know more than you" statements when their argument is weak and unsupportable, or they're just plain insecure. From the look of things, that's where you're at.
Well rather than call you a hypocrite I'll just say your posts are hypocritical. Poster r called me an "ass" because I posted an opinion she didn't like. You said, and I quote " hear-hear! Couldn't have said it better!", So I'd say the two of you started with the name calling. So I'd say that's where you started and went downhill from there.
If you're going to quote, at least take it in the whole context. I can understand how you might assume that I was referring to the name that the other poster called you. That was not the case. When I complimented the other poster for their comment, I was referring to the substance of their comments. I respected their feelings about cancer--you, on the other hand, did not. I don't like name-calling, by anyone. Having said all that, I understand why the other poster felt so strongly. You dismissed their point as invalid because they don't qualify as an expert in your eyes. Their experience, their opinions, their insights are not any more or less valid than yours. I looked at your profile page. You seem to revel in being disliked. I won't give you the satisfaction. I don't dislike you. I don't know you well enough to decide whether or not to like you, and I'm sure you don't care whether I (or anybody else) like you. That's fine. It would just be nice if you could give others a little respect. They will be more inclined to respect you and listen to you if you do. You have some good points to make. They just get lost in your hyperbolic rhetoric.
So where did I
dismissed their point as invalid because they don't qualify as an expert in your eyes
We've been through it all already. You don't get it, and you're just trying to be obnoxious and antagonistic. You have succeeded. Over and out.
Like I said hypocrisy on your part from the get go.
Ditto
I find it hard to believe that John Edwards would not be insisting to his wife that they stop this campaigning, not for him, not for her, but for the two very young children. There is almost no doubt that at some point they will be without a mother. Why not make the hard, courageous, difficult, self-sacrificing choice to spend quality, normal family time with their two younger children. Travel, volunteer at school, be the Brownie leader, coach the sports team, help with the homework, play games. If you want to carry on with your normal life, then make a normal life for those two kids. A presidential campaign is not normal, even under the best of circumstances.
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