Residual Forces

So John Edwards is going to go stumping around the nation while his wife battles cancer. Now I wish all the best for them and their family, but……..

This is a politically calculated decision. When my father was diagnosed with cancer, we all rearranged our schedules to spend time with him and care for him. Granted he was at a point where he wouldn’t have been in condition to give a national press conference by this point, but we cared enough to go out of our way and sacrifice for him.

Now maybe Mrs. Edwards’ would enjoy to watch her husband politic here and there from her chemo chair, and take satisfaction that she helped get him there, but wouldn’t she feel better with him holding her hand?

Now I know it is not my place to tell a woman how to think, no matter how much she despises my Catholic faith, but I have to seriously question why a forty-something year old guy has to run for the White House now while his wife is dying. Why can’t he be with her now, and run later?

Frankly this is all too suspicious. Let’s say she is sick enough to warrant calling an emergency press conference to announce her diagnosis so the nation has their time to say good bye. That would lead most common sense people to believe that this is deathly serious. In theory, if Edwards wins, his wife will have died on the campaign trail or be on her death bed while she’s picking out new curtains and China for the West Wing.

Or maybe, as has been eluded to by varying pundits and journalists this was more a stunt than announcement of courage. Take a big step back. Could it be possible that the trial lawyer is setting the stage to channel his wife on the campaign trail?

Elizabeth is talking through me right now, and wants you all to know how important it is to us that you donated $100 and made all those phone calls…..

I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s a trial lawyer who has channelled dead kids in front of a jury or two before, not to mention promised that Christopher Reeves would walk again if John Kerry had only been elected President. But let’s say that the ambulance chasing theatrics of his past are not the intention.

What if she will be his defense? When a topic comes up in a debate that he has an unpopular vision on, he’ll be able to go into some sob story about poor Elizabeth…. and the audience will be in tears. He could be in a TV interview, and they’ll bring up his mega mansion home with uber carbon foot print, and he’ll say,

yeah, but poor Elizabeth needs the best care I can give to her, because this Country picks and choses who can afford to be treated for illness. Elizabeth never chose to get terminal cancer, I am just lucky I can afford to take care of her, unlike the millions of Americans who can’t even afford to take care of their basic health care needs. That’s why I am running for President, for Elizabeth. Before she died, she helped me craft my Health Care initiative I plan to enact once elected. So no one has to ever go through what poor Elizabeth did…….

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am reading too much into this…….

Hey! I know how we can find out if the Edwards’ did or did not calculate the politics of their decision. Let’s have a transcript of their private discussion. Let’s get public on the record interviews with their doctors so we can find out what he told them would be the best for Elizabeth. And if they won’t turn over the requested information and peoples, gosh darn it, that’s grounds for Congressional subpoenas!

He is after all running for President, and everything done by and for people in or trying to get into the Oval Office is politically calculated. We deserve to know the truth.

(I think they put too much MSG in my Chinese food today or something.)