...you don't have to live with them.

From my understanding of her cancer, Elizabeth Edwards is going to die soon. She will die whether or not John Edwards drops out of the Presidential race.

Katie Couric's questioning and disbelief of the Edwards family's decision in this regard is callow at best.

but at least he knows that the plural of Edwards is Edwardses.

I could spend what little time she has left on the planet with my wife.

She and I could do all we could to just raise our children, let alone prepare them for all the turmoil that undoubtedly lies ahead.

No, instead I'll put in 20-hour days campaigning for a job I might not even get, and if I do I'll see even less of my dying wife and my 2 small children.

Stupid, selfish bastard is the only term I can think of, and I voted for this guy's ticket last time.

I admire her incredibly for desire to not give this cancer the fear it demands. She knows her husband is the best choice this country has, and knows that it would be selfish to stand in the way of all that John Edwards will do to turn this mess around.

I have read blog after blog entry of Americans thanking them and blessing them. People who battled cancer, whose spouses faced opportunities they all dreamed of, and when word can of the cancer they turned to their spouses and told them 'Don't you dare turn down a gig b/c of this cancer.' That is love. That is trust. You have to spend what time you have living, not spend your life dying.

...should go read the amazing essay "The Median Isn't The Message," by Stephen Jay Gould.

http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html

People outlive the medical mandarin's most dire predictions all the time.

I have a friend with incurable, "terminal" cancer who has been alive for nine years. His cancer metastasized to his bones three years ago, and he's still going strong. He has some tired and more pain-filled days, but he works in his garden, and still has a wicked sense of humor, and his mind is sharp as ever.

My mother was told she would die in six months of lung cancer. She lived three more years after that, and enjoyed decent quality of life too -- she went on a cruise, visited friends and family, and generally had a great time till her last weeks.

The fact is, you can't predict whether Elizabeth Edwards will survive until the primary, or she might be going along fine well into or past a second term for "President" Edwards.

She can assume she's going to die soon, retreat to her house, gather her children around her, take to her bed, and wait for death.

Or she can go on living as she would without cancer, making accommodations for her health when necessary.

I don't think she and her husband are callous or clueless. If things deteriorate rapidly for her, and it looks like she doesn't have a lot of time, she seems like the type of person who would shift her focus, and dedicate her remaining time to quality time with her family.

But she's not at that point, and she may not be at that point for a long time.

Don't count her out.

Why doesn't the government publish a a book of morals and ethics that we all have to legally live by? Any deviation from those ethics can be punishable by death.

The first rule can be that no person can run for President of the United States if their spouse is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer.

You know full well it is the people with the most screwed up lives that pass judgement on the personal lives of others. Like the woman who posted earlier saying Edwards was a selfish bastard, or Newt Gingrich, or Ted Haggard. All pilars of moral decision making- you can tell by how they judge others- just ignore how they live THEIR lives, that isn't important...

I happen to like John Edwards as a Presidential candidate, and there is nothing about the choice to continue in the race that makes me like him/them less. I thought they did very well in the Sixty Minutes interview. I kept thinking that Katie Couric must be feeling a personal connection to their story, and yet nothing along that line was coming across, instead she seemed so 'pinched' in her approach to them.

As the Edwardses pointed out in a comment that was understated, they know you're never guaranteed a span of life (having lost a young son). We don't have any way of knowing if the trajectory of her illness will be fast or slow, but I applaud her choice to do what is meaningful to her in this time.

She makes a ridiculous sum of money, more than almost any news person on the planet. Why? Her work product is consistently ordinary compared with both male and female hardhitting journalists in the industry. Her interview of the Edwards' was the desperate foray of the hunt-and-pecker, someone who doesn't know how to type but is familiar enough with the keyboard to produce a document. And I bet after it was all over, her superiors hugged her and announced her "brilliant, Katie, just brilliant"!

Ms. Edwards was probably to polite to turn the tables on Katie and say, "We choose this path for much the same reason you did yours, when you continued to work up until Jay died rather than stay home with him and your 2 little daughters." She obviously wants her kids to celebrate her life and emulate her passion for it, not prematurely obsess and mourn her death by stopping everything abruptly. And I say respect her wishes, forget about her illness and let them keep on trucking.

When she has to slow down, she will, but she feels fine now and let her and her family enjoy her spirit and her health.

Mr. & Mrs. Edwards know all too well the dark and unbearable pain that follows the death of someone deeply loved. Having endured that already, I'm sure that not in any hurry to crouch under that bell jar again.